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Post by bobbievanhusen on Sept 8, 2022 22:56:09 GMT
Has anyone been to see this yet?
I just noticed a review in The Guardian that was put online this evening, the first thing i've really seen about it.
I'm going on Saturday. I do hope Gloria Onitiri has more to work with than she did in Cinderella. It's a bit of a random cast, including
Jodie Steele, Keith Allen and Annabel Giles.
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Post by robertb213 on Sept 8, 2022 23:08:22 GMT
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Post by FrontroverPaul on Oct 20, 2023 1:32:55 GMT
New run announced at a new theatre space. From 12 January to 17 February at Neon 194, 194 Piccadilly Street, St James's, London W1. Tickets from £36.50.
Keith Allen and Jodie Steele again among the cast.
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Post by bobbievanhusen on Oct 20, 2023 8:00:29 GMT
Is Don Black producing his son's show again? I hope they have done some work on it.
Funny enough, Mica Paris was in the audience when i saw the show last year.
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Post by Mark on Oct 20, 2023 9:45:13 GMT
That entry level pricing point of £36.50 doesn’t bode well.
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Post by anthony40 on Oct 20, 2023 10:04:24 GMT
Just got a WhatsOnStahe email about this.
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Post by capybara on Jan 17, 2024 23:23:02 GMT
This is really, really bad. The score is utter dirge (the wanker song and its many reprises being the tip of the iceberg) and the book is dreadful.
They’ve assembled a seriously strong cast but have no idea how to use them.
Avoid.
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Post by westendwhistledown on Jan 18, 2024 10:22:50 GMT
It wasn't half as bad as I had imagined. Agreed, cast is brilliantly strong. Something just isn't quite THERE - perhaps the book? With the ending it has, it needs more detail with the Jodie Steele character because we don't get enough of her backstory to make the ending great. It has potential and was a fun night
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Post by link on Jan 18, 2024 12:58:55 GMT
Reviews seem to be good so far:
4 stars from The Stage, 4 stars from Jonathan Baz, 4 stars from Theatre Weekly
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Post by theinvisiblegirl on Jan 18, 2024 14:51:15 GMT
Can anyone tell me the running time for this please?
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Post by westendwhistledown on Jan 18, 2024 15:04:40 GMT
Came down at 10pm so 2 hours 30 x
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Post by bigredapple on Jan 20, 2024 22:40:56 GMT
Caught this tonight with a rush ticket
It’s not the worst thing I’ve seen, but definitely questionable in parts.
Stars of the show for me were Mica Paris and Maiya Quansah-Breed, although the former seemed horse tonight so hope she’s okay.
Agree with the above comments re the wanker song. It was dreadful, and 3 reprises including the encore left a bad taste for me.
For me, all of the comedy felt like cheap laughs. The better moments of the show were the more serious ones.
The audience seemed to enjoy it. Standing ovation and packed house.
Venue was certainly interesting. It’s literally the private hire room underneath a bar. Still has booths etc that they’ve built seats on top of. Seats weren’t that comfy, but that’s to be expected I suppose. Not sure if this will be a venue going forward or if the bar are just making some money in the empty space during the quiet season
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Post by capybara on Jan 21, 2024 0:05:15 GMT
The point about the comedy is fair as well. Barry Bronze was an excruciating character with his 1970s style of humour.
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Post by corblimey on Jan 27, 2024 17:37:11 GMT
I don’t think it’s selling that well,heavily papered and the Black brothers go most nights inviting everyone they know it seems to see it!
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Post by kyvai on Feb 1, 2024 23:24:29 GMT
Wow, went to this tonight and, well. It’s terrible! Some truly dreadful writing - “my museum of loss, hanging around my neck like an albatross” - I mean come on loves, who does that to Mica Paris. You’ve already cast her as a stereotype with the Black Lady Therapist trope. And yes as others have said, the writers definitely find the word wanker far too amusing. One round would have been fine, but it got boring, and was that really the messsge you were aiming for. For a new musical it felt very unoriginal, stuffed with tired clichés and a very predictable book. The music wasn’t awful in the moment, but I only left the venue 20 minutes ago as I write this and can’t remember any of the tunes.
