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Post by archibaldi on Jun 5, 2024 21:13:44 GMT
Very tall, three different sets back to back like a triangle, on a big revolve. The exterior of the theatre/stage door, the dressing rooms with a balcony above them, and the set of the play within the play which is a sort of canvas/sketch suggestion of an Italian town. thank you! , is the revolve well utilised ? |
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akh
Ensemble
Aiming to see 100 shows this year...
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Post by akh on Jun 5, 2024 21:33:09 GMT
Anyone know when press night is? Tuesday 18th June Thank you |
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Post by Figaro on Jun 5, 2024 21:37:51 GMT
What is the running time?
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Post by Being Alive on Jun 5, 2024 21:39:50 GMT
What is the running time? 2hrs 40. |
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Post by partytentdown on Jun 5, 2024 22:03:32 GMT
Very tall, three different sets back to back like a triangle, on a big revolve. The exterior of the theatre/stage door, the dressing rooms with a balcony above them, and the set of the play within the play which is a sort of canvas/sketch suggestion of an Italian town. thank you! , is the revolve well utilised ? Sort of. It revolves as necessary to the relevant set and there are a couple of moments where it revolves continuously and actors move from set to set, a bit like a chase sequence. That's when it works best. |
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Post by Mark on Jun 6, 2024 22:10:04 GMT
Great cast (except Adrian, not a fan). SJB and Georgina highlights. Very impressive set and scale. Really enjoyed Too Darn Hot.
The bulk of the show though? Not good. It’s just so dated and I couldn’t get with it.
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Post by Steve on Jun 6, 2024 23:38:32 GMT
Saw this this tonight, and LOVED Stephanie J Block, the Gangster Duo, Jack Butterworth and Georgina Onuorah. The book (gambling debts and letters comically delivered to the wrong people, exploding relationships) works brilliantly before the interval, delivering laughs galore, but peters out completely after the interval, when it all devolves into a very good musical revue show. Some spoilers follow. . . Adrian Dunbar's Dean Martin reminiscent crooning is warm, he hits the notes, and is pleasurable to listen to, though he's not up for a dance, so, after the dazzling "Too Darn Hot," Dunbar's "Where is the Life of Late I Lead?" feels awfully anticlimactic. Peter Davison is neither up for a song nor a dance, so his plot interjections feel even more tedious in the second half, as the plot has fizzled out anyway, so it feels like he's just time wasting. The highlights of the excellent second half revue show are in reverse order:- (4) A criminally underused and under characterised Charlie Stemp singing and dancing up a storm in "Bianca;" (3) Georgina Onuorah magnificently building to belting "Always True to You in My Fashion," interspersed with some hilarious comedy bits, although never attempting all the dance moves we got from Zoe Rainey at the London Coliseum a few years back; (2) Nigel Lindsay effortlessly giving us the gangster character he's played a million times, but in an American accent and funnier, and singing the duet, "Brush up Your Shakespeare" with insistent precision comic timing, bouncing off the hilariously inexpressive Hammed Animashaun, whose dry wisecracks are zingers; (1) Jack Butterworth absolutely killing a sweaty languid ensemble tableau with his suave, smooth, swaggering, sensuous, atmospheric, precise but loose and dangerous "Too Darn Hot," getting synchronised back-up from a superb Charlie Stemp (heretofore essentially superfluous). But my personal highlight of the show was essentially the climax to the conflict of the first half, when the plot was still firing on all cylinders, and Stephanie J Block's 2 characters and Adrian Dunbar's 2 characters were locked in increasingly frenetic and funny combat. At the point of greatest conflict, Stephanie J Block's "I Hate Men" was a comic masterclass in a character turning a mellifluous song into wailing, panting, snarling, frothing-at-the-mouth righteous and rabid explosive catharsis through song, and she even got the audience to sing along, which was doubly hilarious, and a flag in the sand for which character we favoured. That song was SUCH a ball, and it came from character, so it was so much more than mere revue. We are lucky to have Stephanie J Block visiting with us, as she's utterly brilliant! 4 stars overall from me.  |
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Post by Dave B on Jun 7, 2024 8:04:38 GMT
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Post by damaskanddark on Jun 7, 2024 8:54:08 GMT
Is Stephanie hitting all the insane soprano notes at the end of act 1?
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Post by Steve on Jun 7, 2024 9:25:40 GMT
Is Stephanie hitting all the insane soprano notes at the end of act 1? Yes. She goes from snarling like an angry tiger to soaring into those "Queen of the Night" aria style notes in a heartbeat!
Her expression of comedic OTT anger is very funny all round. Her crazed fury that "Croydon is NOT LONDON!" gave me a particular thrill lol!
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Post by osdtdg on Jun 7, 2024 9:41:31 GMT
How is everyone finding SJB's "I Hate Men"? Thank you Steve for your thoughts already, but I'm curious if anyone else had anything to add/even a dissenting opinion?
