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Post by anthony40 on Jan 9, 2023 21:08:33 GMT
The stage musical Betty Blue Eyes with Sarah Lancashire and Reece Sheersmith from about 10 years ago.
A cracking production.
Does anyone know if this was professionally filmed at all.
I know that most West End shows are professionally filmed- even for prosperity's sake and (I believe) it was a Cameron Mackintosh production, so I'd find it hard to believe that it wasn't.
Anyone know anything?
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Post by partytentdown on Jan 9, 2023 21:19:25 GMT
It was less common to film stuff 'just because' at that time. It was very expensive (still is, but not as much) and actor contracts didn't usually allow for a full recording to be broadcast or sold even if it was filmed.
Most shows would film selected extracts to be used in press coverage and adverts and actor contracts generally allow short sections to be used for this purpose only.
Nowadays it's generally expected that shows will be captured, at the very least for archive but usually with a streaming/cinema release in mind, and contracts allow for this.
In short, unlikely it was filmed in full, and even less likely to be released commercially if it was.
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Post by alece10 on Jan 9, 2023 22:17:22 GMT
I so enjoyed this musical and got to see it several times during its shortish run.
I remember meeting Sarah Lancashire at one of the famous Dress Circle CD signings and she said she believed the show would have another life at some point. I do hope that is true.
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Post by Jon on Jan 9, 2023 22:31:36 GMT
I so enjoyed this musical and got to see it several times during its shortish run. I remember meeting Sarah Lancashire at one of the famous Dress Circle CD signings and she said she believed the show would have another life at some point. I do hope that is true. It's a shame that Betty Blue Eyes was the last time that Sarah Lancashire did theatre and I feel lucky I saw her in it. |
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Post by benny20 on Jan 9, 2023 22:42:31 GMT
Saw her as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors at Oldham Coliseum....She used to get really bad stage fright
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Post by Being Alive on Jan 10, 2023 0:01:16 GMT
Lancashire should play Rose - she's one of our best talents and a terrific musical theatre star.
Had it not been for 'Matilda fever' that year, she'd have won an Olivier for this too.
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Post by bobbievanhusen on Jan 10, 2023 0:46:42 GMT
There is a pro filmed video recording out there of the 2013 production in Wichita, Kansas, that used very similar staging.
If you watch this clip, you would think they also used Sarah Lancashire's accent too, because the woman playing Joyce sounds just like her
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Post by alece10 on Jan 10, 2023 8:37:18 GMT
I so enjoyed this musical and got to see it several times during its shortish run. I remember meeting Sarah Lancashire at one of the famous Dress Circle CD signings and she said she believed the show would have another life at some point. I do hope that is true. It's a shame that Betty Blue Eyes was the last time that Sarah Lancashire did theatre and I feel lucky I saw her in it. She was due appear in Labour of Love with Martin Freeman a few years ago and was replaced at the last minute by Tamsin Greig. I wonder if this was due to her stage fright. |
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jan 10, 2023 9:54:35 GMT
She was also in the UK premiere production of Pacific Overtures at the Wythenshawe Forum c1985
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Post by alece10 on Jan 10, 2023 10:07:30 GMT
And Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre with Euen McGregor. I think that was the first musical I saw her in.
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Post by alicechallice on Jan 10, 2023 13:10:26 GMT
And Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre with Euen McGregor. I think that was the first musical I saw her in. And she left that production rather suddenly. |
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Post by anthony40 on Jan 10, 2023 13:18:57 GMT
I so enjoyed this musical and got to see it several times during its shortish run. I remember meeting Sarah Lancashire at one of the famous Dress Circle CD signings and she said she believed the show would have another life at some point. I do hope that is true. I too was at that CD signing and had photographs taken with the cast. The cast recording is still on my i-Tunes and every now and then a song will come up on random play and I'm transported back to theatre, watching the matinee with some friends. |
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Post by adrianics on Jan 12, 2023 11:13:54 GMT
Betty Blue Eyes is an absolutely cracking musical. The book is really funny and has fantastic farce set pieces, and the score contains some of Stiles and Drewes' best work (I especially love "The Kind of Man I am").
The show is open for amateur licencing but most companies won't go near it. An amateur company I was a part of back when I lived in London put the show on in 2017 and while the production was spectacular, it flopped so badly that the company nearly folded. I think a huge problem with the show is a lack of recognisability, barely anyone outside of theatrical or literacy circles has heard of "A Private Function" and the plot is rather difficult to explain concisely. There's just next to nothing immediately obvious to entice Joe Public to go and see it, which is a shame because I've yet to meet anyone who's seen it who hasn't enjoyed it.