However, there were some impressive performances, both vocally and dramatically. The calibre of the performers here is bizarrely at odds with the quality of the production. For me the absolute stand out was Oscar Conlon-Morrey - he was on point vocally, and delivered several honestly heartfelt scenes but also the peak comedic moments of the show. The man managed to genuinely pull off a song about cheese for goodness sake. Thinking about it, his role is given the most backstory and most character development in the whole show, which is odd for a supporting chatacter. Jodie Steele was missing tonight, which was disappointing at first but honestly she’d be wasted here anyway.
The cast appeared to enjoy themselves though, and it was well received in the room overall (I felt like I’d seen a different production from the general crowd reaction!) but I definitely picked up there were a lot of friends/family of people associated with the production present. A row of six or seven people behind me were singing along throughout the show, as well as commenting amongst themselves not so quietly at other times, and they clearly rated it.
2* from me and 1.5* of that is for the performances only, the piece itself is a train wreck.
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Post by kyvai on Feb 1, 2024 23:37:04 GMT
Reviews seem to be good so far: 4 stars from The Stage, 4 stars from Jonathan Baz, 4 stars from Theatre Weekly The shows website boasts a 5* review from Jonathan Baz, although there’s also a pull quote I can’t see anywhere in the review published on his site. Perhaps that’s a mix-up.
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Post by musicbox on Feb 1, 2024 23:43:27 GMT
I went to see this tonight for the sole reason that I'm a pretty much life long Mica Paris fan, having seen her around 10 times in her own gigs and when she was in Fame (I sadly wasn't born yet when she was in Mamma I want To Sing, but feel like it would've been incredible!). She's one of the best singers in the world in my opinion and the way her career was mishandled by her record label in her prime years is criminal, as she's the natural successor of Chaka Khan, but that's another story...
Having said that though, I was slightly taken aback by just how shockingly bad this show was, it actually felt like a parody from a sketch show that was highlighting all of the worst cliches of musical theatre in my opinion.
The cast are all amazingly talented, but the songs are cringe, the lyrics are awful, the book is paper thin and the whole thing feels like a vanity project for the producers. There were multiple times I had to physically hold in a laugh, and not in a good way.
Jodie Steel was also off tonight which I was a bit gutted about, but Maiya Breed did a great job.
I also found the venue to be terrible - my behind and legs were physically aching at around 20 minutes in! The concrete plastic seats are also extremely close together, meaning that the man next to me was unintentionally (I hope) constantly playing footsie with me. There was an empty seat next to me, so I moved to that one for act 2, but annoyingly the man then made use of that and spread across two seats, meaning his feet stretched out just as close to me as before - you really can't win with some people!
A lot of the creative team were in the audience tonight, with Grant Black doing the rounds of the audience before the show and seemingly having a lot of invited friends present.
The most notable of these friends was Craig David, which lead to one of the most bizarre things I've seen in a while...Craig was sitting in the second row, so Grant made the two people in front of him in row A move in order to give him an unobstructed view! Craig was objecting to this but Grant insisted - it all just felt a little bizarre as obviously those people had paid for a ticket? I personally wouldn't have moved.
I also wouldn't recommended sitting in the front row, as the intimacy of the venue means you become part of the staging. At one point Christian Maynard flung his hand forward to show frustration and almost slapped my face - I literally jumped out of my skin!
Overall I'm just a bit shocked by this show, I wasn't expecting a lot but it really exceeded anything that I could imagine. There are so many dated jokes that just don't land and the wanker song is like something that a 10 year old would write as a dare. During the encore Mica even started laughing in embarrassment at what she was singing, it just felt so beneath her.
I'd recommend going just for Mica's incredible performance of 'Museum of Loss', but I'd avoid otherwise.
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