1,970 posts
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Post by sf on Aug 12, 2018 15:07:06 GMT
I wish i had seen Out Of The Blue. It opened at the Shaftesbury with ZERO marketing. It appeared overnight and closed 17 days later, starring big musical theatre names of the time. If you're going to produce a musical in a huge theatre, you'd think that marketing it in advance would be a good place to start. I saw it, and you had a lucky escape. 'Out of the Blue' managed an unusual feat: the show managed to make the detonation of an atomic bomb boring. |
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1,996 posts
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Post by distantcousin on Aug 12, 2018 15:44:41 GMT
I loved Stephen Ward and quite enjoyed Bad Girls (I was a huge fan of the TV programme)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2018 16:04:13 GMT
Tell us more about Bat Boy! Always wished I'd seen the original production I don't remember a huge lot about it, except that i didn't like it very much. It just seemed stupid. At the time i was enjoying all the big epic shows and this was a small silly show that didn't seem to fit on what my idea of West End theatre was. Everything was in the centre of the stage with so much space around it, it just seemed lost. I know that Devon May was very athletic in his role, spending alot of the time hanging upside down from bars. It just wasn't for me. The theatre was empty and we were all put in a few roles in the stalls together. I knew someone in the cast and they couldn't wait for it to end. How they got a cast recording out of it, i'll never know. I saw it, and you had a lucky escape. 'Out of the Blue' managed an unusual feat: the show managed to make the detonation of an atomic bomb boring. I was going to see it for Meredith Braun. She went from Bernadette to Out Of The Blue... I have listened to the score and it doesnt sound great. I think it just came before the original poster's starting point, but Budgie was another big flop musical, starring Adam Faith, Anita Dobson and Caroline O'Connor. It was a show based around the TV show, but has some great songs in it, especially for the 3 strippers. I know on the old board someone mentioned that a revised version had been workshopped, and i'd love to see it again. |
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Post by danb on Aug 12, 2018 16:11:17 GMT
I wish i had seen Out Of The Blue. It opened at the Shaftesbury with ZERO marketing. It appeared overnight and closed 17 days later, starring big musical theatre names of the time. If you're going to produce a musical in a huge theatre, you'd think that marketing it in advance would be a good place to start. I saw it, and you had a lucky escape. 'Out of the Blue' managed an unusual feat: the show managed to make the detonation of an atomic bomb boring. Oh yes, dull as all sh!te even with that cast...a total bore. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2018 16:25:30 GMT
I saw Out of the Blue too, I can follow pretty much anything narratively but this was confusing in its structure and lack of signposting made it like watching a show with built in memory blackouts. There was a very rare double CD of the whole show, it was rereleased later in a cut down form. It made just as much sense. The composer was Japanese and well known in his homeland for writing seventies and eighties pop hits.
On Napoleon, the main thing that I recall is the whole stage lifting up at one point. The dramatic purpose for which I cannot recall.
Seeing as some have mentioned the eighties I’ll do a quick rundown of those as a memory aid. I think the length that some of them ran will be seen as pretty surprising (the eighties was like that).
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8,103 posts
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Post by alece10 on Aug 12, 2018 16:43:59 GMT
Ah, the glorious 'Acorn Antiques'. Back in the day when £65 for a top price ticket was considered outrageous. And it was worth every penny as far as I was concerned. Paid a fortune at the time to see it but absolutely loved it just for the chance to see Julie Walters as Mrs Overall on stage. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2018 16:49:27 GMT
Ah, the glorious 'Acorn Antiques'. Back in the day when £65 for a top price ticket was considered outrageous. And it was worth every penny as far as I was concerned. Paid a fortune at the time to see it but absolutely loved it just for the chance to see Julie Walters as Mrs Overall on stage. And wasn't she worth every penny? Just the memory of watching her attempt the tap dance routine while struggling with hemorrhoids still makes me giggle. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2018 16:52:53 GMT
Stephen Ward remains the worst show I've seen. God bless Joanna Riding and that cameo of hers.
