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Post by Ade on Dec 7, 2017 13:59:04 GMT
Also, there was a fox and a cat? (I think its a cat) who convince Pinocchio to run away and be an actor. The fox is included, the cat is not. In a nice little nod, the fox does have a cat on the top of his walking stick. Interesting the lack of love for the human puppets. Wonder if being in row B of the stalls helped me like them more. I felt like I was looking up at them as though I was part of Pinocchio's world - which is presumably the effect it was trying to achieve. At least that's what I took from it because when the blue fairy is then in Pinocchio's world she is more of a similar size to him. Overall I barely even looked at the human actor underneath.
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Post by Ade on Dec 6, 2017 23:34:45 GMT
Is there any secret to finding this view? Ticketmaster always redirects me to it selecting seats for me and I can’t work out how to switch it to a pick your own option. I was wondering the same! Only seems to work in Firefox on my Mac
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Post by Ade on Dec 5, 2017 11:42:09 GMT
I do think they have been very clever with their use of puppetry in this. Don’t want to give anything away but they’ve taken a very different approach to it which wouldn’t be immediately obvious, and it’s probably one of the strongest parts of the production.
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Post by Ade on Dec 5, 2017 8:12:23 GMT
Will be tricky trying to explain to youngsters who the two huge humans in period costume operating that very small cricket puppet are... “Mummy, is that Jiminy Cricket’s mummy and daddy?” “No Darling, just try to imagine they’re not there” Didn’t notice any kids having trouble the other day. But then before Jiminy appears there has been other puppetry that helps make it make sense.
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Post by Ade on Dec 2, 2017 10:14:47 GMT
People sounding a bit subdued over this. Could we have a christmas turkey on our hands? 🦃 🎄 Definitely don’t think so. I reckon by press night it will come across sleeker. It has a lot going for it. Stylistically I really like it (the puppetry is brilliant!) and there was a still a point at the end that was quite moving. But it was very much a first preview so it’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
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Post by Ade on Dec 1, 2017 22:56:09 GMT
Also where did Chris Jarman go? I swear he was originally announced as Stromboli.
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Post by Ade on Dec 1, 2017 22:37:11 GMT
Silly question but is it more like the film or a mix of the film and the original novel? I'm curious to see how the Donkey sequence is done and Monstro too. It’s a long time since I read the novel but it’s definitely very in line with the film
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Post by Ade on Dec 1, 2017 22:12:51 GMT
Not exactly, not been much singing so far. Some pepole behind me love it, some people to my left think something is missing. Sadly I agree with the people to my left at the moment, but maybe the second half will be amazing, who knows! I definitely think it was missing something but it equally has a lot going for it. Also stylistically it jumps between feeling like something for the kids and something very akin to Cursed Child. It jumps between feeling like a play with music and a musical (the second half being far more musical). I’ve come out having enjoyed it but there’s some tightening up to do in previews, which I think will result in a stronger piece. I did feel that the whale in act two was slightly lacking from my seat in row B, so intrigued to know if others felt it wasn’t as impressive as it was clearly meant to be.
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Post by Ade on Nov 22, 2017 6:35:28 GMT
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Post by Ade on Nov 17, 2017 7:36:51 GMT
The pricing here is crazy. It’s all over the place. I don’t think £35 is too bad for back of the upper circle (considering what you can end up paying at the back of the upper circle over at The Lion King) but the inconsistency in price compared to quality of view is ludicrous. How can a seat in the middle of the upper circle (where you end up looking around people’s heads to see the stage) only be worth £10 less than a seat right up front by the stage.
I’m presumably the £15 will be those first two rows of the upper circle which are normally a reduced price - none of them seem to be on sale from what I can see...
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Post by Ade on Nov 8, 2017 12:08:40 GMT
was on two devices and it didn't make me log in on either. Weird. I was using IE on one, Firefox on the other. You? Safari on my Mac and safari on iPhone
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Post by Ade on Nov 7, 2017 19:39:33 GMT
Maybe it doesn't actually matter which way around you do it? It made me log in before I could enter the waiting room at 8.25am that then went on to join the queue at 8.30am when booking opened. Rather odd - I was on two devices and it didn't make me log in on either.
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Post by Ade on Nov 7, 2017 12:20:36 GMT
Surprisingly smooth this morning. 401 on one machine, 2007 on the other. Got to the front at 8.43am, was about to go in, but they paused the system. Heartstopper... re-started at 8.45am, straight through, John, McB and Hell booked in a few minutes, no problems at all. Looks like they may have fixed it. Oh, and you do have to log in before joining the line, not after, as the email they sent round yesterday stated. And you can log into your account twice on two different machines - but remember you have to log out on both twice too. Also, noticed at 9.45am, there was no longer any queue. I definitely logged in after I got through the queue and all went well for me. Maybe it doesn't actually matter which way around you do it?
