A week in the life of the exploited, child newspaper sellers in turn-of-the-century New York. When their publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, tries to squeeze a little more profit out of their labours, they organize a strike, only to be confronted with the Pulitzer's hard-ball tactics.
Its very rare a Broadway musical finds its way to the big screen but with Newsies it was just destined to happen with some of the best dancing, and singing you will ever see. Newsies is has always been a 10/10 but now thanks to this professional recording its an 11 in my book
I'm not usually a fan of filmed theatrical performances - especially musical theatre. The television so often fails to capture the vitality of the performances and often we are left with something rather lacking. Well, to be fair to Disney, they have managed to capture loads of the energy and dynamism of this adaptation of Harvey Fierstein's book about the strike by the newspaper delivery boys in New York in 1899. The strike itself is fairly legendary - as were the almost Oliver Twist-ian conditions under which these kids were exploited, rather than employed. Jeremy Jordan tops the bill and positively glows as the ring leader "Jack Kelly" who finally has enough of the poverty-stricken existence of his colleagues and who organises a protest ...