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Post by bigsymalone on Aug 18, 2024 21:53:15 GMT
The only revival of Hello, Dolly that worked in the UK before this one was at Regent’s Park. Prior to that there were productions with Carol Channing at Drury Lane, Danny La Rue at the Prince of Wales and Anita Dobson on tour. All used the original book and score and all were massive critical and box office flops. I guess the show’s traditional vaudeville showiness seems coarse and vulgar to British tastes, which is why this more nuanced approach has chimed with audiences here.
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Post by SylviaFowler on Aug 19, 2024 6:15:15 GMT
Genuine question: why does it matter what colour the dress is? And isn’t Barbra’s dress gold in the movie? |
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Post by jr on Aug 19, 2024 6:33:43 GMT
Hello, Dolly! is a musical comedy written by Jerry Herman AND MICHAEL STEWART. Yes Writer of book often gets little credit Even less credit is given to Thornton Wilder as writer of the original play, when probably around 75% of the book is taken directly from The matchmaker. |
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Post by sf on Aug 19, 2024 12:52:59 GMT
Genuine question: why does it matter what colour the dress is? And isn’t Barbra’s dress gold in the movie? Yes it is.
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Post by sf on Aug 19, 2024 12:59:08 GMT
The only revival of Hello, Dolly that worked in the UK before this one was at Regent’s Park. Prior to that there were productions with Carol Channing at Drury Lane, Danny La Rue at the Prince of Wales and Anita Dobson on tour. All used the original book and score and all were massive critical and box office flops. I guess the show’s traditional vaudeville showiness seems coarse and vulgar to British tastes, which is why this more nuanced approach has chimed with audiences here. To be fair, I don't think the problem with the Anita Dobson tour was that it used the original, unaltered book and score. The biggest problem with it was that while Ms. Dobson herself was very good, nearly everything else about the production was awful. Wobbly sets, dismal supporting cast, it had been directed on autopilot, the reduced orchestrations sounded terrible, and the sound design was the sort of thing you might deploy to make an invading army surrender. It was not a pleasant evening, Ms. Dobson's performance aside, but the reasons why have nothing to do with the material. |
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Post by nash16 on Aug 19, 2024 13:05:57 GMT
The only revival of Hello, Dolly that worked in the UK before this one was at Regent’s Park. Prior to that there were productions with Carol Channing at Drury Lane, Danny La Rue at the Prince of Wales and Anita Dobson on tour. All used the original book and score and all were massive critical and box office flops. I guess the show’s traditional vaudeville showiness seems coarse and vulgar to British tastes, which is why this more nuanced approach has chimed with audiences here. Has this version “chimed with audiences”? The sales, looking at their seating plans, continue to be quite shocking. Why do we think people aren’t racing to this? |
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Post by blamerobots on Aug 19, 2024 13:09:57 GMT
It's not selling that bad. Lots of on-the-day box office and cheap tix sales though.
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Post by amyja89 on Aug 19, 2024 13:14:20 GMT
It's hard to fill the Palladium for a stretch. I still haven't recovered from the trauma of a desparate Sound of Music matinee circa 2008 that must have been about 200 people total. I'm not even exaggerating.
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Post by A.Ham on Aug 19, 2024 13:46:49 GMT
It's hard to fill the Palladium for a stretch. I still haven't recovered from the trauma of a desparate Sound of Music matinee circa 2008 that must have been about 200 people total. I'm not even exaggerating. Which prompts the question of what percentage sold is too low for the performance to go ahead? Both financially and from a trying to avoid bad PR perspective?! |
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Post by amyja89 on Aug 19, 2024 13:51:55 GMT
It's hard to fill the Palladium for a stretch. I still haven't recovered from the trauma of a desparate Sound of Music matinee circa 2008 that must have been about 200 people total. I'm not even exaggerating. Which prompts the question of what percentage sold is too low for the performance to go ahead? Both financially and from a trying to avoid bad PR perspective?! I'm almost certain that both all circles were closed. We were in row C, almost alone, and literally moved back during the interval because we couldn't take the cringe of being so close in an empty theatre. If memory serves correctly, it was one of Connie Fisher's unfortunate 'dodgy voice' days, I know she didn't have her real issues until a few years later, but I remember her being exceedingly average. A sad affair all around! |
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Post by oldstager on Aug 19, 2024 14:26:01 GMT
"A director sometimes has a vision, a conception that he comes to from some place within himself. That it is at odds with the material he is directing doesn't seem to matter or even occur to him. The material - this is so elementary it shouldn't have to be stated, but almost every musical production in recent years is oblivious to it - the material is the source for everything seen or said or done on the stage. The director, the choreographer, the designer, the actor who thinks he or she doesn't have to observe this is digging his own shallow grave."
- ARTHUR LAURENTS "Mainly On Directing" 2009.
