Years add up in sprawling BOOM (Review)

Posted on: Tuesday, February 2, 2016
JO LEDINGHAM, VANCOUVER COURIER

The historical period that writer/director/performer Rick Miller covers with lightning speed in Boom starts appropriately with a boom and ends with a boom: the Aug. 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and the launch of Apollo II on July 16, 1969. In between, he plays 100 celebrated characters — from Churchill and Truman to Pierre Trudeau and Joni Mitchell.

Holding it all together as the years, events and characters fly by are three consistent characters: Miller’s mother Maddy, from Coburg, Ont.; Laurence, a black, Chicago musician; and Rudi, an Austrian immigrant. Make that four characters because Miller is also in there. It’s frustrating if you try to connect the dots too soon, but be patient: all four characters come into sync at the end in a surprising way. Seems Maddy was, at one point, a wild child.

Miller, famous for MacHomer — his Simpsons take on Macbeth that has been seen around the world — is a spectacular impressionist.