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Post by abitoftap on Jun 9, 2020 16:35:43 GMT
We got the shakers both times.
In the tent you got vodka shots before it started as well!
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Post by abitoftap on Jun 9, 2020 15:26:52 GMT
DM seemed more real to me. I guess a combination of the (much) more intimate staging and in a way, less strong voice. I think that's why the OB recording is my preferred as well
At Broadway prices, couldn't afford a seat with food!
With whoever, I'd love to see it again!
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Post by abitoftap on Jun 9, 2020 11:49:01 GMT
We saw it twice. Once in the tent down by the High Line, and later on Broadway. First time only four us on a table for eight (plus Rachel Chavkin taking notes), so lots of food. Dave Malloy took the lead. Probably one of the most exciting things I've seen. On Broadway they made the best they could of a large theatre,(and no food!). Josh Groban wasn't a patch on DM. Having said that, I doubt it would have got on Broadway without him. Look at what happened when he left. The off Broadway recording is the better of the two Please not Alfie Boe though.
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Post by abitoftap on Mar 20, 2020 15:53:16 GMT
Postponed..so hopefully not lost forever.
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Post by abitoftap on Mar 14, 2020 19:23:04 GMT
Well, I think Into The Woods probably won't require a "great director" as long as they stay faithful to the source material. After the film, I think there will definitely be some interest in this and it will be interesting to see who gets cast. I do think this would work terrifically well in the round however, the audience being the "woods" I take it you didn't see the production at the Royal Opera House?! mostly great cast, big orchestra, great set but... At least you got to see it! We travelled down from Norwich, had a hotel booked and after the first ten minutes or so the production was halted. A torrential rain storm had flooded the back stage area. We all milled around in the bar for a while, before we were sent off into the night. Ticket refund only. We booked to see ITW at Regent's Park. Hotel etc. Got down there, rain, matinee abandoned! Luckily (for once), we were booked for the evening performance, which went ahead. Phew!
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Post by abitoftap on Nov 22, 2019 17:11:33 GMT
Sweeney Todd - 1994 NT Cast (Quilley/McKenzie/ Benjamin)
For any that haven’t had the pleasure of her definitive Mrs Lovett (sorry Imelda) then you can listen to it on the audio player here. Also worth every second for Barry James’ Beadle Bamford - who took scene stealing to new glorious heights. Downloadable there as well. Saw the production when it moved to the Lyttleton. Vividly remember her with her chopper (those cats are quick)!!!!!
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Post by abitoftap on Feb 11, 2019 16:24:20 GMT
If you're looking for cast recordings on cd or (particularly) on vinyl, try Discogs. It started as a database aiming to record every record/tape/cd/78 etc etc release ever. Clearly that will never happen, but it's user generated so just keeps getting bigger. It's also now a marketplace for sellers around the world. Cast recordings aren't generally highly sought, so if you want original vinyl releases, should be (relatively) inexpensive. You should be able to find pretty much any cd version as well. (I do sell on there, but not really anything relevant to this forum)
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Post by abitoftap on Dec 6, 2018 15:15:14 GMT
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Post by abitoftap on Dec 6, 2018 15:14:27 GMT
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Post by abitoftap on Nov 21, 2018 9:23:57 GMT
Absolutely gorgeous:
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Post by abitoftap on Nov 2, 2018 14:08:39 GMT
Thanks to you both for the numbers! Fingers crossed. Let us know how it goes. Fingers crossed for you! We manged to get the rail fare refunded which was a good start. We've missed shows before (weather, trains etc etc) and never had any luck getting refunds etc etc. However, we struck (relatively) lucky this time. We were offered A price seats (non premium) at B prices, so a "saving" of about £60 on full price for 2 tickets. We're back on the same row. We're now not going until next March, but we have a Follies matinee on a Wednesday, so we're staying over. for the Thursday Company matinee. Not taking any chances. Thanks again to Theatremonkey and carriesparkle.
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Post by abitoftap on Nov 1, 2018 19:01:18 GMT
Thanks to you both for the numbers! Fingers crossed.
