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Post by Dave B on Apr 30, 2024 10:57:31 GMT
For anyone in tonight, first please do remember that yes it is performed in Japanese and second, please do report back!
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Post by alessia on Apr 30, 2024 20:04:01 GMT
really looking forward to the reviews for this.
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Post by bubblesmcgee on Apr 30, 2024 20:07:48 GMT
First half done - it’s excellent. Staged so well, very true to the movie (my one criticism would be there’s a couple of running sequences that could have been trimmed for the stage!) and the skill on display is immense.
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Post by bubblesmcgee on Apr 30, 2024 21:58:05 GMT
First half done - it’s excellent. Staged so well, very true to the movie (my one criticism would be there’s a couple of running sequences that could have been trimmed for the stage!) and the skill on display is immense. And the second half held up!! If you’re a fan of the movie it’s a perfect night out, if you’re at all interested in stagecraft there’s so much to see. Just wish the legroom in the upper circle wasn’t so tight - I have just about regained feeling in my foot! Merch also great - a lot of Japanese inspired items and an exclusive No-Face London Coliseum pin badge. I think I might treat myself to a printed gauze handkerchief next time…
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Post by 141920grm on May 1, 2024 0:40:23 GMT
echoing all above… completely charming, and the frog puppeteer recovered brilliantly and professionally too! lol
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Post by bubblesmcgee on May 1, 2024 6:42:28 GMT
echoing all above… completely charming, and the frog puppeteer recovered brilliantly and professionally too! lol Yes!! His cheer at the end was so well deserved!
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1,011 posts
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Post by David J on May 1, 2024 17:19:06 GMT
Really enjoyed this. Reluctant to spend high prices nowadays but this was £96 well spent
Only occasionally did I feel the running time. But this is such an engrossing production. Well performed and it was glorious hearing the theme music with a full orchestra
4.5 stars
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1,011 posts
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Post by David J on May 1, 2024 17:27:46 GMT
There was an incident when the water god is meant to fly out over the audience except it detached from the wiring and fell over some audience members. Thankfully no one was hurt and staff were prompt to remove it
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Post by 141920grm on May 1, 2024 22:18:08 GMT
There was an incident when the water god is meant to fly out over the audience except it detached from the wiring and fell over some audience members. Thankfully no one was hurt and staff were prompt to remove it lol whoops! it did zip around pretty fast, they'll be triple checking it's secure every time before it goes out now
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Post by apubleed on May 2, 2024 9:20:36 GMT
God that was boring. Sorry.
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2,797 posts
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Post by ceebee on May 2, 2024 10:46:54 GMT
God that was boring. Sorry. I felt the same about Totoro.
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Post by ntherooh on May 2, 2024 20:08:24 GMT
God that was boring. Sorry. Did you like the film?
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Post by hoopoe on May 2, 2024 22:48:12 GMT
Saw this on Wednesday night. It's a very faithful recreation of the film, and my partner felt sometimes to a fault, where something more entertaining might have been achieved by deviating a little, but I think it was an interesting experience to see something animated and largely featuring non-human characters fully brought to life.
For me, the joy with this show is entirely in the puppetry, costumes and effects. I loved the fun way they did the 3 green heads, was really impressed by the physicality of No-Face's performer, and delighted by the stinky spirit costume. I've always found Ghibli films a bit blah but often love certain characters in them, so for me this amplification of the character designs though finding creative ways to bring them to life is really all I wanted from this show.
I didn't feel we lost anything for seeing an early preview; the only issues I noticed were minor things with the captions. Sometimes they skipped ahead of what was happening, but they would then go back to the right place, so ultimately no lines were missed, and at one point it read 'tha's' instead of 'that's'.
