The Little Mermaid Live!

Without a doubt, the worst job of sound engineering I've heard in years. Half the time you couldn't make out the lead vocals over the crowd noise. And since the songs were the only real "live" performance, why bother?

I am a fan of the live performances of stage and screen classics that have come to TV in the last few years. But this show offered something different---an animated film/live performance hybrid. It's a clever solution to the underwater action challenge that "The Little Mermaid" presents. But I think the concept is flawed.

We might enjoy intercutting the animated sequences to the live onstage performances if the performers were superstars (think Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand) of if the performers were the actual voices behind the animated characters (think Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel performing their songs from "Frozen"). But this presentation was like switching between two channels.

The production values were good. And the simulation of swimming using wires was the best part of the show. But they were not enough to save this live performance from mediocrity. I also found the applause and cheering of the live audience to be distracting.

Embarrassing and hideous, a shrieking disaster. I've seen better high-school productions. And everyone was TOO OLD.

Luckily they didn't dub over the animated film with the live actors, so that was good. The stage production parts were amazing, and I would have loved to see more. As others have said, the audio could have been better. Often, you don't hear the first minute of all the songs. As usual for me with these live productions, I felt the live performers could have used more rehearsal time.

For as much money and effects were put into this production, the audio technology used made many numbers a garbled mess.