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Post by Mr Wallacio on Aug 17, 2016 17:07:06 GMT
Off topic slightly, but 'The Last Tango' with Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace is going in after Dolls for a couple of months until The Girls, so not a dark theatre.
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Post by stuart on Aug 17, 2016 17:24:30 GMT
I think this could've run a bit longer had they got another bit of star casting sorted. It was really nice to see the House Full sign out last night and this is a show entering its final week! The majority of the audience were clearly there for Rebel Wilson so another headline star might have kept it open another few months.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2016 18:02:43 GMT
I think this could've run a bit longer had they got another bit of star casting sorted. It was really nice to see the House Full sign out last night and this is a show entering its final week! The majority of the audience were clearly there for Rebel Wilson so another headline star might have kept it open another few months. I guess the producers wanted to go out on a "high" with houses full. Also they probably didn't want to rely on star casting to finish off the run until January and having to pay big stars too. It's probably a better choice for them to close early I think |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2016 20:12:56 GMT
I saw the show last Thursday and it was sort of a happy accident that I managed to see Rebel Wilson as I'd booked the ticket before her run was announced (I'd booked initially to see Oliver Tompsett since I'd seen him twice in Wicked and had missed him in his previous shows because they weren't my thing and thought it would be nice to see a familiar face on stage again). I'd watched the film for the first time a few days before - this musical was one that completely alluded me for years - and didn't really care for it. Seeing it on stage actually made me appreciate it more and I felt I was more connected with the characters and cared more.
As for Rebel Wilson, she's probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed her performance (and I haven't seen her in anything minus Bridesmaids). Yeah, it's probably not what people would imagine with Adelaide, but she put her all into it and the audience loved it. I think she made Oliver Tompsett and Simon Lipkin crack up at one point - I was sitting in row B stalls and they definitely broke character for a split second.
I did bump into both Simon and Oliver outside the theatre before the show; Simon was buying stuff from the corner shop close to the theatre and I almost collided with Oliver as he was rounding the corner on his way in.
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Post by d'James on Aug 17, 2016 20:31:16 GMT
Go on. Someone put me out of my misery about the asthma joke.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 17, 2016 20:35:34 GMT
Go on. Someone put me out of my misery about the asthma joke. I can't remember the exact joke, but I remember not finding it as extreme as it is being made out to be. It wasn't even that big a thing. |
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Post by stuart on Aug 18, 2016 5:44:30 GMT
Go on. Someone put me out of my misery about the asthma joke. She comes on stage as Adelaide for one of her Hot Box performances smoking a cigarette but breaks her American accent and goes "Someone take this off me, I'm asthmatic". Nothing hilarious but a nice ad libbed style joke (even though it clearly isn't ad libbed). |
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Post by Mr Wallacio on Aug 18, 2016 7:38:53 GMT
Go on. Someone put me out of my misery about the asthma joke. She comes on stage as Adelaide for one of her Hot Box performances smoking a cigarette but breaks her American accent and goes "Someone take this off me, I'm asthmatic". Nothing hilarious but a nice ad libbed style joke (even though it clearly isn't ad libbed). What they said. No one controls Rebel when she's on stage. I wonder if she added that in the first time in front of an audience so the director couldn't veto it. There are a lot of unconventional additions to 'Rebel it up', like when she is talking to herself about preparing for the wedding night. Not sure if a director would see that in rehearsals and say 'Yeah, go for it' when you have to assume there would still be a large proportion of traditionalists seeing the show. But this ridiculous slapstick humour amuses me, so I'm not complaining. |
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Post by theatremadness on Aug 18, 2016 10:30:41 GMT
She's changed the line slightly, then, to something slightly less offensive. Just remember Charlotte Coleman died of asthma, is all I'm saying. I saw Rebel's first show & I don't remember an asthma joke standing out, but then again I wasn't looking for it. And I hugely apologise if my next comment sounds flippant, as it really isn't meant in that way, but surely we cannot sensitise ourselves so much to conditions that no jokes are allowed to be made about anything just in case someone has sadly died. What if someone dies of a common cold? (Maybe this has happened? I don't know). Is the whole character of Adelaide now a walking, talking, singing and dancing offence? Where does political correctness stop if we keep telling people "you shouldn't do that, because this happened once"? For a long time, comedy has been used to battle death, diseases, conditions, sadness etc. As I see it, Rebel saw some comedy in claiming she was asthmatic whilst holding a cigarette and surrounded by smoke. It's quite a common condition, but to my ignorance to die of it is quite a rare occurrence, so I highly doubt that Rebel is even aware herself. Not a joke that is there to try and cause offence and push boundaries, a throw away gag that is probably gone and forgotten but hugely enjoyed by the audience at the time. What's so bad about that? |
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Post by zak97 on Aug 18, 2016 10:35:19 GMT
I vaguely remember when I went Rebel just coughed/choked on the cigarette and made some joke out of that - I don't think asthma was mentioned.