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1,226 posts
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Post by Steve on May 4, 2024 23:20:29 GMT
Saw this tonight and felt it was absolutely magical. Some spoilers follow. . . It's wall-to-wall orchestral music, which I didn't remember from the film (I saw it in the cinema way back when) but which I'm a sucker for, as you can never pile on enough primal emotion for my tastes. Everything that happens on the stage seems to be underscored. The cast seem to vary each night, many being triple cast, so as a huge admirer of the film, I was beyond chuffed that we got Mari Natsuki as the principal villain, Yubaba, as she originated the part in the movie, and is simply wonderful. There's a big blue board as you go in that tells you who you're getting. The puppets are really colourful, evocative and special. It's War Horse style puppeteering for all the dragons, and stink monsters and sooties, which all seem to be alive. But the best effects, for me, involved a strong human element at their core, so Kamaji, played tonight by the ever-inquisitive, uber-compassionate, wide-eyed Tomorowo Taguchi, was really something, his long spider-like extra arms puppeteered to make him resemble an ever-active human spinning loom. Possibly one of the most commanding performances is by one of the very few single-cast characters, Hikaru Yamano, as No-Face, whose face, amusingly, given the character's name, you never see, until the bows. But, god, his physicality, his balletic movements, his sheer strangeness, the way he drifts and his body twists and turns unnaturally, and how he stops dead still to stare, Mona-Lisa-like at the audience, is gripping in it's ethereality. You'd swear he really wasn't human. And when the puppeteering starts, to grow his body by exponentially adding more and more people into his character's being, it's a wonder that tops even the wonderful Totoro, in my opinion. The other great fantastical character, with a human core, is the three green bobbing heads of Kashira, played by Yuya Igarashi (also single cast, thank goodness, so everyone can see him), hench creature of the principal villain, Yubaba. Igarashi gives the biggest performance in the show, an exaggerated comic performance, a performance that has to be so big it fills three heads, two of which he carries. Big performances can be risky because if they miss the mark they are embarrassing, but this one, for me, is downright hilarious, the funniest thing in the show, topping even the sooties. We had Mone Kamishiraishi, as Chihiro, the lead character, and one thing I would note is that it's a far more subtle, thoughtful and engaging lead performance than that in Totoro, where the character plays much younger. Here, there is simply no way to be pushed out of the story by wacky comic wailing and the like, with a tender believable emotive core to the performance at all times. As a reviewer noted above, the story told is absolutely faithful to the film (I imagine that's what Miyazaki wanted), so that does mean that to be surprised, you really need to have almost forgotten the film, or never seen it at all lol. Anyhow, this is a wonderful show. Its in Japanese, so you do have to read surtitles if you don't speak the language, but it's easy and natural enough to do if you are happy to read subtitles for films generally. For me, 4 and a half stars of sustained magical musical wonder.
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Post by 141920grm on May 6, 2024 11:15:50 GMT
God that was boring. Sorry. Don't apologise to us, only to yourself for being unenlightened! (obviously joking)
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Post by timothyd on May 8, 2024 18:19:40 GMT
Any chance it will run longer then August?
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Post by blamerobots on May 8, 2024 18:21:47 GMT
Any chance it will run longer then August? If it can book out a theatre the same size as the Coliseum!! ENO are announcing their new season soon. It's been thought this is likely headed on a world tour.
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887 posts
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Post by lonlad on May 8, 2024 22:06:58 GMT
Purely one for the fans and the obsessives, unlike TOTORO which has a far more overt emotional appeal. This is a big, huge lug of a production and obviously looks great and cost a bomb. But was I viscerally engaged at any point as I was throughout TOTORO? (And why is it an hour longer than the film?)
Alas no.
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Post by parsley1 on May 8, 2024 22:36:18 GMT
It is very long
There are moments of genius
I think for me the main issue is
Children are not going to be able to follow the surtitles
And unless they speak Japanese they will be stuck
I preferred this to Totoro which is below panto for me
But both are quite weird tbh
Better a new piece of work than incessant adaptations
Please 🙏🏽
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887 posts
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Post by lonlad on May 8, 2024 23:27:18 GMT
Mostly 3 star reviews so far -- The Stage, Times, Telegraph, Standard, Variety (that last one unrated but reads like a 3 star) and then 4 stars from the FT and - yikes - The Guardian.
3 is about right, I think; don't look for this to sweep the Oliviers next year as did Totoro did not long ago.
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