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Post by anthony40 on Jun 7, 2024 9:57:42 GMT
I know that we're still early days in yet, but does anyone this we'll get a pro-shoot and DVD/Bu-Ray release, like we did with Anything Goes?
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Post by Being Alive on Jun 7, 2024 10:33:01 GMT
How is everyone finding SJB's "I Hate Men"? Thank you Steve for your thoughts already, but I'm curious if anyone else had anything to add/even a dissenting opinion? Exceptional. One of the highlights of the show. |
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Post by woobl on Jun 7, 2024 10:38:00 GMT
Some bargains to be had on this one - it's on a few papering sites.
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Post by jakobo on Jun 7, 2024 12:18:17 GMT
That’s really tempting. How high is the stage for this production? |
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Post by david on Jun 7, 2024 12:21:05 GMT
Thanks Dave. Got a front row seat sorted for next month. Much appreciated. |
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Post by ladidah on Jun 7, 2024 13:03:50 GMT
Thinking of going tomorrow, would rather the matinee, but the evening show has all the best offers!
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Post by james1969 on Jun 7, 2024 13:05:34 GMT
What’s the view like from the front row please ? Is it a high stage with the revolve ?
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Post by Dave B on Jun 7, 2024 13:08:43 GMT
Thinking of going tomorrow, would rather the matinee, but the evening show has all the best offers! What is the best current offer? Better than OLT's £30? |
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Post by ladidah on Jun 7, 2024 13:18:25 GMT
They don't do weekend offers |
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Post by alece10 on Jun 7, 2024 13:47:18 GMT
What’s the view like from the front row please ? Is it a high stage with the revolve ? Om sitting in the front row tonight (at pre offer price) so will report back. |
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Post by ThereWillBeSun on Jun 7, 2024 14:17:35 GMT
I’m loving the reviews - I’ve seen this show a lot (well it’s my fave musical) good to manage expectations 🤣
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Post by ladidah on Jun 7, 2024 15:02:38 GMT
Found a good £30 seat for the matinee, very excited, love the score.
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Post by frogtune on Jun 7, 2024 15:38:46 GMT
The sitxprobe was today, apparently. Seems it is a reduced orchestra (no harp, no second percussion, 3 strings...). I was at the first night and, having seen eight different productions over the years, I noticed several things. The Book had clearly been tinkered with. Sam and Bella Spewack, who created it back in 1948, are name-checked in the programme, but despite a total of 31 credits, stopping short of only 'Rehearsal Caterers', 'additional dialogue' fails to get a mention. One of Cole Porter's strengths was his ability to write ballads with a strong beguine rhythm ( In The Still Of The Night). He created one of his finest - Were Thine That Special Face - for KMK, yet it has been dropped inexplicably (unless, of course, Mr. Dunbar couldn't hack it). When they originated the roles of Fred Graham/Petruchio, and Lile Vanessi/Katherine, in the original production, Alfred Drake was thirty-four, and Patricia Morison was thirty-three. Mr. Dunbar is sixty-five, and Miss Block is fifty-one. There are, of course, precedents for older leading men playing opposite younger leading ladies, not least My Fair Lady, but Higgins had not been married to and divorced from Eliza, and initially, if anything, he was written as a father figure. Back in the day, 1938, fifty-five year old Walter Huston played opposite twenty-one year old Jeanne Madden in Knickerbocker Holiday, and what's more, lusted after her. Composer Kurt Weill, and lyricist Maxwell Anderson, even provided him a song with which to woo her. It should have had no life outside of the show, but of course, September Song got away and became a standard. But Fred and Lili were written as credible thirty-something lovers. In the original production Dance was barely there, here they have emphasised Dance at the expence of Song, perhaps not a bad thing as it is disappointing to hear Porter's champagne words and music reach the auditorium via the conduit of Draft Bass vocal chords. The set is something else; utilising the large Revolve to the full, the roughly square-shaped module allows for four separate playing areas allowing fluid movement between Dressing Rooms and the play-within-a-play. Impressive? Without doubt. But hands up all those who want to go home humming the set. On Tuesday the audience was 70% twenty-to-fifty year olds to 30% fifty-plus year olds. This for a show some 76 years old, and written within a musical landscape as far from the one that obtains today as cashmere is from denim. Either the Producers had papered the house, or else one or more performers has a large fan-base and all of them turned up. They shouted, whistled, and yelled at every single number, and laid a standing ovation on the cast. If they only attract two or three audiences like this every week, they'll have a smash on their hands. |
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Post by maggiem on Jun 7, 2024 15:58:13 GMT
I know that we're still early days in yet, but does anyone this we'll get a pro-shoot and DVD/Bu-Ray release, like we did with Anything Goes? I saw Macbeth at the pictures the other week (Fiennes/Varma), which was released through Trafalgar Releasing. On the back of the cast list it has an ad for Kiss Me Kate, so I think it will be going to the cinemas at some point. |
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