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Post by johartuk on May 1, 2020 23:18:59 GMT
I enjoyed that. Some top notch performers (loved Antonio Banderas and Glenn Close in particular) and some great music!
I couldn't get over how young Michael Ball looked, and ALW!
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Post by johartuk on Apr 26, 2020 11:12:00 GMT
After watching it on youtube, I've come to the conclusion that, whilst there are a few musical highlights* and the staging is really good, the book is like a bad piece of fan fiction. None of the returning characters bare any resemblence to their POTO incarnations. Christine has forgotten that the Phantom killed two people and stalked her (in fact, she apparently forgot that pretty quickly judging by the events described in 'Under A Moonless Sky'!). Raoul is a total git (except we don't see much evidence of that - even when he's drunk in the bar there's no real evidence of nastiness, just a man who realises his faults and asks "Why does she still love me?"). The Phantom is suddenly a Sex God, desired by two women (both of whom are aware of his stalkerish and homicidal tendencies). *I can't take 'Under A Moonless Sky' seriously since I saw a video which pointed out that the lyrics of the song were a badly written description of a sexual encounter! As for 'Love Never Dies' - I don't think the song works in a higher key. Christine sounded screechy on the higher notes, and the song didn't really feel like the 'big moment' song.
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Post by johartuk on Apr 18, 2020 15:51:43 GMT
Just finished watching. Really enjoyed that. The orchestra sounded stunning! I've realised that I find Christine deeply annoying. What part of "He's a creepy, psycho stalker!" doesn't she get? Then we have the business of her crying over him at the end...er...he just tried to kill the man you love, and he's already killed 2 other people! I wonder what he'd have to do to make her throw up her hands, declare that he's a creepy, psycho stalker and storm off?
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Post by johartuk on Feb 16, 2020 15:09:19 GMT
Caroline Flack's death was undeniably tragic. She clearly had some serious issues that she was unable or unwilling to address, and to feel that suicide is the only solution is just desperately sad.
Having said the above, I'm finding all the hysteria and blame game playing going on frankly bizarre. It seems everyone from the media to the CPS has been blamed for what happened to Caroline. Now the Z-listers are crawling out of the woodwork, setting up petitions to demand the media be banned from writing negative stories about them - no doubt these same Z-listers will still be selling stories to the media, while bleating about being treated badly by the people/organisations paying them for their stories! You really couldn't make it up!
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Post by johartuk on Feb 15, 2020 22:35:55 GMT
I loved it. Great fun, a good line up and just plain bonkers! It became essential Saturday night viewing for me. I can't wait for series 2!
I'm currently watching series 3 of the US version (thanks to the tubular website - the eps are officially uploaded by TMS). They have 18 Masked Singers (3 groups of 6, with each group being whittled down to 3) then those 9 singers will compete in the normal (someone unmasked at the end of each ep) format.
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Post by johartuk on Nov 23, 2019 18:02:14 GMT
Wicked was my favourite musical for a long time but watching Mastermind last night made me realise that a) it's been nearly 10 years since I last saw it and I don't remember it as well as I thought and b) I would quite like to read the book. Think I really need to go again to see if it holds up to my memories of it. The book's weird. I read it before seeing the musical, and I kept thinking "How on earth have they managed to make this into a musical?" The answer is that whoever wrote the musical's book dispensed with the endless sexual stuff and brain numbing waffle, and went with the bare bones of the story...thank goodness!
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Post by johartuk on Nov 20, 2019 11:49:17 GMT
Weird that the new trailer seems to give the impression that Cats is a non-musical film and...a comedy? "Many Will Compete...Only One Can Win" Sounds like Hunger Games meets one of those Lloyd Webber casting shows ( Any Cat Will Do?)! Presumably the bottom two (as voted for by the feline population of the UK) have to literally fight to stay in the competition!
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Post by johartuk on Nov 18, 2019 13:25:10 GMT
Beverley Callard has just announced on Loose Women that Thundercats Girls will be touring next year (with Beverley and Coleen Nolan in the cast).
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Post by johartuk on Nov 15, 2019 12:39:30 GMT
The song itself is OK, but Taylor Swift's voice annoys me - it's the breathy affectedness that gets on my last nerve. It seems to infest popular music at the moment, in part due to the John Lewis Christmas ads where they use breathy, affected cover versions of popular songs.