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653 posts
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Post by ptwest on Aug 12, 2018 17:09:45 GMT
Paid a fortune at the time to see it but absolutely loved it just for the chance to see Julie Walters as Mrs Overall on stage. And wasn't she worth every penny? Just the memory of watching her attempt the tap dance routine while struggling with hemorrhoids still makes me giggle. I was lucky enough to get a superb seat for a bargain price at the second preview but would have thought it good value at full price - worth it for hat wonderful cast. Memories of it still make me smile even now! . I don’t think this can be in any way included in the list of flops - an almost sell out limited run. |
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Post by danb on Aug 12, 2018 17:14:44 GMT
Paid a fortune at the time to see it but absolutely loved it just for the chance to see Julie Walters as Mrs Overall on stage. And wasn't she worth every penny? Just the memory of watching her attempt the tap dance routine while struggling with hemorrhoids still makes me giggle. I’ve no idea why AA is considered a flop. You got to see a living legend whatever day you went, it was very funny throughout, had an amazing supporting cast of W/E legends (and Neil Morrissey). I thought it was pretty much a sell out? I thought it was only a limited run due to the availibility of said legends? I had hideous gallery seats booked, then upgraded on the train on the way to London. I will never, NEVER, EVER forget the audience reaction to the Ozzy Osbourne line. Must’ve been typing mine as you posted yours PTWest |
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Post by Someone in a tree on Aug 12, 2018 17:33:40 GMT
I love reading this thread although I really am unsure of the Flop definition
Loved
Love Story
Betty Blue Eyes
Lend me a tenor
Bat Boy
Meh
Stepping Out
Made in Dagenham
Imagine This
Far Pavilions
From here to eternity
Romeo and Juliet
Loathed
Stephen Ward
Too close to the sun
I can’t sing
I wish I had seen
Napoleon
Moby Dick
Carrie
Hunting of the Snark
Off West End
Dear World - Loved
Paradise Found - Hated
Remember the revival of Sweet Charity with Bonnie Langford ? I loved it but I remember it closed very quickly
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2018 18:26:47 GMT
On Acorn Antiques, it was supposed to extend and it didn’t. As was said - “The curtain will come down at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on May 21, when Julie Walter’s contract to play Mrs Overall expires. It’s believed producers have found her impossible to replace, despite original hopes that the show could have continued with a changing cast.” www.chortle.co.uk/news/2005/04/25/455/acorn_antiques_to_close#The criticisms about its length and first act led Wood to do a revamp for the tour with Wood herself replacing Trevor Nunn as director. Ria Jones replaced Julie Walters. |
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Post by 9mirrors on Aug 12, 2018 18:28:46 GMT
Saw the first preview of Bad Girls the Musical. It was awful. Clearly Liz Smith nor Paul O Grady didnt know their lines, lyrics, choreography or placings. There was so much improvising and fooling about that can be tolerated.
Metropolis looked stunning. Wooden acting and terrible script. Judy Kuhn saved the show.
Got cheap set to Stephen Ward for a mid week matinee between Christmas and New Year to be sent into the Stalls. There were less people there than the cast. It could have possibly worked as a play but it felt almost like a pastiche.
First preview of Martin Guerre lasted nearl four hours. As there was a forty minute hold up towards the end of act one when set jammed and the guns in a battle scene flared out to the first two rows and burnt the hair and arm of a couple in front of me. The show just seemed to go on forever without developing the plot but had some stunning songs that were axed and were visually a treat.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 12, 2018 18:35:51 GMT
I will never, NEVER, EVER forget the audience reaction to the Ozzy Osbourne line. I've never quite been able to look at a custard cream in quite the same way since. |
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2,678 posts
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Post by viserys on Aug 12, 2018 19:05:00 GMT
I saw Napoleon and The Far Pavillions there too. They were trying to be big epic storys, with big songs like Les Mis, Napoleon has some good stuff in it, but i remember very little else. And did it use a huge silk sheet that covered the whole stage at some point?? Can anyone else confirm that or am i confusing it with someone else??
I couldn't travel to London regularly yet at the time, so I missed most of those 90s flops, but I remember them being around (and even have some flyers still).
The Far Pavilions is one of my all-time favorite books, so I went to see the stage adaptation - it wasn't great, but I thought it wasn't terrible either. However, considering it's a rather big fat book that also requires quite a bit of background knowledge on colonial India, I wonder if people who didn't know the book got anything out of it. I'm glad they later released a CD of it though.
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8,103 posts
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Post by alece10 on Aug 12, 2018 19:14:58 GMT
I don't think that Paradise Found can be classed as a flop. It was only planned as a limited run as a tryout before going to Broadway. The whole run sold out before it opened so you could say it was successful. And as it never did open on Broadway you can't call something that never opened a flop.
