Podcast Portal: MusicalSplaining

Welcome to Podcast Portal: a spontaneous column that will highlight podcasts of all genres that are lesser-known or new shows that are worth giving a listen. With the medium continuing to grow, it is hard to acknowledge all of them. However, I am going to try and find as many noteworthy titles as possible to share and hopefully expand your mind to the greatest growing medium out there. If you have any podcast that you feel is worth adding to the Podcast Portal, please make sure to inform me whether through the comments or through an e-mail (information in the sidebar). 

SHOW: MusicalSplaining
HOSTS: Lindsay Ellis, Kaveh Taherian
NETWORK: N/A
EPISODE BEING DISCUSSED: "01: Cats"


Despite negative reception and an even lower box office number, Tom Hooper's Cats has inspired quite the cult following in just shy of two months. For fans of theater and bad taste movies, it was a strange concoction that found so many weird ideas coming together to form madness. It's being hailed as a cult movie in the making, just a V.O.D. release away from being forever stamped onto the echelon of midnight movies. It has inspired so much love alongside its vitriol, and few have felt as inspired as YouTube personality Lindsay Ellis, who keeps promising one day to produce so much Cats content. Well, that day has theoretically started with the launch of her new podcast series MusicalSplaining. No, it's not exclusively about Cats. It's not going to go song-by-song and explain why it's a delusional masterpiece. It is the starting point, but not the endgame.

The endgame is more to annoy co-host Kaveh Taherian. Between Ellis and Taherian is two sides to the theater debate: those who love it and those who hate it. For those who have been to YouTube recently, it's easy to see where Ellis falls. What's more striking is being introduced to Taherian, who has a doozy of a story regarding Cats that involves a trip as a child that featured his father snoring and a divorce not long after. It's one of the entertaining components of the show that makes for a promising experience. The hosts could get by on a Q&A format of Ellis basically explaining the strange world of Andrew Lloyd Webber and be able to make years of entertaining content. Instead, she is seeking to make Taherian, who claims to base his own identity on hating musicals, to like them through reviewing live professional productions.
The concept sounds fresh, especially since most shows dedicated to Broadway have the base-level affection already in place. There is a knowledge of The Phantom of the Opera that Taherian clearly lacks. In that way, trying to get into theater has been a difficult proposition given that it's a world of heightened melodrama that requires paying a little extra for better seats. The perspective between these two provides the sense of an expert guiding the newbie through the world, creating an understanding in the divide as they hope to meet somewhere in the middle. The results are entertaining enough when they're talking about the more absurd elements, but becomes something essential when it gets to the heart of theater as a passionate art form.
The episode's focus on Cats is one that's full of entertaining dives into the show's weird history, including how the long-dead T.S. Eliot earned a Tony Award for the show simply by writing a kids book. It's wondering how this perverse ballet become an international phenomenon and had dicey songs involving Growltiger. It's a history lesson as well as one exploring what makes a show good or bad. It asks audiences to question the value of a show that feels dated and frozen at a different time. Cats was an easy episode to start with given its recent phenomenon. It was even more entertaining to challenge a newbie to get it without much of a cultural context. As a whole, it's a strong debut that makes one wish that they could hit a new touring production every week.
MusicalSplaining is a show that feels like the start of something special. As they ended the show by rattling off potential future episodes, there is this sense of glee in hearing Ellis introduce Taherian to a world that he doesn't know, and in the process hopefully more through podcast. Who knows. Maybe the impact of Wicked will be seen as more than pedantic when it comes around, or the Hadestown episode will be as strong as Ellis' love for it. There's so much room to explore a love of theater by trying to explain it to the last possible person to get it. One can hope that they cover every show in existence because, as Ellis suggests, Love Never Dies is a show that's probably going to break him before it's over, and one can't help but want to hear what that sounds like.



OVERALL RATING: 4 out of 5
WORTH A SECOND GO?: If you're a fan of theater, it feels like an easy yes. Provided that the show sticks to this entertaining format, it can help to create a new conversation around musicals that finds a way to turn a new audience onto them. More than that, hearing Ellis talk passionately about Webber has become an enjoyable past time and one that feels like it's only to grow into something more fascinating with time. More than that, one can hope that Taherian has more entertaining stories to share. There's a lot to love in these two, and it may be the best example of annoying people to be made into a podcast yet. 

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