On a slightly different note, the reason why I think I really enjoyed Rebel is that I must be in the minority who had never heard of Rebel before her casting or seen her in anything prior to Guys and Dolls, so in that way my lack of awareness of Rebel didn't mean I saw Rebel's comedy as Rebel playing Rebel - I guess though the majority of 'casual' punters probably would rather see Rebel play Rebel play Adelaide if they are going to see it just for Rebel.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2016 11:37:24 GMT
What if someone dies of a common cold? (Maybe this has happened? I don't know). It has. (It wasn't just a cold, but a cold on top of reduced lung capacity resulting from years of smoking. Even so, it was the added strain of coping with the cold that made the difference. I get very annoyed at people who insist on showing how brave they are by struggling on and infecting everyone around them because "it's only a cold".) |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2016 14:36:47 GMT
Is Rebel Wilson still in? I thought she was finishing at the weekend and someone else was finishing out the run? Only I've just seen an ad telling me that she's still in it until the end of the run now, so I thought I'd check.
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Post by theatremadness on Aug 18, 2016 14:39:53 GMT
Is Rebel Wilson still in? I thought she was finishing at the weekend and someone else was finishing out the run? Only I've just seen an ad telling me that she's still in it until the end of the run now, so I thought I'd check. Both yourself and the ad are correct! She is indeed finishing at the weekend - which is also when the run comes to an end |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2016 14:41:52 GMT
Thanks! I won't go shouting at anybody then.  (Are we really halfway through August already? Where HAS the year gone?) |
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Post by theatremadness on Aug 18, 2016 14:44:20 GMT
And I hugely apologise if my next comment sounds flippant, as it really isn't meant in that way, but surely we cannot sensitise ourselves so much to conditions that no jokes are allowed to be made about anything just in case someone has sadly died. Not flippant at all, theatremadness, a valid point and one I sometimes think about myself, as I'm not always keen on P.C. censorship either. For me, in this case, it was about the context. The line was never there in the original for a start, and a line wasn't needed there at all. If she was going to pick a line, something about "I don't know what it does to me inside - must look it up in the book" could have been quite funny, and a link to her other material. She wouldn't do a line about cancer or AIDS (hopefully), but asthma seems to be a bit of a forgotten condition, as we all simply remember the "kids with inhalers who can't do sports at school." It's actually debilitating, requires close and proper daily management and does kill. Coleman died simply because she couldn't find an inhaler in time - and very quickly. It's that kind of condition. I guess I found the levity to gravity ratio too far off for my liking, this time around. The line not being there is also a hugely valid point but what I've been thinking about more and more since your post is indeed our (colloquial 'our') attitude towards asthma. I was not aware of Coleman until you mentioned up a few posts ago and I've no problems admitting that I'd never looked at asthma in the same vein as cancer and AIDS - maybe we (again, colloquial 'we') should! |
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Post by Distant Dreamer... on Aug 19, 2016 8:11:13 GMT
So who exactly is in the cast this week?