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Post by anthony40 on Jan 19, 2023 22:08:43 GMT
Just came across this on Twitter.
Sarah Lancashire singing 'Nobody' from Betty Blue Eyes
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Post by benny20 on Jan 19, 2023 22:48:34 GMT
Saw her playing Audrey in Little shop of horrors at Oldham Coliseum...she was superb...although she suffers terribly from stage fright
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Post by anthony40 on Jan 20, 2023 10:43:49 GMT
I remember catching a matinee of this show with some friends, as one of them had a cousin vising from El-Salvador.
I remember that we all purchased half-priced tickets on my recommendation and that we went in knowing nothing about the story or the music and that throughout the show we all laughed and at the end really enjoyed it
Both leads were excellent and the predicament Gilbert (Reece Sheershmith) found himself in with the pig in the second act was hysterical!
We enjoyed it so much so that when she returned to El-Salador she trouble explaining the show in running order to her father and the relevance of the pig.
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Post by anthony40 on Mar 1, 2023 14:03:00 GMT
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Post by crowblack on Mar 1, 2023 14:29:55 GMT
I think a huge problem with the show is a lack of recognisability, barely anyone outside of theatrical or literacy circles has heard of "A Private Function" and the plot is rather difficult to explain concisely. I saw it at our local independent cinema when it first came out, and I'm amazed it's not better known, though I doubt Handmade Films had much in the way of a promotional budget. It was on Talking Pictures TV recently (Freeview 82 or 81) and is free to view on their 'Encore' channel online and through your TV till the 6th March. |
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Post by anthony40 on Mar 1, 2023 16:22:09 GMT
I guess Cameron Mackintosh has an excuse to drag out his multi-million dollar animatronic pig that's been hiding in a shed somewhere in the English countryside all these years and get her working again.
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Post by bobbievanhusen on Mar 1, 2023 17:27:57 GMT
Thanks for the heads up. Have just booked. Was this only just announced? It starts at the end of the month.
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Post by alece10 on Mar 1, 2023 17:41:04 GMT
Thanks for the heads up. Have just booked. Was this only just announced? It starts at the end of the month. I believe it was only announced today but there have been rumours for a couple of weeks now but no indication of the theatre. |
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Post by anthony40 on Mar 2, 2023 19:11:33 GMT
Booked!
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Post by jr on Mar 2, 2023 22:32:05 GMT
It's a shame that Betty Blue Eyes was the last time that Sarah Lancashire did theatre and I feel lucky I saw her in it. She was due appear in Labour of Love with Martin Freeman a few years ago and was replaced at the last minute by Tamsin Greig. I wonder if this was due to her stage fright. I think it was due to how bad that play was. She pulled out just in time! |
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Post by anita on Mar 4, 2023 10:44:06 GMT
I wanted to see the original run of this but I was skint. I've never been to this theatre before but booked.
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Post by tmesis on Apr 2, 2023 16:22:31 GMT
Has anyone seen this?
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Post by anthony40 on Apr 2, 2023 17:36:46 GMT
I am there on Tuesday night
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Post by benny20 on Apr 2, 2023 18:31:09 GMT
Is it true they are only being paid a pittance for appearing in this show??
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Post by kirsty86 on Apr 2, 2023 19:29:50 GMT
I went to this last week and was so looking forward to it. Missed the first run but love the album and have to say I didn’t like it unfortunately. I’ve seen nothing but good things from anyway else, so must just be a me thing! It’s such a small theatre so the cast didn’t seem to have mics on, which was fine for everyone except the actress playing the lead as her singing voice was so quiet it was hard to hear over the music. Also seemed too weird to me that she’s meant to be middle aged but the actress was early 20s from what I could see, so it made some of her lines seem very strange when talking about her life.
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Post by Dave B on Apr 2, 2023 19:32:43 GMT
Is it true they are only being paid a pittance for appearing in this show?? It appears to be. Mark Shenton has pointed to it and had a few Twitter spats over it in the last couple of weeks. There is a thread here if you want... |
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Post by max on Apr 3, 2023 10:15:24 GMT
It's been known for some time that Mark Shenton will no longer review plays/musicals that aren't produced under the Equity Fringe Agreement. That's a fair and principled stand. What's new is that I haven't noticed him 'going for' a show before, in the way he has this. Isn't withdrawing his support/publicity for it enough? Why single this one out specifically for what feels like public shaming?
The debates around 'no pay/low pay' have been rehearsed at length, and The Stage newspaper used to have a whole tab on it (perhaps they still do). It's possible to revive that discussion - as Shenton is quite fairly doing - without raining down bricks on one particular show/producer.
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