Just too perfect? Whitney’s disturbingly realistic ‘revival’
‘Welcome to Whitney Houston, very much live,” announced a familiar figure, standing centre stage with piled-up hair and diaphanous dress, glowing like a pixelated ghost from digital heaven. There was a ripple of nervous laughter in Sheffield City Hall, from an audience who seemed not quite sure what they were letting themselves in for. Clearly, the live part was a debatable claim from a star who has been dead since 2012. But the entertainment industry no longer seems to consider mortality much of an impediment to a career.
This lovely old northern theatre, with a sold-out capacity audience of 2,200, was playing host to the world premiere of An Evening With Whitney, a new show constructed around a breathtakingly convincing hologram of the late, great American superstar. There was a funky five-piece band, two accomplished backing vocalists and four nimble dancers to help create a proper live concert atmosphere, but the central figure was an uncanny hi-tech replica of Houston herself, singing up a storm, occasionally busting a dance move, and chatting smoothly between songs. In fact, chatting a bit too much for some tastes. “Get a move on,” one Sheffield wag rudely heckled during an interlude. “I love you, too,” beamed the holographic Houston, blithely immune to insults.
Using genuinely extraordinary vocals from choice live performances recorded throughout her career, allied to imagery created by blending a filmed double with CGI recreation of the superstar’s face, the hologram exhibited an almost supernatural verisimilitude. Created by Base Hologram, the company responsible for recent revival tours featuring late rock and roll idols Roy Orbison and Buddy Holly, this show raised the bar both technologically and theatrically.
This might partly be ascribed to the addition of graceful, lifelike movement to the formerly rather stilted holographic figure, but it was also the way the show was constructed to embrace its own unreality. Houston did not leave the stage for costume and hair changes, instead being transformed before our very eyes in moments carrying the wonder of a great magic trick. Lightning sprang from
Houston’s fingers, stars surrounded her in an interstellar storm. During a climactic I’m Every Woman, her dress metamorphosed in a pixelated rush into jeans and leather jacket.
This acknowledgement of artifice helped bridge the uncanny valley effect that can make responding to a fake person so emotionally complex. As the show progressed and the audience became more and more uninhibited, the experience felt increasingly live, and it was certainly helped by the spirited response of a largely female section of the crowd, dancing in the aisles and singing along with the infectious abandonment of a cheery hen night. In real life, Houston was far too big a star to have ever played a theatre this size, but I suspect she would have rather enjoyed it.
It is impossible to endorse this without reservation, however. I saw Houston perform on her last UK tour in 2010, and she was in terrible shape, her voice ravaged by decades of drug abuse, her stage presence a shambling mess. This technological tribute presented an image of immaculate perfection that the real artist could not live up to in life, and it is hard not to worry about the implications.
You wonder if the music industry might actually prefer to work with a hologram than a flesh-and-blood diva, a beacon of light who never gets tired, never throws a tantrum, and always delivers the same perfect performance night after night. As the technology gets better (and it will), at what point will it rival or even supersede the appeal of living artists?
But that is a music critic talking, my niggling doubts of little concern to the women who strolled into the cold Sheffield night, arm in arm, still bellowing at the top of their voices: “And aye-ee-aye will always loooove yooooooo…”
Tour details: basehologram.com/ productions/whitney-houston