Here is a youtube review of the show by an MT fan in the UK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inNyj1AV0TA

I think I can trust the regular audience's opinions better than the professional critics'. Maybe critics get jaded and over analyze material that is not intended to be deep.

The Telegraph slammed it as well

Telegraph Review


No, that's not it. Like I said about Mr Billington...he just doesn't get it.

And the two posters afterward commented upon Mr Spencer's ineptness as a critic.

Same here -- I'm also Asian. I don't think the story necessarily suffers if Marcy isn't Asian, but it also means she can't make the "JESUS! I KNEW YOU WERE ASIAN!" joke.

FWIW, Spelling Bee waaaayyyy precedes the Amy Chua controversy (but not the trope, obviously).

I read a little about the British Spelling Bee. It appears that rather than a competition of individuals it is a competition of teams representing their schools. Teams are of three people and one alternate. I wonder how the competition is conducted using teams?

British Bee


And speaking of "Bees". Do they dress the Mitch Mahoney character in a "bee suit"?

Ahem... yes.

Ok...someone should tell them that are no actual "bees" involved.

Anyway, for those interested The Times has an entertaining "spelling bee" game. And if you look around the site it has other forms of spelling challenges. It's a bit more challenging for Americans as the Brits have different spellings and even pronounce some words differently. For example
"civilisation" rather than "civilization". And they say "zebra" with a short "e" and we say it with a long "e".

http://www.timesspellingbee.co.uk/

Oooh you just opened up a can of worms RJ! lol

I fancy myself a halfway decent speller (well, in MY mind, I'm great), but that site really threw me for a loop. I can't get above 13, and that was only once. Many times, far fewer were spelled correctly.

I'd be interested to see an American (spelling) version of this. (That said, I did pretty horrifically a few weeks ago when I went to see 25th.)

OK, I'm headed back to try my hand at it again.

I'm not certain yet but The Times site might accept American spellings in some cases. What throws me off is how some words are pronounced.

ampere (um-pair)
apparatus (ap-pa-rate-us)
respiratory (res-pir-tree)

I'm going from memory above so any Brit feel free to correct me.

So we Americans deviate from the correct form at times.

And I'm sometimes tripped up by a homophone ( and no that is not a gay person's phone)

belle and bell

There is a button to hear the word again and word help has origin, part of speech, sentence, and definition. I needed it to differentiate between peel and peal.

Happened again!

premature (pre [short e] ma-chor)

and homophones
tale vs tail

More often than not it's pronounced respiratory (res-pirit-ree). Might actually be a lazy way of saying it but it's commonplace!