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Post by Ade on Oct 29, 2017 10:17:09 GMT
Just a minor gripe of mine but I find all the new artwork for the season very drab. I remember commenting when Norris first came on board how dull everything looked, then just lately we have been treated to some lovely designs for Follies, AiA and plenty of the others. But this new set of artwork looks like virtually no effort has been put into it. John is about the best of a bad bunch.
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Post by Ade on Oct 26, 2017 11:43:40 GMT
Think they are in the process of posting it all because the website is intermittently not working at all for me. Managed to get through to see the on sale dates etc though. 7th November for Priority - my card is going to be feeling the pain this month with Macbeth, John and Absolute Hell on sale.
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Post by Ade on Oct 24, 2017 18:15:51 GMT
Looks like The Donmar will have to get the restraining order out for Ryan as Jonathan Bailey has been in cast in The York Realist! I’d best get booking for The York Realist then.
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Post by Ade on Oct 24, 2017 5:15:52 GMT
Was there tonight as well. Row A of the stalls, so had the same problem that everyone else is reporting. That said it probably added a maximum of 3-4 mins to leaving the auditorium, which in the scheme of things wasn’t too bad. The theatre is lovely though - so nice to have plenty of space in both the foyer and the leg space department. Slight aside but I found the flooring in the stalls a little odd - a little bit village hall bargain lino rather than nice carpeting. The play itself was all a bit average for my liking. It was a perfectly pleasant evening but it never quite felt like it found its feet. At no point did it feel that it quite knew what it actually wanted to be. Some solid casting. That said I came out preferring the female cast to the male. A lovely set by Mark Thompson made good use of the space too. After a good few months of pretending my blog doesn’t exist I decided to post my thoughts on this one. Here’s a link for anyone interested: thewestendwanderer.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/review-young-marx-bridge-theatre-london/
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Post by Ade on Oct 21, 2017 23:50:53 GMT
Was there tonight as well. Row A of the stalls, so had the same problem that everyone else is reporting. That said it probably added a maximum of 3-4 mins to leaving the auditorium, which in the scheme of things wasn’t too bad. The theatre is lovely though - so nice to have plenty of space in both the foyer and the leg space department. Slight aside but I found the flooring in the stalls a little odd - a little bit village hall bargain lino rather than nice carpeting.
The play itself was all a bit average for my liking. It was a perfectly pleasant evening but it never quite felt like it found its feet. At no point did it feel that it quite knew what it actually wanted to be. Some solid casting. That said I came out preferring the female cast to the male. A lovely set by Mark Thompson made good use of the space too.
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Post by Ade on Oct 14, 2017 19:45:58 GMT
Alexandra Burke could do it. With her finger in her ear ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) I'm not a Burke fan but I've just watched her dance to Proud Mary in Strictly (wonder whose song choice that was) and heard her react in awe when Bruno said he'd worked with Tina. Mmm....I wonder. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they got her in to do it. Would sell plenty of tickets after Strictly exposure. There’d be about five weeks between the Strictly tour finishing and this starting previews.
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Post by Ade on Oct 4, 2017 23:28:33 GMT
Please PLEASE tell me this isn’t anything like my show nemesis BOM. I’m going later this month 😭 I didn’t like BoM at all (actually because I felt it wasn’t smart with its humour at all) but loved this (not that this is smart either, but it doesn’t rest on two jokes played over and over like BoM).
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Post by Ade on Sept 9, 2017 14:14:17 GMT
Who's seen this most recently? What's the current running time looking like? Went last night and got out at 22:15 and started on time so it was about 2 hrs 45
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Post by Ade on Aug 26, 2017 22:50:51 GMT
Saw this tonight. I enjoyed it but was far from blown away. Some great numbers but it just seemed to go on a long time (more because of the structure of the piece rather than the lack of interval)... I'll admit I'm not the biggest Sondheim fan though. Felt pretty let down by the staging to be honest. It felt like a lot of effort had gone into the set pieces that were there on the stage but those could have been executed and used way more effectively. Performances and orchestra were great though!
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Post by Ade on Aug 26, 2017 22:47:31 GMT
Finally seeing this Tyrone Huntley is off tonight, with Joshua Dever undertudying This a scheduled holiday or ill? I saw it last night and he definitely seemed to be struggling on some of the notes. Although he was still brilliant despite that.
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Follies
Jul 24, 2017 6:05:22 GMT
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Post by Ade on Jul 24, 2017 6:05:22 GMT
I was on the walkway today and it looks like they're building a full scale derelict theatre. There's a huge bank of ruined raked seats that curve just like The Olivier and loads of crumbling brick walls. I think it will be very spectacular. Agree. I did the backstage tour on Saturday and saw some of the photos of what they are working to - there looks to be a serious amount of set to it!
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Post by Ade on Jul 8, 2017 22:22:09 GMT
What a brilliant night it was tonight. A VERY enthusiastic audience- very nearly lifted off the roof after 'Hold me in your heart'. Think it's safe to say there were plenty of tears both on stage and in the audience judging by those around me.
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