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Post by abitoftap on Nov 1, 2018 17:59:02 GMT
More in hope than expectation...
We had tickets for today's matinee (my birthday gift!). We travelled down from Norwich this morning but never got further than Shenfield. After close to 2 hours on the platform and no chance of a train into London for at least 30 minutes, we gave up and made our way back home.
I thought I'd try the Gieulgud box office to see if they could help (without much hope to be honest, but at least I'd feel a bit better that I'd tried), but can't find the box office direct number. The 0844 number seems a general (and expensive) Delfont Mackintosh booking line.
Can anyone help with the number?
I'll now go away and sulk in a corner...
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Post by abitoftap on Oct 29, 2018 8:06:09 GMT
Well you learn something new every day. I saw the Adrian Lester version (which may or may not have been directed by Sam Mendes) and the Chichester version. Apart from the songs that are obviously supposed to be comical, I actually found the show to be pretty dark overall, verging on the misanthropic actually. Apparently there was a documentary made at the time of the original production about the rush recording of the album which I'd love to see but can't source anywhere. I know Bill Hader is doing a spoof of it on his 'Documentary Now' series for tx next year on HBO. I still think 'The funniest musical I've ever seen' is an odd quote to pick out of all the plaudits in the reviews though. The documentary is on YouTube. Just search Company D A Pennebaker. He's the guy who did Don't Look Back, the doc of Dylan's 65 UK tour.
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Post by abitoftap on Oct 17, 2018 18:20:17 GMT
So I don't understand. Press night was last night, but Shenton tweeted that reviews are embargoed until 11:30 tonight. Why? Why not just release the reviews following the performance like most shows? I guess it means that reviews should be in all the (at least those that still review theatre) papers on Thursday, rather than just the later editions if the reviews were out today.
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Post by abitoftap on Oct 15, 2018 13:14:31 GMT
When was James Corden ever in a musical? Aside from Martin Guerre, there's no WAY he gets name recognition for *that*! ..and hidden in the ensemble. What about Michael Ball. I would guess his presence helped Passion open back in the day. Similarly the West End transfer of Sweeney.
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Post by abitoftap on Jul 31, 2018 18:04:28 GMT
It's partly down to "dressing the house" a bit to ensure there are no gaps, BUT, I've also had reports that neither rake nor off-set are great around there, so it does compensate for those too, a bit. Thanks for the info. Appreciated.
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Post by abitoftap on Jul 31, 2018 16:36:05 GMT
We saw the show last week, stalls row E, just to the side of the £200 seats! Great to be close to the actors, but maybe so close you lost some of the effect of the choreography/staging.
We may go back early next year. I guess this is a Theatremonkey question, but I've noticed row M in the stalls is priced at £100 (our max purchase price!) quite a way in, whilst tickets immediately behind and in front, the same distance in from the sides are priced at £200. Any thoughts as to whether these seats are good value?
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Post by abitoftap on Jul 30, 2018 19:53:48 GMT
^ Beautiful, indeed. Anyone been to a Thursday matinee and know if Jamael is usually on? I've seen Ash on before so I didn't mind getting "cheaper" tickets for my next show, but now I'm thinking of exchanging seats for a closer view instead. Would also love to see Giles again, but I've no hope in getting a grasp on his schedule... He was on last Thursday matinee.
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Post by abitoftap on May 18, 2018 11:24:16 GMT
God, American reporting is bad. How more condescending can they be?! It's not a play - it's a musical. I'd have said show/musical. However......I've just finished watching Rise (a US school puts on Spring Awakening and things don't go smoothly for anyone. It's not dissimilar in style to Saturday Night Lights if anyone remembers that from a few years ago. Only 10 episodes, it's now been cancelled. After an overfull first ep its really great). They seem to use play/musical/show interchangeably, so I'm not sure whether play is that wrong from a US perspective.
