Titanique
The Grand Electric, September 22 until November 3
Reviewed by CHANTAL NGUYEN
★★★½

I didn’t even have to see Titanique the musical to start chuckling. The marketing taglines alone were hysterical: “Nothing on earth could come between Jack and Rose. Except Céline Dion.”

If that sounds like an excuse for a camp fever dream, you are right. Do not attend this musical if you are stressed by flashing lights, sequins, and illuminated staircases. Do attend if you are a Titanic film tragic, a Céline Dion superfan, or – ideally – both.

Titanique, created by Marla Mindelle, Constance Rousouli and Tye Blue, comes to Sydney from off-Broadway. It begins with pop superstar Céline Dion (Marney McQueen) dramatically revealing she, too, was a Titanic passenger.

The rest of the musical is her increasingly unreliable flashback. It lovingly follows the outline of James Cameron’s film Titanic – but more camp, and with Céline Dion shamelessly using every plot development to burst into song.

McQueen is hilarious as Céline Dion. The signature quirks are all affectionately parodied: the slightly nasal French-Canadian accent, the non-sequiturs, the widened eyes and surprised grimace, the fist-pumping, hand-raising, and chest-hitting (known to fans as “the Céline Salute”). McQueen’s singing voice is gorgeously clear and powerful enough to pull it off.

The rest of the ensemble portray a larger-than-life cast of characters zanily transposed from the film. There’s sweet-voiced Rose (Georgina Hopson), bullied by her rich, space gun-wielding fiancé Cal (a slick Keane Sheppard-Fletcher) and her narcissistic, toxic mother Ruth.

The charismatic Stephen Anderson as Ruth delivers lines with flawless comic timing and more dryness than a desert in drought. “You walking yeast infection!” Ruth hisses as insult.