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Post by SilverFox on Aug 19, 2024 14:32:20 GMT
It's hard to fill the Palladium for a stretch. I still haven't recovered from the trauma of a desparate Sound of Music matinee circa 2008 that must have been about 200 people total. I'm not even exaggerating. That many? I estimate there were around half that for the matinée of "Toad of Toad Hall" that I saw at the LP. There was tumbleweed rolling around the aisles! |
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Post by mrbarnaby on Aug 19, 2024 16:39:34 GMT
It's hard to fill the Palladium for a stretch. I still haven't recovered from the trauma of a desparate Sound of Music matinee circa 2008 that must have been about 200 people total. I'm not even exaggerating. That many? I estimate there were around half that for the matinée of "Toad of Toad Hall" that I saw at the LP. There was tumbleweed rolling around the aisles! You mean Wind in the Willows? |
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Post by SilverFox on Aug 19, 2024 17:41:47 GMT
That many? I estimate there were around half that for the matinée of "Toad of Toad Hall" that I saw at the LP. There was tumbleweed rolling around the aisles! You mean Wind in the Willows? I do indeed. Thanks. The Stiles & Drewe musical. |
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Post by alece10 on Aug 20, 2024 15:08:33 GMT
You mean Wind in the Willows? I do indeed. Thanks. The Stiles & Drewe musical. Thats interesting because the night I went it was full. It was Pride weekend but I don't think that had anything to do with it as it wasn't something the gays would flock to see. |
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Post by andrew on Aug 20, 2024 15:38:06 GMT
Will never forget seeing the Go-Between in the Apollo, Michael Crawford was off, there were 78 people in the stalls with every circle closed. Extremely awkward. I'm glad even if this is not selling as well as predicted it's nowhere near that level of bad.
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Post by unseaworthy on Aug 20, 2024 16:19:24 GMT
My worst was a matinee of Jekyll & Hyde at Liverpool. A gigantic auditorium and no more than 30 people in the audience. I felt so sorry for everyone involved.
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Post by amyja89 on Aug 21, 2024 0:38:24 GMT
Saw this tonight.
I'll start by saying that I have never had any experience of the show in any of its movie/stage variations before, literally went in knowing the title song and half knowing Put On Your Sunday Clothes. Therefore, nothing to compare it to.
A good old fashioned time at the theatre, but quite a baffling storyline for me. I was left a bit perplexed at the end with the final resolution for Dolly/Horace, as his character never felt likeable to me and I never sensed any real chemistry. Is there a consensus that Jenna Russell is rather old for the part she's playing? I know she's a widow, and the story makes a point of saying that Cornelius is 33. Mrs Molloy just seemed so much older than him without any comment.
I thought Staunton was good but perhaps not great, her acting definitely stronger than her singing in this instance. Felt like she was fighting the orchestra at times, but nothing super complaint worthy. (I must admit, I wasn't a fan of her singing in Gypsy either.)
Also a complete aside, but she might one of the tiniest people in the world. I think I could put her in my pocket!
Row C stalls absolutely fine re. height of stage. I'm 5' 3'' and perhaps wouldn't want to be in Row A for a totally great view, but still nowhere near Kathy And Stella levels, for example!
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Post by sph on Aug 21, 2024 2:19:19 GMT
I think that papering and discounts are too readily available in the current era, linked with social media, to be getting any particularly dismal attendance figures in the West End nowadays. Your show would need to be in a painful decline to be seeing less than 100 in the audience. Has anyone seen it happen recently?
On the one hand, Hello Dolly isn't an especially well-known or beloved musical on this side of the Atlantic, so the general public aren't going to rush to see it. On the other hand, it has a good "name" in Staunton, good reviews and decent word-of-mouth, but the Palladium is so huge that even if it sells a decent 1,000 tickets, it's still going to be less than half full which looks more underwhelming than it actually is.
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Post by jr on Aug 21, 2024 6:11:52 GMT
There are quite a few comments about Jenna Russell's age and partnering her with a younger actor. To me that sounds a lot like ageism. I don't think it affects the chemistry between both of them and I didn't have any issues believing the relationship. I think people need to get a grip and stop discriminating because of age. I remember when Vanessa Redgrave & James Earl Jones did Much ado and the reviews mostly focused on their ages. The production was terrible, really boring, but they were fantastic. There was an interesting article in the Guardian about age blind casting a few days ago. www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/aug/14/age-blind-casting-geraldine-james |
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Post by Being Alive on Aug 21, 2024 6:21:32 GMT
I don't think it's ageism, I think Jenna is too old to be playing Irene Malloy and doesn't really get away with it 🤷🏻♂️
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Post by jr on Aug 21, 2024 6:34:50 GMT
We'll have to disagree then. I found Ribbons more touching with the character being older. And still there is prejudice with women being partners to younger men. We know how it goes the other way.
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Post by danb on Aug 21, 2024 6:41:49 GMT
There’s casual ageism and then there is stating a fact. The director made many interesting decisions with this production, and this is not the only age disparity between couples within the show. Going to the theatre to a big brassy old time musical has never particularly been the home of historical & sociological realism has it? I’d suggest just going with it.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Aug 21, 2024 6:45:10 GMT
We know that age is a vague and ethereal thing when it comes to casting. That’s fine up to a point but the bottom line has to be whether it ends up jarring to the point where the audience is taken out of the story. If that happens then it’s failed.
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Post by danb on Aug 21, 2024 7:31:06 GMT
We know that age is a vague and ethereal thing when it comes to casting. That’s fine up to a point but the bottom line has to be whether it ends up jarring to the point where the audience is taken out of the story. If that happens then it’s failed. I’m not sure it did fail for me as I’d no idea of the story going in, history of previous casting etc, but I can fully appreciate that it would jar, but no more than 58 year old Andy Nyman and 68 year old Imelda. I just went to be entertained. |
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