The Secret Garden In Concert - London Palladium 28/8/22

The Secret Garden it is 28th August witrh Mark from Westlife!!

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/the-secret-garden-musical-palladium_56458.html

It’s Lanbert Jackson productions - there’ll probably be another narrator whizzing through the story for us so don’t worry about what book they’ll use. It’s a promising cast but I don’t know if this is something I’ll be willing to pay too whack for.

There was a production at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh over Christmas 2010 with Graham Bickley and Caspar Phillipson.



The cast are listed on this page:

edinburghguide.com/reviews/kids-activities/the-secret-garden-review-7065

They are a good way of hearing shows that are not likely to get full productions

But with pieces like Chess and Kinky Boots, it is hard to see any creative reasons for revisiting them at this time

Agreed, after Camelot I'm going to give it a miss. Books matter in musicals and I want to hear the dialogue, even if the actor has a script to hand.

Baffled that the promo trailer cites The Pirate Queen for Hadley Fraser's previous show. Wasn't it on in 2007? And it flopped. And it wasn't even in this country! Surely they could have cited something he's done more recently & in the UK.

Would be amazed if Mark managed to lose his Irish accent for this. Can’t see him exactly delivering on the acting front.

Hey Bobbie
Thanks for this . Actually I directed a production in 2009 at the Kenneth More Theatre and we used the full original Broadway score :-)

www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/leisure/theatre/4593499.secret-garden-arrives-ilford/

Emma Williams did indeed produce the pure soprano sound that the role required. It was quite beautiful, especially in conjunction with Hadley Fraser's tenor, singing the heartbreaking duet "How could I ever Know" toward the end of the piece.

I thought I wasn't going to be able to see this as I was seeing "Cruise" at the Apollo Shaftesbury at 4pm, but when I checked, I found out that "Cruise" actually ended at 5:40pm and if I walked up Rupert Street and Great Marlborough Street, I could be at the Palladium in ten minutes, so I took advantage of one the Todaytix offers and didn't regret it. I was in my seat with 3 minutes to spare lol.

While the piece is operatic and old-fashioned, and I shouldn't imagine a mass audience today would embrace it today, and while it is not as brilliant a piece about mortality and remembrance as "Cruise" is, it has a final three quarters of an hour that masterfully matches the metaphor of a garden growing to the process of humans growing from and out of the grieving process, and the songs that go with that part of the book ("Wick," "Come Spirit, Come Charm," "A Bit of Earth," "Hold on," "Letter Song," "Mary's Maze," and exceptionally, "How could I Ever Know") were really effective and moving, and this cast of this concert production did them absolute justice.

Some spoilers follow. . .

So "The Secret Garden" is all about the grieving process, and the first half, for me, was hamstrung by songs that aren't sufficiently emotional or impactful and don't reflect the import of the deaths of the loved ones of the characters. I could see why it was the book, rather than the music, which won a Tony.

The songs are operatic in the sense that they have the kind of formal soprano-tenor-baritone-mezzo combinations that you often hear in opera (one song is simply called "Quartet" and showcases all of these singing types lol), and that formality of composition felt too rigid and subtle for me as it never exploded into the Puccini-style dramatic emotionalism that I much prefer in my sad songs lol.

I concede that's all me, as I noticed that after the performance of the first half highlight, "Lily's Eyes" wherein Hadley Fraser and Mark Feehily traded formal sadnesses, tenor to baritone, a bunch of people, who know the piece better than I do, leapt to their feet ovating, whereas I felt I had heard two excellent singers butter up a slightly stale song.

That said, the piece really came to life for me in the second half, when the characters start to rebuild from their respective tragedies, and the songs are about moving on from grief.

I felt Alex Thomas-Smith really shone in "Wick," as Dickon, effortlessly breathing life back into Darcy Jacobs's Mary, as he danced with her around the stage, and the duet between Hadley Fraser and Emma Williams, in Lily's and Archie's final duet, "How Could I Ever Know" was absoutely exceptional, bringing forth a few tears from me despite being all cried out from "Cruise" lol.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I really liked Maiya Quansah-Breed's "Hold on," which was an essential part of the closing section, all of which I liked, and which perked me up mightily.

If only the whole musical was as free and emotional and tender as that last third, and not so prim and buttoned up and formal, I could see it being revived. As it was, it felt like a very niche musical was pampered by some magnificent voices for a night.

3 and a half stars from me.

I was looking up when the show originally played on Broadway and it was on the Wikipedia page for The Secret Garden that it made the claim about it being a first time the original version had played the UK. It did seem an odd claim, given how long the show has been around


A Girl In The Valley, Winters On The Wing, A Bit of Earth, Lily's Eyes are all emotional and impactful songs in the first half. I do agree that it is a slightly old fashioned score compared to some stuff today, but it's definitely not a niche musical. The story is a classic book read by millions and there was a new film of it in 2020 with Colin Firth and Julie Walters.


Given that they used a narrator and didn't do any of the book scenes, how could you see that?

The 1991 Tony Awards was an interesting year. It was the year of Miss Saigon and that was expected to sweep the boards, however it was The Will Rogers Follies that won the most awards. Daisy Eagan who played Mary was put forward in the 'Featured Actress' award, which she won. I would say she should have been in the 'Leading Actress' category,but they knew she couldn't win against Lea Salonga. I also wonder if the Miss Saigon controversy didn't help them win more.

Really? Surprised to read this as that's pretty much what Emma Williams is known for