Company

[LaLuPone]

Also during the bows this afternoon, after Rosalie had her bow and everyone comes together for another bow, Mel and Patti had some sort of interaction, and I swear it looked like Mel whispered/mouthed something like “shall we hold hands?” and Patti just said “No.”

[Deleted]

Feb 28, 2019 20:50:25 GMT LaLuPone said:

Also during the bows this afternoon, after Rosalie had her bow and everyone comes together for another bow, Mel and Patti had some sort of interaction, and I swear it looked like Mel whispered/mouthed something like “shall we hold hands?” and Patti just said “No.”

I so hope that's true.

[luvvie23]

Feb 28, 2019 21:03:27 GMT @ryan said:

Feb 28, 2019 20:50:25 GMT LaLuPone said:

Also during the bows this afternoon, after Rosalie had her bow and everyone comes together for another bow, Mel and Patti had some sort of interaction, and I swear it looked like Mel whispered/mouthed something like “shall we hold hands?” and Patti just said “No.”

I so hope that's true.

[luvvie23]

Feb 28, 2019 21:03:27 GMT @ryan said:

Feb 28, 2019 20:50:25 GMT LaLuPone said:

Also during the bows this afternoon, after Rosalie had her bow and everyone comes together for another bow, Mel and Patti had some sort of interaction, and I swear it looked like Mel whispered/mouthed something like “shall we hold hands?” and Patti just said “No.”

I so hope that's true.

Absolutely no way.... take it from me. Patti LOVES Mel. You got that wrong

[Mr Snow]

Feb 28, 2019 19:27:15 GMT Someone in a tree said:

Book, booze and Bobbie

Can I ask what that offers that isn’t in Finishing the Hat?

[Deleted]

Mar 1, 2019 3:16:44 GMT luvvie23 said:

Feb 28, 2019 21:03:27 GMT @ryan said:

I so hope that's true.

Absolutely no way.... take it from me. Patti LOVES Mel. You got that wrong

I read it a bit differently. You know how when your best friend says “shall we do x” and you just say “no” to be hilarious?

Or is that just me?

[Someone in a tree]

Mar 1, 2019 7:14:18 GMT Mr Snow said:

Feb 28, 2019 19:27:15 GMT Someone in a tree said:

Book, booze and Bobbie

Can I ask what that offers that isn’t in Finishing the Hat?

It's the George Furth text plus Sondhdeim's new lyrics.


No analysis like the Hat book but all the sung and spoken words aka script.

[Deleted]

About 11th in the dayseat queue. But busier than I was expecting. Wish I’d picked up a coffee.

[Deleted]

Mar 1, 2019 9:21:26 GMT @happysooz said:

About 11th in the dayseat queue. But busier than I was expecting. Wish I’d picked up a coffee.

Now theres a gap in the market...
A Dayseat-Deliveroo type app.

Submit your 'takeaway' breakfast requests and the theatre you're stood outside and have breaky delivered.

[Deleted]

Mar 1, 2019 9:34:16 GMT @remark said:

Mar 1, 2019 9:21:26 GMT @happysooz said:

About 11th in the dayseat queue. But busier than I was expecting. Wish I’d picked up a coffee.

Now theres a gap in the market...
A Dayseat-Deliveroo type app.

Submit your 'takeaway' breakfast requests and the theatre you're stood outside and have breaky delivered.

Now you’ve reminded me that one of the ‘services’ that Task Rabbit seems to want to make a thing is paying someone to queue for you. Maybe there is a use case for that after all!

[Deleted]

Dress circle! Very pleased. Met some lovely people in the queue too.

My hands are freezing though. Warming up with a coffee in Flat White on Berwick St (recommended if you are nearby. Worth a walk if you are not.)

