BAIA wows audiences with Bugsy Malone

Audiences were treated to a wonderful array of young talent at The American United School as BAIA staged the musical comedy Bugsy Malone. The stage was set as Fat Sam’s 1920s Jazz club with a live Jazz band on stage.

With a cast of over 40 young actors with an average age of only 10 they certainly had their work cut out. But entertain they most certainly did; with some wonderful solo singing, slick dance routines and comic timing that belied their young years.

Photos from the event

The young suave Bugsy Malone was superbly played by Morgan Gwillim with just the right amount of cheekiness that had the audience hanging on his every word. Blousy Brown, the young girl looking for that break that will get her to Hollywood, was excellently played by Salma Elkoragaty who sang beautifully with just the right amount of emotion.

Tony Rezk as Fat Sam certainly left no one in doubt as to who was the ‘boss’ of his club. His not so intelligent gangs of hoodlums were wonderful to watch in their stupidity until their demise by the ‘splurge’ guns of Dandy Dan’s gang. Dandy Dan, Fat Sam’s arch rival, was splendid in his upper class gangster role played by Roger Antoun.

Joanna Younes was excellent as the sultry Tallulah who made life difficult for Bugsy and Blousy with her underhand ways. Audiences laughed at the totally incompetent police officers, a role shared over the 3 performances by Nupur Gupta, Saja Awida and Adam Salha.

The finale had the audience clapping along to the final number belted our by a cast now covered in yukky splurge while singing “we could have been anything that we wanted to be” and “it’s not too late change.” No doubt about it, it must be worthwhile. Good friends do tend to make you smile. And by the look on the faces of this wonderful cast many friendships were formed and they as well as the audience certainly cannot wait for the next BAIA production.