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Post by abitoftap on May 15, 2018 12:50:57 GMT
Just had a response from the NT box office to an email. Confirmed Amex booking open from 9.30 on 15th May Thanks for posting I got stalls for 18 squid. I wouldn’t pay anymore for this production so I’m happy. Although not happy with the NT online booking system - took an hour and multiple error messages before I could get through to the payment screen. I was in the queue (1700 + !!) for about 15 minutes and then got through. The site worked fine for me. Tried several dates and got a couple of oldies tickets for £39, next to the top price £58 seats. We've sat in the cheap few rows before. Not sure we'd manage now, what with dodgy backs and stuff!!
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Post by abitoftap on May 14, 2018 13:58:21 GMT
Just had a response from the NT box office to an email. Confirmed Amex booking open from 9.30 on 15th May
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Post by abitoftap on May 14, 2018 9:53:17 GMT
I was looking out for that myself. From what I can find on the NT/Amex page, there doesn't appear to be (as there has been in the past), an earlier booking date for Amex cardholders. They seem to be offering reserved seating on certain shows for cardholders only. Happy to be corrected!
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Post by abitoftap on Mar 22, 2018 11:50:26 GMT
Oh I don’t know tm. I knew nothing about his early life, childhood and the “cuckoo in the nest” situ. It was an odd family which may explain why he’s a bit odd himself. Or the suicide attempt, the interest in architecture, the lone travelling as a 14 year old or the toy theatre Only the suicide hasn't been in any biography before. Even then, I rather objected to all the "stock footage" of old buses etc, without proof the film was even of travelling into Suffolk - could have been any view, anywhere. It just felt lazy. I can't comment on whether the Suffolk bus was a Suffolk bus, but Lavenham was Lavenham and the Whitby footage was Whitby (his NE trip), and as I lived there as a child and youth, seemed to be of the right vintage. I actually thought the archive film was generally pretty good. Not the usual stuff most of the time.
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Post by abitoftap on Mar 5, 2018 16:16:24 GMT
i received an email yesterday To be fair the box office( when i finally got through !) were very helpful booked for another matinee.But this isn't a theatre not being ready it is a management not sorting things out at the proper time! so i won't "gamble" again Thanks for the reply. I'll give them a few days to contact me! I couldn't wait! I sent them a message on Sunday through the Delfont Mackintosh Company site asking them to call me. They called this morning and sorted out tickets for the 1st November.
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Post by abitoftap on Mar 3, 2018 20:42:36 GMT
i received an email yesterday To be fair the box office( when i finally got through !) were very helpful booked for another matinee.But this isn't a theatre not being ready it is a management not sorting things out at the proper time! so i won't "gamble" again Thanks for the reply. I'll give them a few days to contact me!
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Post by abitoftap on Mar 3, 2018 19:54:51 GMT
Really annoyed that ElliotHarper have changed the schedule and cancelled the matinee I had booked for And made me phone them to try to exchange! Now dont know why I bothered giving them my money a year in advance and made a useless hotel booking. Ah well I'm only a paying customer. What do I matter? We're booked for the same (no longer) matinee. How were you contacted? We've had no contact so far.
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Post by abitoftap on Feb 8, 2018 13:43:13 GMT
I don’t know if I recall correctly, but I think on Broadway they have a system in place which is officially regulated by a union of some sort; if an understudy goes on, the theatre has to: 1) do a verbal announcement before the show, 2) provide slips in the programmes, 3) display the information in the foyer/other areas of the theatre. And as far as I know, at least two of these requirements have to be met. Pretty sure that's correct. Maybe this could be a Theatreboard campaign???!!!
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Post by abitoftap on Feb 8, 2018 11:31:34 GMT
Relevant but slightly off topic. In the UK it's now rare for any cast changes to be announced before a performance. You'll probably find a (hopefully correct) cast board in the (invariably cramped and crowded) foyer at best. What you won't have is a slip in the programme with any changes for that performance (as you get you know where). To me that seems a pretty simple thing to do, particularly when you've paid a few £s for it.
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Post by abitoftap on Jan 20, 2018 13:24:21 GMT
Ruth Madoc was excellent (along with Harry Secombe, Roy Castle, David Cardy etc etc) in the tour of Chichester's Pickwick more than 20 years ago!
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