Opening Night - Gielgud

[A.Ham]

Thank you for your review steve - reading that really helped me make sense of it (a bit more at least!)

[BVM]

All sounds rather interesting.

The West End can be so stifled by the old guard, jukebox and bio musicals and the saccharine soft pop musicals the kids like that to me all sound the same, that I really think we should celebrate the "something different" category launching straight into town.

Even if it was terrible (which it doesn't sound to me, though I've not seen it yet), if we had 5 of these every few months, 1 would be amazing.

Hurrah for more stuff that breaks the current trends I say.

[drmaplewood]

Oh Steve you’ve got me excited again now, I do love the film so maybe I’ll be one of the 4* club too 😄

[Being Alive]

Brilliant review Steve

[apubleed]

I love Steve's review and I wish I felt the same but I just felt like I was watching a different show. The Opening Night Steve describes is the show I wanted to see!!!! I might try and give it one more chance after things settle a bit. I just have to admit I found it as awful as everyone else did here. 

[mrbarnaby]

The reality is that this has to appeal to the masses of it’s going to survive its planned run.

They should have done this at the Donmar or Almeida if they wanted it to be so bonkers and niche.

[mattnyc]

Seeing the show again now. Guys, I have some bad news and you should sit down before continuing reading.


The hoovering is gone.

[n1david]

Damn, I knew I should have booked an earlier preview.

[bigredapple]

Here tonight. Interval

Did they purposely try to make the worst show?
Is this an episode of the apprentice? Or a comedy skit or something?

[LaLuPone]

I was hoping the hoover would get a best supporting actor nod at next year’s Oliviers!

[mrbarnaby]

Can we petition for the hoover to be put back in?

[mattnyc]

GIVE IT BACK TO US, IVO VAN HOOVER!

[mkb]

Is there a way back for van Hove? This is at the level of career-ending.

Now, I've got nothing against a narrative-free, character study, but, after sitting through tonight's turgid mess, I haven't got a clue who actress Myrtle is and why she is such an all-round pain in the derrière. She's self-absorbed, self-obsessed and pretty selfish, but this manifests itself in an entirely uninteresting and dull first act. She's got a thing about getting old and needing to be loved, but haven't we all? She offers no fresh insight into the condition.

The secondary "characters" are drawn so badly that we never come close to a glimpse into who they might be. This is a play --sorry musical -- about the human condition that feels completely devoid of relatable human experience.

Act two is laughably bad, with some dialogue that drew mocking laughter from some of the audience. I tried to remember some of the "best" lines, but, of course, perhaps mercifully, I've forgotten them now.

The musical styles are all over the place as if they've been picked randomly by a computer. Actually scrub that; AI would probably do a better job. Bizarrely, there's even a throbbing electronic dance number late on that it is so out of kilter with everything else that I had to check I hadn't drifted off into a fever dream. I daresay van Hove might argue that this scene is meant to stand out and that is completely the point, but the jarring fails to elicit anything other than dropped jaws and incredulity at the ridiculousness of what unfolds. Of course, it's not long before we leap in the most dramatic and unconvincing of gear changes to the opposite extreme of a traditional rousing musical finale, that is if, squinting through the red netting, you can see it.

The cast work hard with conviction, but it's clear the material and the direction are irredeemably dire. One cannot help but wonder how such talented actors read the script and thought, yes, I want to be a part of this. Presumably the money was good or alternative work lacking.

Two stars (but sailing pretty close to one)

Act 1: 19:34-20:36
Act 2: 20:59-22:08

On the plus side, we enjoyed the Sprague -- rhymes with Craig not Prague -- Terrace. This is a gorgeous room high up between the Gielgud and Sondheim Theatres which we had to ourselves tonight as no-one else had taken up the offer of a cocktail and nibbles for £17.50 each. This is a cut above the lounges offered elsewhere, and was a quiet relaxing environment before the show and during the interval. We had a bartender each and a washroom each. An additional interval cocktail was either £9 or £11.50 which is excellent value, and they didn't stint on measures, which was just as well given what we had to endure downstairs.

Oh, and Tracie Bennett sat in front of us in the stalls and I was a little starstruck. I said nothing of course.

[mattnyc]

Oh you should have said hello to Tracie, she would have talked your ear off! Honestly one of the sweetest ladies there is.

[andrew]

Mar 12, 2024 0:05:33 GMT mkb said:

Is there a way back for van Hove? This is at the level of career-ending.

If the dreadful The Human Voice didn't end his career, nothing will.

[greatauntedna]

Steve’s response is how I wish I felt, but I came out like mkb. I think it’s just too scattershot, there’s too much clunky weirdness and Myrtle gets lost in it.

