269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Nov 16, 2023 18:59:31 GMT
Only up to and including Liverpool
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Nov 15, 2023 19:04:52 GMT
One of the lead character’s traits is that she loves Kylie wines, which she mentions twice. I was surprised she didn’t say “available to purchase from the bar in the interval.”
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Nov 14, 2023 9:11:47 GMT
Nigel Harman? I know he has a long history of directing and starring in it (as Farquaad before).
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Nov 10, 2023 7:24:32 GMT
Press night is this coming Tuesday (confirmed by cast member Elliot Broadfoot on X). All being well I should be there.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Nov 8, 2023 21:26:11 GMT
Dawn French was born in Anglesey in Wales.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Nov 8, 2023 21:19:28 GMT
Teaser post suggests that London casting announcement may be tomorrow. Has anyone heard anything? A Welsh logo was also posted earlier so a Welsh Mother Superior maybe?
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Oct 17, 2023 6:09:35 GMT
Eddie Izzard is playing a trans Doctor Jekyll in a filmed version with Lindsay Duncan, Jonathan Hyde and Simon Callow. It will be shown in UK cinemas only from 27th October. Lots of theatre talent in this.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Oct 16, 2023 6:39:56 GMT
Anyone have any info on the pre-sale and onsale dates?
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Oct 1, 2023 20:13:18 GMT
I’m assuming Imelda will still be in it because one reason it was delayed for quite so long was due to Imelda’s filming commitments for The Crown.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Sept 27, 2023 22:14:02 GMT
Saw this tonight, it’s a great showcase for Matt Doyle who’s hardly offstage and sings and acts up a storm. I couldn’t take my eyes off those Ol’ Blue Eyes. I think the biggest problem is it focuses on Frank’s affair and neglect of his wife and child, which means you don’t overly care about him. Which, considering he’s the main character, is a bit of a red flag. Doyle even plays him rather sleezily at times. But overall, I would say, see it for Doyle as he’s a superstar in the making.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Sept 23, 2023 16:00:53 GMT
Has anyone stood outside the theatre to see the opening number of act two happening?
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Sept 10, 2023 15:08:15 GMT
Bonnie Langford just hinted on Sunday Brunch she’ll be doing I’m Still Here! I wonder if she was in the running to play Carlotta at The National. I know Tracie Bennett said she beat some big name competition to get the role.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Sept 10, 2023 14:59:33 GMT
I hope that it transfers to The Majestic Theater and they rename that theater to The Hal Prince Theater at the same time. After all, Prince and Sondheim worked on 9 shows together.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Sept 7, 2023 15:26:04 GMT
This really messes with my schedule. Obviously I hope she’s ok but something here confuses me. Do they not have understudies? It just seems odd to just cancel the first week because of this. Bonnie Langford said on BBC Breakfast that herself and the other co-headliners are in the ensemble, appearing in lots of the numbers and doing the harmonies. It's not as much of a performer walks on, does their song and then goes off as the previous version was. Presumably as it's a lot smaller cast.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Aug 9, 2023 21:09:19 GMT
Harry Apps, Bella Brown, Richard Dempsey, and Monique Young have been announced as “co-star alternates” but no news on the shows they will perform in.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Aug 5, 2023 18:49:34 GMT
Kieran Brown is on tonight but not as the footman or his other cover roles as King Charles II or Colonel Blood. If anyone is there, please let me know which role he plays as he’s keeping it under wraps.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jul 9, 2023 21:08:56 GMT
Has anyone sat yet in the restricted view Palladium front row for Wizard Of Oz - where they reduced seat price from £89.50 to £10 ? We're there next month. Interested to know whether the restriction is as bad as that huge discount implies. I was third row today and couldn’t see Dorothy fully when she was at the back or the ruby slippers. A bad directorial choice in that she never picks her feet up to show them off. I imagine the front row will be quite restricted but a lot of the set pieces are raised.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jul 9, 2023 20:59:28 GMT
I was like a yo-yo watching this production. Some things I loved and some I thought were dire. And even in the same song; when Merry Ol’ Land of Oz started I thought why have they murdered this, then it picked up a bit and the ending was brilliant so I had to clap.
Dianne Pilkington and Louis Gaunt are exceptional. All of the cast have their moments to shine. The only song change I liked was them giving the Tin Man a bit of a rap. Just because it suited Ashley more than the singing bit. And I liked his acting and dancing in general. I’m not a fan of the way they’ve updated Glinda’s entrance, her wand and the Wicked Witch’s broom. The guards were anything but menacing.
It will take me some time to get over what they’ve done to Lollipop Guild and Lullaby League.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jul 4, 2023 20:59:34 GMT
It is the small details that can make a theatre trip memorable. As I took my seat at Stafford Gatehouse Theatre on Sunday 2nd July before seeing the summer Shakespeare production of 2023 (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), I could hear the sound of bird song emanating through the auditorium. Coupled with a view of the Greek taverna set on full display, I was transported to another place before any of the actors appeared. Usually this classic play opens with the Athenians conversing; however director Sean Turner opted to have Puck (a male fairy) start the proceedings, which I thought worked well because Puck’s role is to act as a commentator on the other character’s foibles. It is not just the actors who are commented on here though; no-one is safe as Puck subtlety calls out some latecomers in the audience.
Then comes the Shakespearean verse, starting with an Athenian called Egeus telling the Duke that he wants his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Hermia refuses, because she's in love with Lysander. Egeus says that she must obey his wishes or he will invoke a law saying she must be put to death. Hermia and Lysander confide in their friend Helena. However, they do not realise that Helena also loves Demetrius.
