Spitting Image The Musical - Birmingham Rep / Phoenix

[Rory]

Mar 23, 2023 9:01:53 GMT zahidf said:

Mar 21, 2023 18:13:02 GMT Rory said:

Phoenix, apparently.

12th May - 26th August.



Would have preferred Into the Woods, personally!

Confirmed as above

Except it starts 24th May

[theatrenerd]

Also renamed as “The Musical” so guess this thread needs to move categories!

[djdan14]

Mar 23, 2023 9:28:07 GMT theatrenerd said:

Also renamed as “The Musical” so guess this thread needs to move categories!

Just saw this on tik tok and came here to check I wasn’t imaging it was a play before

[TallPaul]

As we don't yet have a 'Satire with Songs' section, I've moved the thread from 'Plays' to 'Musicals'.  

[westendboy]

Glad that this will be making it's way over to London! I imagine it did well enough in Birmingham to warrant a West End run, which I hope will be equally as successful.

[mkb]

Mar 27, 2023 13:11:49 GMT westendboy said:

Glad that this will be making it's way over to London! I imagine it did well enough in Birmingham to warrant a West End run, which I hope will be equally as successful.

If you measure success in terms of show quality, it was one. In terms of paying bums on seats, it was a bit of a disaster based on my own experience (one third full) and a few other accounts, which is a great pity.

I hope they can find an audience in the West End. They'll need not to be greedy with pricing.

[anita]

Has anybody seen this yet? I'm wondering whether to get a ticket.

[karen13]

I got a Rush Ticket for this from TodayTix last Sunday as I wanted to see what it was like but didn't want to pay the full prices.

I was in row G of the stalls. It wasn't very full. They had closed the upper circle and FOH staff were moving people from the back of the stalls further forward to empty seats.

If you aren't too offended by people making jokes about politicians, royals and celebrities and you like silly, slightly rude comedies then you might enjoy it. If you don't like that sort of thing then it is probably one to avoid.

[mrnutz]

I'd see this but not at those prices!

[anthony40]

Definitely not my thing.

I saw a couple of minutes of King Charles ad Harry on Good Morning. Allison Hammond and Dermott O'Leary were trying to keep a straight face.

[talkingheads]

This was a massive let down. 1980s Spitting Image had writers with razor sharp wit. 2023 Spitting Image makes gags that can be found a hundred times over on Twitter, only the online gags would be funnier. Lazy, hack jokes about how Allisn Hammond has a funny laugh and how rich Ant and Dec are. Hilarious.

Not.

I did raise a titter at the Chas'n'Dave policemen, the Priti Patel scene will stay with me and I have to say the puppeteers do an amazing job, but otherwise a very damp squib.

[Steve]

Saw the matinee, and preferred the songs (entertaining and well-choreographed) to the book (on the nose, no edge humour, more smiles than laughs, with a couple of glorious exceptions).

The fact that you don't get the voice talents live is well-advertised, but nonetheless a disappointment. (When Simon Lipkin does puppets, it's always as much fun to watch his expressions as watch the puppets lol).

The Suella Braverman puppet is funny.

Some spoilers follow. . .

It's right to call this a musical as the musical numbers are the most fun: it's sly and fun to hear Queen's "We Will rock you" subverted into "We Will rule you;" it's cheeky and fun to hear the Special's masterpiece, "Enjoy yourself (it's later than you think)" sung primarily by the dead Queen dancing in the aisles; it's scathingly supremely fun to hear and see Michael Jackson's "Thriller" become "Suella," where the dancing monsters are celebrating our increasingly debauched cruelty as a society; and it's brilliantly satirically fun to hear Boris Johnson (and Rishi Sunak) gleefully sing Edith Piaf's "No, I regret Nothing," as the victims of all his lies are displayed behind him on a screen.

What distinguished the last song from most of the humour in this show is that it had more than one layer. One layer would be "Boris Johnson did this," which is generally how the humour in this show is: eg: "Harry wrote and promotes a book, Spare" is a one-note joke we see repeatedly throughout the show, as Harry constantly bigs up his book "Spare" from the "Royal Box" at the side of the stage (without commenting further on how Harry or anyone else feels or reacts to his promoting the book). But the Johnson song is not so much about the one note joke of how much he did and got away with, it focuses instead on his narcissistic lack of remorse (his real downfall, as someone whose every body language and utterance suggests he cares about nobody but himself, certainly not anyone stupid enough to obey rules set by him).

So, while I liked most of the songs, I loved that one.

And while I was meh about most of the book (I mean, Ian McKellen telling us about his panto role in "Mother Goose" and doing bits from his career only reminded me that for the same money you could see real Ian McKellen do all that live in "Mother Goose" with ten times better comic timing and actual charm, including a similar plot about a bunch of misfits on a mission to save the world), I thought the Nigel-Farage-mans-the-border sketch was a laugh riot. Basically, Farage goes back to being Old Farage, the one that used to say racist things before he cleaned up his act, and he lets loose on our heroes, including acting out the German sketch from "Fawlty Towers" every time Jürgen Klopp showed up lol, only to get battered when he turns on the world boxing champion lol.

Anyhow, this has some really good laughs amid the smiles. I had 3 stars of fun.

PS: for a Saturday matinee, this was very sparsely populated, so if this appeals to you, act quickly, as I wouldn't be shocked if the run was curtailed.

[mrnutz]

I saw this last night with a £25 ticket in a '£160' seat (LOL - has anyone actually paid this?).

Enjoyable to see the puppets and the puppeteering up close, but the gags were pretty hit and miss. I enjoyed enough of it to get my £25 worth but it's not something I'd recommend to anyone else.

There were a LOT of empty seats in the stalls, Grand Circle was closed and I'm not sure how busy the dress was.

Not sure whether this will limp along for another month or they'll put it out of its misery...

[drowseychap]

Why they gave this a west end run and not what’s new pussycat is one of life’s great mysteries …. Still one of the best musicals I’ve seen in a long long time standing ovation every performance

[anthony40]

I don't know what's coming in next at the Phoenix but it seems this is a 'filler in' show.

Would you rather have an empty theatre?

I was have lunch at the Montague Pyke Wetherspoons yesterday before seeing Brokeback Mountain yesterday and there were two couples who were going to see it- it's (literally) across the road, so there's clearly a demand for it out there.

The Pub Landlord- Al Murray is somehow involved with this.

[westendboy]

Jul 30, 2023 11:46:40 GMT anthony40 said:

I don't know what's coming in next at the Phoenix but it seems this is a 'filler in' show.

Would you rather have an empty theatre?

I was have lunch at the Montague Pyke Wetherspoons yesterday before seeing Brokeback Mountain yesterday and there were two couples who were going to see it- it's (literally) across the road, so there's clearly a demand for it out there.

The Pub Landlord- Al Murray is somehow involved with this.

I think it's the 'Stranger Things' show coming in after this.

[mattnyc]

TodayTix is having a sale where every seat for every remaining performance is £25.

[A.Ham]

Aug 9, 2023 23:35:51 GMT mattnyc said:

TodayTix is having a sale where every seat for every remaining performance is £25.

This one really does seem to be limping along until it’s closing date.