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Post by stuart on Aug 19, 2016 8:29:10 GMT
So who exactly is in the cast this week? I saw the show on Tuesday and even I'm not sure as the programme hadn't been updated! |
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Post by zak97 on Aug 19, 2016 8:52:01 GMT
So who exactly is in the cast this week? Rebel Wilson - Adelaide Simon Lipkin - Nathan Jonathan Stewart - Sky Frankie Jenna - Sarah Jack Edwards - Nicely nicely I'm not sure if there were any other changes |
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Post by Distant Dreamer... on Aug 19, 2016 12:23:20 GMT
What were their performances like?
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Post by maisiem on Aug 19, 2016 14:16:44 GMT
I saw the Wednesday performance and with the exception of Rebel (sorry), the other leads were all very good. Jack Edwards was especially great as Nicely.
I agree with everything Theatre Monkey said in his review. Her whole performance just grated. Mostly I think as she wasted all the wonderful dialogue and grabbed cheap laughs instead through being vulgar and coarse. She obviously has charisma and stage presence (and her singing voice was actually OK) but her very modern take on the role just made her stick out like a sore thumb.
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Post by Distant Dreamer... on Aug 19, 2016 14:49:10 GMT
Do you think the people laughing lots and applauding Rebel's performance were normal theatregoers or were their enthusiastic responses due to the fact they'd booked to just see her on stage, regardless of the role or the musical?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2016 15:28:49 GMT
Do you think the people laughing lots and applauding Rebel's performance were normal theatregoers or were their enthusiastic responses due to the fact they'd booked to just see her on stage, regardless of the role or the musical? When I went, everyone around me pretty much said they were here for Rebel. Even I was there for Rebel as I didn't enjoy the show that much at all before. It has been that way since celeb casting began though, its nothing surprising or new, people know a face they seem to love it alot more! |
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Post by alison on Aug 19, 2016 15:32:16 GMT
I was there yesterday afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed three of the four main characters (as a side note, having seen Oliver and Siubhan earlier this year, it was great to see that their understudies aren't just playing carbon copies of them). I found it interesting that Frankie sings I'll Know in the higher key that Anna O'Byrne used on tour, rather than the lower key Siubhan used last time I was there. Obviously keys are sometimes changed for different performers/productions, but I've never come across an example of an understudy using a different key to the principal before.
Rebel ... well, I enjoyed her more than I expected given the comments on here, but her style of broad, brash humour isn't really my thing, so I suppose it was a given that she wouldn't be my favourite. I got the impression that her singing voice is actually decent, but she's so over-the-top on the comedy front that the singing gets lost. I found it difficult to make out half her words, and I know the show well - goodness knows how anyone who'd never seen it before got on. I overheard a couple of ladies at the interval saying she'd be funnier if she toned it down a bit, and I agree.
I think the laughter is a combination of things. There are probably some who are there to see Rebel and would find her funny regardless, sure. There are probably some who are laughing because they're "supposed" to. There are also some people who are normal theatregoers who are genuinely entertained by her. I have a friend who didn't particularly expect to enjoy Rebel's performance but found her very funny.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2016 15:40:06 GMT
I would be interested to see how full the audiences would be if Rebel hadn't joined the cast.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2016 18:09:05 GMT
Do you think the people laughing lots and applauding Rebel's performance were normal theatregoers or were their enthusiastic responses due to the fact they'd booked to just see her on stage, regardless of the role or the musical? I didn't hear anybody say that they were only there for Rebel when I went last week; I had a lot of OAPs sat around me discussing the performances in the film more than anything else. There were a few younger family members filling their elders in on who Rebel was and why she was so famous. But at stage door, it pretty much became clear to me that the primary draw for this show was for Rebel. As soon as Rebel was called back into the building, the huge crowd that had gathered cleared off, leaving me and a small family group left waiting for the rest of the cast. A few main cast members came out (Jason Pennycook, Simon Lipkin and Gavin Spokes) but everyone pretty much ignored them - spotted Simon leaning against a wall with a cigarette watching as Rebel came out. A few people went up to him for autographs/photos but he was pretty invisible. |
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(Are we really halfway through August already? Where HAS the year gone?)