[LaLuPone]

Rachel Bloom was at the show last night, looks like I missed her by one show! 🤧

[jvoom]

Saw this last night and although I went in not knowing too much about the show beforehand, it's really, really brilliant! Tight as an apple skin, especially "Not getting married" which is easily one of my favourite theatrical moments ever

[JJShaw]

Third time seeing it tonight, first time seeing Rosaline (I had the luck of seeing Jennifer's preview show and when Rosaline was off for a couple of days last month) and she was wonderful, really held the show together and made some great choices.

The show just continues to get slicker with every viewing (ALSO this was the first time i saw Tick Tock, very clever use of that music!)

will be sad when it leaves, its been a pleasure to have such a classy production in the west end.

[Deleted]

Mar 1, 2019 7:32:23 GMT @happysooz said:

Mar 1, 2019 3:16:44 GMT luvvie23 said:

Absolutely no way.... take it from me. Patti LOVES Mel. You got that wrong

I read it a bit differently. You know how when your best friend says “shall we do x” and you just say “no” to be hilarious?

Or is that just me?

Reflecting on this post, I think Patti was still being Joanne.

[Nicholas]

WOW. This is a PERFECT production – interpretation, experiment, re-evaluation – of an unsolvable masterpiece. Maybe from 1971 onwards, with Bobby’s story so specific, trying to keep Company relevant is a fool’s errand. Marianne Elliott is no fool. Using this flawed masterpiece as her jumping-off point, Elliott’s given us – surprise surprise – an astonishingly intelligent, emotionally wrenching reinvention of it. Because of her, I ended up, somehow, MORE enamoured of a show I’ve found too narrow-minded over time, because rather than smooth its rougher edges, she’s bought out the roughest best in them.

Marianne Elliott’s Company (no-one defers to Sondheim more than me, but this show is HER (and Craig’s) masterpiece) takes the questions the original poses, and doesn’t so much answer them as reframe them. Sondheim’s Company is a funny beast – whilst incisive and nakedly emotional, it’s also rather quaint and quite of its time (“I could understand a person if it’s not a person’s bag”…). Bobby lives such a solipsistic life, his friends in such a rich New York bubble, so narrow in ideas of family, that much of their arguments are irrelevant to anyone outside. But oh that score… The show is like a family member – something I will always always always love (perhaps more than any other, better Sondheim), but boy can I hate it on a bad day. With Bobby’s small window onto the big world of love and marriage, I sometimes think that Furth and Sondheim ask some of life’s biggest questions of monogamy to a small man, only to come to some pat answers.

Why look for answers where none occur? This is why I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Elliott’s production. It’s not about the easy answers of “Whaddaya wanna get married for?”. It takes many of the oddities and inconsistencies of the original masterpiece and magnifies them – making it more aggressive and more inquisitive and more uncertain than ever, more relatable and more haunting as a viewer. She changes the pressure to societal in a way a bachelor would never face. She changes ‘Tick Tock’ from some bloke worried about a receding hairline to far more profound pressures. She makes PJ a cock, thus a ‘bad decision’, in a way none of Bobby’s three girlfriends ever were (and yet it’s the same bloody lines – how did that asshole line ever work?!?!), changing Bobby from a suave ladies’ man to you or me wondering why we made, and make, our bad decisions. Perhaps I wish the show gave more focus to the eternal pleasures of the single life, disposable boyfriends, than lip service (yes that was a cunnilingus pun), but even the staging of that scene was comic in its juxtaposition: asking whether having Richard Fleeshman going down on you is really worth missing out on marriage (um…). For reasons others have said better than I, the gender switch reaps huge rewards. My boorish blokey interpretation is that, actually, it’s easier to relate to her – a male Bobby can be just mopey, his pressures all individual and internal, but given that Bobbie’s pressures are largely put on her by society via people who ‘love’ her, ALL the relationships change and the drama zings better. Far from just questioning Bobby’s bachelordom, we’re now even questioning – due to modern life, societal norms and specifically female attitudes – why we’re looking for answers where none occur...

