Material Girl - The Madonna Story
Cliffs Pavilion, Southend
28th March 2018
8pm

Get into the groove with the Material Girl - The Madonna Story

Told through the eyes of Jodie Jackson, The Madonna Story was staged at the Cliffs Pavilion on 28 March.  Jodie performed the Queen of Pop, Madonna’s songs and followed her career though 35 years at the top.  There were incredible vocals, amazing dancers, video footage and narration, as audiences were taken on a journey through the music of one of the world’s most iconic figures.

Jodie has performed in the West End, and performed her Miss Madonna act since 2009.  It has taken her to Las Vegas, Japan, Germany, Holland and all over the UK. She was voted the Official UK's No. 1 Madonna Tribute Act by the Agents' Association at The National Tribute Awards.  ​

Donning the familiar Madonna costumes, she belted out the hits, dancing around the stage backed by a team of energetic male and female dancers.  Jodie interacted with them, whilst they used various props such as chairs or crates for their funky moves. There were also some sexy routines with the male dancers, who looked like the Jets in West Side Story wearing faded jeans and T shirts, until they stripped off their tops and danced bare chested.  They energetically leapt around flexing their muscles, much to the audience’s delight, especially as it was predominantly women.

The show opened with the lively song Holiday as the team moved around the stage in the black cut off trousers and fingerless gloves that Madonna wore when she was first on the scene.  Immediately, the audience began to sing along and went down memory lane with the songs Borderline and Like a Virgin accompanied by video clips of the MTV Awards.  Jodie appeared in white as a bride and then to emphasise how Madonna continually reinvented herself, there was the Marilyn Monroe, cerise evening gown of Material Girl, and a red and black flamenco inspired La Isla Bonito.

There were also the quieter songs such as Crazy for You, You’ll See, and You Can’t Hurt Me Now.  The songs were continuous including, Get into Groove, True Blue, Papa Don’t Preach, and others.  They all had interesting stage effects that set the atmosphere.

After the interval, the pink corset with the coned bra appeared and Jodie sang Cherish, and Vogue, encouraging the audience to join in with all the moves.  They needed no encouragement and were soon arm waving and chanting the list of famous names with her.

The video news clips gave out background facts such as Madonna is the female artist with the most number ones in the charts.  In 1991 she had 21 top ten hits in the USA, has sold 70 million albums, and is a seven times Grammy winner. They also showed excerpts from the Truth or Dare video and talked about the coffee table book she published called Sex, which sold out on the day it was released.

Additionally, there were video clips from Madonna’s films i.e. Desperately Seeking Susan and Dick Tracy; the latter was followed by the dancers, wowing everyone with an exhausting jive for Hanky Panky.  It looked like a sequence from Strictly Come Dancing with the girls in their barely there, gold dresses.

Jodie did a rousing version of Don’t Cry For me Argentina, although I thought it was a little too fast, and she had everyone singing along to American Pie wrapped in an American flag.
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The finale came when Jodie suddenly zoomed across the stage on a pair of roller boots for Hung Up accompanied by a large ticking clock. This is the song that contains the Abba sample from Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.  Jodie showed her dexterity by promptly doing the splits on skates. By then nobody wanted to leave, as they were dancing in the aisles.  She came out for an encore that consisted of a medley of the numbers she’d performed through the show. No one could leave, as there was a crush of people dancing, singing and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Jodie held the stage for the full two hours singing live and did Madonna great service, as the artiste herself usually lip synchs on so-called live shows.  The dancing in particular, which accompanied the songs, was very highly charged. Jodie gave a little information about some of the songs, but I would have liked more.  It would have also been good to hear a narration about Madonna’s life as it was billed as her story and not just a songbook. However, the evening was really about her material, after all, she is a Material Girl. 

Review – Jacquee Storozynski-Toll

‎@jodiejackson201
For the following tour dates, see www.materialgirlshow.com

Ask the Audience

Debbie and Lisa – Southend
We are big Madonna fans but we didn’t know this show was on.  We never saw any advertising. I saw on Facebook that someone couldn’t go and wanted to sell their ticket. The show is very good and the dancers are not bad.  Jodie is giving it her all, of course, she is not as good as Madonna, but she is doing very well.

Sheila – Hadleigh
I thought it was very good and I loved the dancers.