Where the play really heats up is towards the end of the first act when the four of them go to the fairy infested forest and, with the help of a little magic, find that their affections have changed. The magic is conveyed by lots of clever sleight of hand tricks and handheld LED lights. Milly Zero, Noa Nikita Bleeker, Richard Logun and James Bradwell play the four youngsters so well. As they fall rapidly in and out of love with each other, the pace of the dialogue quickens; and all four actors get to showcase their physical comedy skills (jumping, fighting and getting covered in water).
In a second plot, we are introduced to a group of local craftsmen who are also amateur actors that have been asked to put on a stage play to pass the hours between the Duke and Queen’s wedding ceremony and when they will retire to bed. The craftsmen (including a weaver, Nick Bottom) go to the forest to rehearse the play.
There, the King of the Fairies (musical theatre star Dan Burton in his Shakespeare debut, displaying a great authoritative voice and a knack for speaking verse) asks Puck to use fairy magic to help him get back at his wife Titania (musical theatre star Kerry Ellis in her Shakespeare debut, who did not seem as at ease with the text but still put her heart into it) and make her fall in love with Bottom. But Puck, being his cheeky self, has a bit of fun and transforms Bottom into an animal as well. The role of Bottom is played by Jonathan Hyde (who many know from his roles in the films Titanic and Jumanji). However, Hyde is a Shakespeare veteran with over 15 credits to his name. I was lucky to see him in his most recent one, playing the cunning Claudius in Hamlet at Theatre Royal, Windsor, and was so impressed that I had to take the opportunity to see him play a polar opposite role in my own county town. Hyde could have played the animal pantomimically but he chose a much more realistic approach, which I thought worked well.
The show ends with the magic spells breaking and all of the characters learning lessons from what happened in the forest. We get to see the play that the craftsmen had rehearsed. Bottom plays a young man who believes that the woman he loves - played hilariously by “a man in a beard” (actor Olivier Sublet who gets endless laughs) - has died and so decides that he cannot go on and must kill himself. Although the plot is tragic, this scene is very akin to The Play That Goes Wrong in that scenery goes flying, lighting goes haywire and so much more (but no spoilers).
It takes a lot of hard work from cast and crew alike to make scenes that go wrong go so right and this company achieve it. I saw their fifth performance in three days and they had another that evening. I hope that next year’s performance is just as good, as I shall definitely be booking a ticket.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 24, 2023 18:46:49 GMT
On Twitter I see that at the matinee today (second preview), Dianne Pilkington did a 3 point turn with her bicycle because she couldn’t find the brake and Jason Manford did 10 mins of standup (in Lion costume) during a technical hitch in act two.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 23, 2023 15:45:03 GMT
*awaits the casting of Sean Jones as the boisterous schoolboy Tommo*
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 23, 2023 13:33:14 GMT
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 20, 2023 20:49:52 GMT
Amy Revelle has teased on Instagram that The Time Machine (starring Dave Hearn from Mischief Theatre) will be staged in London this Christmas. The show is also available to watch on demand from tomorrow for two years.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 17, 2023 15:23:27 GMT
Tosh has tweeted that he will be performing at West End Live tomorrow so maybe he will also do the matinee tomorrow.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 12, 2023 15:48:56 GMT
I think they’re only releasing the location to people who’ve booked. There may even be a meeting location separate to the warehouse. The same thing happened when Kenneth Branagh did Macbeth in a church in Manchester.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 11, 2023 15:36:10 GMT
Is Tosh back now? He’s off this afternoon but it does say Matt Manuel plays David Ruffin at select performances anyway.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on Jun 5, 2023 11:38:27 GMT
Had a look at 12pm incase they’d added front row but they haven’t yet. They did add the other half of stalls row E though.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on May 29, 2023 20:51:44 GMT
The play will run for two hours with no interval.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on May 26, 2023 18:25:56 GMT
Just seen The Little Mermaid. It opens with a nod to the story’s origin and some stunning underwater and above water shots. Then we get Halle’s stunning Part of your World.
Then Prince Eric gets a new I Want song but for me it was nowhere near as good as Ariel’s and visually it seemed rushed and a bit bland. I’m not sure that it came at the right point in the story. Maybe his song would have been better when he was choosing between Ariel and Vanessa. Jonah, the actor who plays Prince Eric, has a way of showing love in a deep, meaningful way and his friendship with Halle in real life came through on screen to produce some really beautiful moments.
I thought Javier Bardem was great as King Triton. They could have cast so many people as Ursula and they would have all been wonderful. They went for Melissa McCarthy who was clearly having fun with it and struck a good balance between being evil and making you feel that there’s more to Ursula than just a villain. And she really acted Poor Unfortunate Souls for all it was worth.
I also really enjoyed Daveed’s Under the Sea; again because he acted every line and made it his own. The visuals that accompany the song sold me on the beauty of the sea but there were no visuals to suggest the threats above the water; so I felt like the song’s meaning was a bit lost. Kiss the Girl, however, was perfectly shot and delivered.
As the seagull who thinks she knows humans but doesn’t, Awkwafina does a great job with her new comedy song Scuttlebutt. But editing it out in favour of a shorter running time might have been a better option.
At 2 hours and 15 mins, the film is too long and by the time it got to the final battle I just wanted it to be wrapped up. However, you must see it for Halle’s Ariel, the chemistry between her and Jonah, plus the performances of Melissa McCarthy and Daveed Diggs.
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269 posts
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Post by ilovewemusicals on May 25, 2023 19:32:09 GMT
Also someone needs to cast Mike Faist as Huey Calhoun in Memphis the musical; immediately.
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