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Post by johartuk on Nov 14, 2019 12:51:08 GMT
I couldn't face squeezing my long legs into the cheap seats at the Lyceum, grannyjx6 , so for almost the same price I booked a front row ticket at Derby Theatre instead. Jaymi was off, but as I don't know him from Adam anyway, it made no difference. One of the little girls fainted during the opening number of Act II. The show must go on, as the saying goes, so as the singing continued uninterrupted, two black-clad characters came out of the wings and carted her off. It's probably too soon for a repeat visit, but the touring production is running for three weeks at Doncaster Dome over Christmas. " Starring the hit tv show finalist Britain's Got Talent sensation, Mark McMullen." No, me neither! I just did a google search for Mark McMullen out of curiosity (I didn't know who he was, either). Mark McMullenBGT Final - SUTBM
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Post by johartuk on Oct 26, 2019 14:38:32 GMT
Listening to those two short clips of the song, I think I prefer the 'in film' one to Taylor Swift's. I dislike that breathy style of singing that Taylor (in common with a lot of young female pop singers) does, where it sounds like she's feeling worn out.
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Post by johartuk on Oct 23, 2019 23:33:35 GMT
Oh such teasing! At least tell us one thing - can she sing, can she sing? No. Seriously EXTREMELY different. Breaks the role’s tradition A male narrator?
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Post by johartuk on Sept 28, 2019 23:42:50 GMT
That comes across as so big headed, especially as the twitter account it's posted from is Coleen's! She needs to have a word with the person who tweets on her behalf (her 'Ghost Tweeter'?)!
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Post by johartuk on Sept 4, 2019 16:56:50 GMT
Strange, I remember posting a link to a pair of SE Rollerskates on eBay earlier this year here, tagging @dom and him replying but I can't find it now. I remember that. It was the first thing I thought of when this I read goldytap 's post.
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Post by johartuk on Aug 6, 2019 9:26:07 GMT
Show stop at the first scene change, where the coloured fabric backdrop had already been released from several of the stars. 5 minutes delay. The same thing happened when I saw it on Friday. I'd never seen Joseph before, always avoided any ALW, but I really enjoyed it. Even when I was a kid myself I thought the children's chorus was really cheesy, but they worked really well here. I'm not normally a huge fan of fourth wall breaking either but I think Sheridan Smith managed to pull it off. ("It's me!" made me laugh every time.) The only real problem I had with it was I couldn't understand half of what Jason Donovan was singing. Interesting to read the programme's claim that Joseph made him a huge star. I'd have thought that was more to do with the bizarre fact that the wedding episode of Neighbours had over 20 million viewers... Yes, he was offered the role of Joseph because he was 'Scott off Neighbours' and would get bums on seats.
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Post by johartuk on Aug 3, 2019 12:10:52 GMT
Jessie J performs On My Own
I know the orchestra are joining rehearsals today but is it REALLY too late to do a tiny bit of recasting. Am loving Jessie J’s soulful take on Eponine here and (maybe reined in a little) she’d be awesome in a concert staging. Wow, her voice is fab!
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Post by johartuk on Aug 2, 2019 16:11:12 GMT
Sorry, just don't like it. I prefer the previous (1991/2007) design. They had Jason Donovan's, Philip Schofield's and Jac's coats together on a previous This Morning ep (where Jason was being interviewed) and, IMO, JD's and Schofe's coats looked much better. I just rewatched the whole performance. Jac over emotes. Perhaps he’s too used to performing it to the back of the Upper rather than the camera in his face? Probably. It didn't help that the performing area was small (Jac and the kids were performing outside on a technicoloured platform the size of a postage stamp).
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Post by johartuk on Aug 2, 2019 12:28:50 GMT
Whattt... are you crazy!? The coat is sensational. Makes complete sense within the whole show, and in Real life twinkles like it’s made out of moondust.. Just caught the tail end of it. It looked like it was just Jac and the kids, singing ADWD. Jac sounded good, but it all seemed a bit 'by the numbers'. Jac can sing, but he doesn't stand out for me as a vocalist. Oh, and I still dislike the coat. Too much dark blue, and it looks cheap. Sorry, just don't like it. I prefer the previous (1991/2007) design. They had Jason Donovan's, Philip Schofield's and Jac's coats together on a previous This Morning ep (where Jason was being interviewed) and, IMO, JD's and Schofe's coats looked much better. I just rewatched the whole performance. Jac over emotes.
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Post by johartuk on Aug 2, 2019 11:39:36 GMT
Performance at 12pm on This Morning, accirdomg to Twitter. Just caught the tail end of it. It looked like it was just Jac and the kids, singing ADWD. Jac sounded good, but it all seemed a bit 'by the numbers'. Jac can sing, but he doesn't stand out for me as a vocalist. Oh, and I still dislike the coat. Too much dark blue, and it looks cheap.
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Post by johartuk on Jul 27, 2019 14:32:02 GMT
He's in Jail, they start singing Go Go Go Joseph and suddenly he has his supposed ripped up coat back and dancing with the ensemble in galaxy print clothes. What's going on?? I got the impression it was a kind of dream sequence?? This brief montage (an official clip) of the 2007 production shows how Go Go Go Joseph was done then (as well as clips of other bits).