Rather than the over-conclusive arc of the original (Q: “Whaddaya wanna get married for?” A: “Someone to hold me too close…”), this asks us why we even ask that first question in the first place. Rather than try and update everything to work, she lets some things remain iffy and problematic, and thus asks us to look critically at the whole situation. Rather than (as productions that I LOVE do) end with some conclusive statement about whether Bobby is lonely or hopeful, “Being Alive” is more a question mark than a full stop. There are f***ing multitudes in this show.

And… “Another Hundred People” (alongside “The Miller’s Son” one of my favourite Sondheim songs). Whilst George Blagden doesn’t have quite the belt or brass that the song has previously asked for, the miniature everyday ballets happening in the background are an expressionist, subtle rebuke to the specificity of Bobbie. Shadows going about their day, to suddenly burst into tableaus of love and lust, a positively Gene Kelly-esque display of extraordinary emotions in invisible faces… So bold in its visual storytelling, everything that miniature ballet says about the little moments where love can be found turns Bobbie’s story into the story of every hopeful lover. It was so beautiful I began to cry.

(Also, ignoring the obvious, I hadn’t realised how funny the smaller moments in this were – and the rewards this reaps! The shift into that line “you’re always sorry” was an unexpected giggle with pitch-perfect timing, then the rest becomes more sentimental with this contrast greater. Plenty of subtler moments throughout. Marianne Elliott is such a good line-reader, isn’t she?)

And where she wants to preserve everything magisterial about Company, Elliott just lets that cast do their magic. Jonathan Bailey is extraordinary at neurotic, loveable, surprisingly tender and teary, and bloody hilarious – what else can you say, we all fell in love. We fell in love with Richard Fleeshman too but for different reasons. Really fond of Mel and Gavin Spokes’ touching ordinariness. And for extraordinariness, Patti… It’s Patti! Can’t put into words how great SHE was. I loved Elliott’s setting of THAT scene – seated and trapped, an intimate, less showboating, more pointed conversation – but my god, it’s Patti!

At its heart, though, phone rings door chimes in comes Rosalie. Bobby has always been an incredibly reactive role – one which requires the performer to watch other couples singing their hearts out, without truly expressing their own; many of Company’s biggest numbers, FANTASTICALLY done here – “Ladies Who Lunch”, “Getting Married Today” – are only tangentially Bobbie’s story; never watching Rosalie Craig does it feel anything but. She can go from comic to shocked in the same laugh, sure of herself to confused in just a step, and by (almost like a fourth-wall-breaking sitcom) taking us into her confidence, her smallest worry hit the back of the auditorium. She has such an ability to turn on a dime and reflect the fights and frictions – more than a mere bystander, you can often see the cogs turn as she turns others’ emotional outbursts towards herself, or unsuccessfully tries to deflect her emotional response to the madness around her. We just catch her looking, and looking… and we look right back. And this is just her NOT singing and acting! When that voice gets “Marry Me A Little” or “Being Alive”, bloody hell… However much Bobbie is meant to have closed that door emotionally, Rosalie Craig is such an emotionally accessible presence; having her play someone as emotionally inaccessible and confused as Sondheim and Furth’s apathetic and indecisive hero complicates Bobbie – now her emotional stuntedness is self-doubt and society and real depth, a muddle of giant emotions hidden behind smaller apathetic indecisive ones. And all this from how she mouths the word “wow”! Quite simply – I know I’m going out on a limb here, given some of your reactions, but sod it – I would put Rosalie Craig’s performance up there with Hattie Morahan’s Nora, Rooster Byron, and Imelda’s Mama Rose, as one of THOSE performances. She’s that good – but there’s something special about the way she brings this to life.

(Also, some actual family members saw this, knowing nothing about the musical’s past, and loved it as a ‘new musical’ – it just works)

One last thing – seeing it closeish to the end of its run, I still felt the air of an ‘event’ around it. Perhaps that’s just breathing the same air as Patti, I don’t know, but the audience seemed buzzing. I can’t remember an atmosphere like it for a while.