I have very happy memories of that show as it was hysterically bad. I'll have stories to tell about it for years.
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4,961 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on Aug 12, 2018 19:41:08 GMT
Paradise got terrible reviews
Three nuns and your mother only returned for the second act
It was meant to go further but thankfully it never did, I’d say it flopped
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2,245 posts
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Post by richey on Aug 12, 2018 20:00:42 GMT
Ah, the glorious 'Acorn Antiques'. Back in the day when £65 for a top price ticket was considered outrageous. And it was worth every penny as far as I was concerned. Paid a fortune at the time to see it but absolutely loved it just for the chance to see Julie Walters as Mrs Overall on stage. She was worth every penny. The minute she walked onstage the audience went wild. Including the row of butch bikers behind me. |
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1,996 posts
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Post by distantcousin on Aug 12, 2018 20:28:04 GMT
Saw the first preview of Bad Girls the Musical. It was awful. Clearly Liz Smith nor Paul O Grady didnt know their lines, lyrics, choreography or placings. There was so much improvising and fooling about that can be tolerated. Err, you're getting confused with Prisoner Cell Block H. |
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1,970 posts
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Post by sf on Aug 12, 2018 21:48:33 GMT
Saw the first preview of Bad Girls the Musical. It was awful. Clearly Liz Smith nor Paul O Grady didnt know their lines, lyrics, choreography or placings. There was so much improvising and fooling about that can be tolerated. Err, you're getting confused with Prisoner Cell Block H.
Do I remember the great Maggie "The Freak" Kirkpatrick singing a love song to her kinky black leather gloves, or is my mind playing tricks on me?
(I mean in Prisoner Cell Block H: The Musical, obviously, not in Bad Girls.)
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Post by drowseychap on Aug 13, 2018 0:43:15 GMT
The Droswey Chaparone had quite a good run on broadway what happened in the west end? I cnot spell Wish I knew I found this show by chance but loved it ended up going 3 times ... had good broadway run ... and is performed by every college in the USA it seems ... and the west end had a great cast too ... maybe marketing ?? I also saw the upstairs at gatehouse production few years after with Ashley day and soibhan mc Carthy it’s was really wonderful Really don’t know why it didn’t catch on here it’s great fun lots of laughs in jokes and quite moving too |
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Post by danb on Aug 13, 2018 4:19:35 GMT
I had forgotten I’d seen Prisoner! At the Queens? Given that the majority of uni life revolved around the later years of Prisoner, (couldn’t go out on a Thursday night til it had finished) it was a great night out for us years later. We went and chatted with Maggie Kirkpatrick & Liz Smith for ages afterwards, and I seem to remember Alison Jiear’s massive voice being involved too. Don’t remember much about the show though; we obviously stayed til the end so it can’t have been all bad.
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1,996 posts
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Post by distantcousin on Aug 13, 2018 7:14:01 GMT
Err, you're getting confused with Prisoner Cell Block H.
Do I remember the great Maggie "The Freak" Kirkpatrick singing a love song to her kinky black leather gloves, or is my mind playing tricks on me?
(I mean in Prisoner Cell Block H: The Musical, obviously, not in Bad Girls.)
I so wish I could have seen that. Was a poor student at the time though, so theatre was limited to birthday treats only! |
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Post by distantcousin on Aug 13, 2018 7:15:01 GMT
I had forgotten I’d seen Prisoner! At the Queens? Given that the majority of uni life revolved around the later years of Prisoner, (couldn’t go out on a Thursday night til it had finished) it was a great night out for us years later. We went and chatted with Maggie Kirkpatrick & Liz Smith for ages afterwards, and I seem to remember Alison Jiear’s massive voice being involved too. Don’t remember much about the show though; we obviously stayed til the end so it can’t have been all bad.
Paul O'Grady talks quite a lot about it in, I think, the last volume of his autobiography.
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Post by elliott on Aug 13, 2018 9:01:59 GMT
This might have been mentioned before but does anyone remember Murderous Instincts at the Savoy? I think it was maybe 3 weeks in the West End after a short run in Norwich.... Special highlights were 'It's So Much Fun to be Gay' in Act 2 which was camper than camp and Nicola McAuliff doing the finale in a blond updo wig that was astonishing....
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