[sph]

I suppose it's all very well to construct a musical which veers away from the traditional narrative/characters of a commercial piece of theatre, but when put in a commercial venue and charging commercial prices, how is it going to fill its house 8 times a week? It's going to need some elements that lend to a broader appeal in order to do that.

[mrbarnaby]

I now want to see “Career ending” quoted on a poster outside

[mkb]

For anyone keen to catch the outdoor scene, it occurred at 21:47 last night.

You had to laugh at the footage of punters entering Broadway's "Orpheum Theatre" for the opening night, replete with black cabs and red double-deckers, all driving on the left. I guess no more suspension of disbelief required than when listening to some of the on-stage accents. I did wonder why van Hove didn't simply make everyone British and have the Gielgud play itself.

[simon]

I enjoyed reading Steve's review. However his article seems to be based on the premise that Opening Night is a substantial and thrilling work of art. In its present form it falls short in many areas. Maybe the concept would have worked better as a play but as a musical it is unsatisfactory. The rag bag of song styles and often vapid lyrics do very little to enhance the narrative and it is hard to be Interested in any of the characters. The staging is gimmicky and often alienates the audience. 
But perhaps the biggest problem is that the show is boring and at times ludicrous. It's a long time since I've seen an audience laughing with derision at the silliness on stage.

[mkb]

Oddly, I don't regret seeing Opening Night and I would recommend others to see it. It's the theatrical equivalent of rubber-necking whilst driving.

[bigredapple]

Mar 12, 2024 9:57:17 GMT mkb said:

For anyone keen to catch the outdoor scene, it occurred at 21:47 last night.

You had to laugh at the footage of punters entering Broadway's "Orpheum Theatre" for the opening night, replete with black cabs and red double-deckers, all driving on the left. I guess no more suspension of disbelief required than when listening to some of the on-stage accents. I did wonder why van Hove didn't simply make everyone British and have the Gielgud play itself.

And the giant entrance floor mat that says GIELGUD 🤣

[danb]

One has to wonder if Sheridan has ‘people’ or if she self manages? “Keep an eye out for something different” has so far led to an execrable channel 5 damp squib ‘thriller’ and this. She is a peoples ‘sweetheart’, and as such should only do unchallenging, lowest common denominator work that they will enjoy. Silly her for thinking she could break out of the box of peoples pre-conceived notions! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

[artstudent231]

I LOVE Ivo van Hove and have ventured to Amsterdam many times to see his more radical productions (I do unfortunately consider myself one of those obnoxious people who like intellectual and/or experimental theatre) that is not what this show is. It iso unforgivably terrible with little to no redeeming features. For me the saddest thing was the amount of people in the interval and after the show disbelieving their own opinion/ experience and saying how it must be good but they just weren’t clever enough to get it.

I have been distressed for days by my inability to understand how this show could have come to be in such a terrible state and why. The only charitable conclusion I can reach is that it is a meta theatrical comment on the ‘emperors new clothes’ element of intellectual theatre or else as my partner desperately suggested in his attempt to calm me -it is as an anti war protest refusing the audience an enjoyable evening of escapism! 😂

[ix]

Mar 12, 2024 11:30:13 GMT artstudent231 said:

I have been distressed for days by my inability to understand how this show could have come to be in such a terrible state and why. 

I saw it yesterday and am as horrified as everyone else at how crazybad this production is. I think the issue stems from all the flagrant rip-offs from Sunset, making it feel like Poundland Boulevard. At some point, early on, some idiot said 'Ooh, let's use cameras, they're SO in' and all artistic and directorial decisions from that point were based on trying to make that poor decision work. It was distracting, inconsistent, very badly framed and out of focus (last night, anyway) and actors weren't managing to match their movement to the pre-recorded stuff. It made Nicola Hughes' big number look like she was channeling the Acid Queen from Tommy. They actually detracted from the understanding of the plot, and in the time when they weren't being used, it allowed the focus to return to the stage.

The issue is that in Sunset there was a good reason for them. Norma cannot think of her life as being anything but a movie, so she lives as if there's a camera always on her. I wasn't sure about Sunset at first, but it won me over with the footage as it was so brilliantly used to accentuate the theme.  Here, the framing device is that there's supposed to be some film crew shooting a documentary, which is clumsy and pointless.

Why film Sheridan outside the theatre? Because Sunset did it, that's why. Why have Sheridan running around barefoot in a shift dress? Because Sunset did it, that's why. At the end, I was weirdly angry that the good cast were being made to perform in this hideous interpretation.