I hope it’s clear I was really overwhelmed by this. It’s extraordinary. Rough edges intact, Elliott changes the focus from questions about Bobby’s bachelordom to questions that are gendered and satirical and specific, and questions that are general that hit me in my personal life – and, rather than tie them up in a bow, forces us to leave the theatre, like Bobbie, emotionally rawer and wanting answers and personally vulnerable. I haven’t stopped thinking about this since I saw it – haven’t stopped trying to consolidate Bobbie’s uncertainties and society’s pressures, haven’t stopped thinking about THAT extraordinary performance of THIS Bobbie.

P.S. When I was younger, my simple dream in life was to see Elaine Stritch, Bernadette Peters, and Patti Lupone (and yet, somehow, my parents didn’t twig anything). The first of course never happened. The second moved me to absolute tears, from the back row – the very cheapest, very last seat – of the Southbank Centre. For Patti, I thought I was missing this and it was breaking my wee heart, but luck bought me to London, the day seat queue and – to see someone I’ve idolised for years – second bloody row. She looked at me. There were moments towards the beginning when I was just completely and utterly in awe. Even now I still am.

[cheri78]

Thanks Nicolas for such a fantastic post and for pointing out things that I'd missed and would love to see again. Agree wholeheartedly with all you say and so pleased I made the journey twice from France to be part of what you rightly described as a special occasion. The buzz was palpable and all involved deserve a string of awards.
I would like to ask anyone on the board if they've noticed the very unusual chord sung in the opening number on "we'll be so glad to see you" at 3:11 on the recording. Takes you by surprise but oh what clarity in the lyrics on this recording.

[craig]

Nicholas, what a sensational review of a sensational production! I'm delighted for you that you got to see La Lupone in the flesh.

I also think Rosalie Craig's performance is one for the ages. (And Hattie Morahan was EXQUISITE! I still haven't recovered from her Tarantella.)

[Polly1]

So, a long time ago I decided that, having seen (and loved) the Adrian Lester version years ago, I wouldn't bother with this but...FOMO, I suppose and yesterday I caved in and got a rush ticket. So pleased I did! The overall effect of the show - set, lighting, direction,
choreography, orchestration, performances - is just stunning, intoxicating. I had never really understood the hype for Patti - i do now! Rosalie was excellent and delivered such a nuanced rendition of Being Alive. I can see why people complain of JB 'mugging' but he was funny! Of the supporting cast (Mel was off) Gavin Spokes was my pick. After Patti of course...Dame Patti (I'm a convert).

Whisper it, but some of the dialogue scenes were a tiny bit ... boring?

Overall however, this is such a clever, thoughtful, thought-provoking revival, no wonder Sondheim himself was thrilled.

Edited to add: I was surprised at the number of empty seats! At least half a dozen in my row (L) and several in the 2 rows directly in front of me (which meant i had a great view!)

[Oleanna]

I suppose now is as good a time as any, with the countless references to the song in this thread, to gently remind that the title of the song is “Getting Married Today”, not “NOT Getting Married Today”.

[Oleanna]

Also, while I’m at it, it’s CAST RECORDING, not SOUNDTRACK, though that’s a whole different can of worms...

[Deleted]

Can anyone tell me why the dancers in “Another 100 People” aren’t credited in the programme? Especially the one who looks a bit like Jason Momoa.

[Deleted]

Mar 6, 2019 15:43:10 GMT @happysooz said:

Can anyone tell me why the dancers in “Another 100 People” aren’t credited in the programme? Especially the one who looks a bit like Jason Momoa.

Probably because they all just got off the train and went up through the ground so they didn't manage to catch their names.

[Deleted]

Aren't they the swings and understudies?

[Deleted]

Mar 6, 2019 16:50:14 GMT @eldermillan said:

Aren't they the swings and understudies?

And I think some of them are 1st cast as well.
Sure I recognised Fleeshman and Mel from Mel&Sue....