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Post by johartuk on Jul 26, 2019 21:34:37 GMT
Another here who loved it! Merrick is brilliant! "The Elephant never buys off the peg!"
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Post by johartuk on Jul 19, 2019 9:29:43 GMT
The faces are just the actors' faces on cat heads. There are no feline features. I think that's why they look creepy.
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Post by johartuk on Jul 18, 2019 22:17:05 GMT
Not sure about the 'catifying' - it looks like they've done it by using a 'stick your face on a cat's body' filter (a bit like the 'see what you look like as an old person' filter that's currently doing the rounds). The actors' faces are too recognisable, so it looks freaky. Jennifer Hudson looks downright scary!
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Post by johartuk on Jul 17, 2019 20:34:20 GMT
I'm looking forward to seeing what the cast look like all catted up. I thought that 'behind the scenes' vid was interesting, especially the giant sets.
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Post by johartuk on Jul 6, 2019 0:06:01 GMT
We're just going to toss around terms like "statutory rape" when talking about Sheridan Smith playing a predatory older woman to Jac Yarrow's super-young Joseph, but not say a thing about all the lamenting on this very board that said super-young Joseph at no point wears a loincloth? Innnnnteresting..... Actually, I think it was more a case of people thinking it was strange that Joseph doesn't wear a loincloth in this production, when it's such an iconic part of the show (almost as much as the coat). I'd find the lack of loincloth odd regardless of who was playing Joseph. I found the WOS pics earlier - going through them, I was struck by how cheap some of the costumes looked, especially in comparison to the ones in the 1991/2007 productions. Sheridan's jailer costume is horrendous (is she wearing padding with that costume?), and the pic of her holding the children who play the Butler and Baker by their arms seemed odd to me.
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Post by johartuk on Jul 3, 2019 14:59:42 GMT
The bit where Jacob and Joseph reunite was a touching (and surprisingly moving) moment in the 2007 production (I'm presuming it was much the same in the 1991 production). I dread to think what they've done with it now. It was barely a moment, let alone a touching one lol In the 2007 production (and I think it happened in the previous productions as well*), Joseph arrives in his Chariot Of Gold. He dismounts and runs over to Jacob, who is kneeling. Jacob is holding the tattered coat. Joseph helps him to stand up and he hands the coat to Joseph, who looks at it for a moment, then starts to sing the ADWD reprise to him. As Joseph sings, Jacob places his hand on top of the coat and Joseph tenderly places his hand on top of Jacob's. Then Joseph turns to face the audience as he continues to sing, before turning to face the Narrator, who joins in. As Joseph and Narrator finish the slow part of the song, they hold hands. Then everyone joins in with the last bit, which is back to being uptempo. I can't believe they would scrap that - it's such a lovely moment, and a chance for the Joseph to act (which Jac, as a trained performer, presumably can, so there's no excuse not to let him do so). *It also happens that way in the Donny Osmond DVD.
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Post by johartuk on Jul 3, 2019 12:19:55 GMT
I was there last night too (the £10 standing tickets are an absolute bargain). The delay at the beginning was for technical reasons too, I heard one of the staff tell someone they were having problems with the lift backstage. This didn't do it for me, as has been said already it's panto-joseph, it's all just daft comedy and although I know it's always a lighthearted show it does normally have a couple of serious, emotional moments. I am not a SS fan and she didn't win me over, I'm also not really into children playing adult parts. I could barely understand a word JD was singing. It was enjoyable in a totally forgettable way I guess, but there were just too many things that irritated me about it. The audience were in raptures though (the woman next to me kept glaring at me when I wasn't clapping with sufficient enthusiasm!) so it's pleasing plenty of people, just not me!! The bit where Jacob and Joseph reunite was a touching (and surprisingly moving) moment in the 2007 production (I'm presuming it was much the same in the 1991 production). I dread to think what they've done with it now.
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Post by johartuk on Jul 2, 2019 11:21:55 GMT
Jason Donovan currently on This Morning, talking about Joseph. Mention of Jac being a great Joseph, but no mention of Sheridan. Scofe's, Jasons, and Jac's coats on display in the studio. Jac's looks tacky compared to the other two - I really don't like the design of it, or the fact that it's predominantly black!
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Post by johartuk on Jun 27, 2019 19:54:20 GMT
And Jac doesn’t even wear a loincloth I’ve heard? 😤 No loincloth! What does he wear instead?
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Post by johartuk on Jun 10, 2019 20:38:21 GMT
Maybe by 'doing all the set' she means they'll be playing a flight of stairs, a pedestal and various pieces of furniture!
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