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Post by johartuk on May 4, 2017 14:26:50 GMT
I remember reading a while ago that they were looking at doing a sequel, where Sophie has a baby. I could just about see why they'd do a sequel, but a prequel?
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Post by johartuk on Apr 25, 2017 14:53:08 GMT
Here is the video too (the twitter one didn't work for me). I must admit, when they said Russell Watson as The Voice of God I nearly spat my tea out. Same here! Personally, I think they should get someone a bit more imposing to play God...like Brian Blessed!
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Post by johartuk on Apr 24, 2017 14:20:06 GMT
I can see this backfiring badly. I actually love Joseph, it was the first show as a kid that got me obsessed with theatre, so will always hold a big place in my heart... BUT it doesn't have the same kind of cult following that JCS does. I also don't think the score is as 'big' as JCS score and will drown in a big venue. I saw the JCS arena tour and thought it was all kinds of wrong, and somehow think this will be an even more disappointing fail. Why not just do a big gala at the Palladium and get Donny Osmond, Philip Schofield, HfromSteps (that's his full name right?) etc with Linzi Harley, Maria Friedman and Vivienne Carlyle and other alumni back, and get ALW to play Jacob or something? This show is great when quality is put over quantity, and arena tours are hard to achieve that. I agree. JCS has a rock score, so works in an arena setting (ALW has said that he originally envisioned it being performed in an arena setting). Joseph was originally written to be performed in a school, and certainly doesn't have a rock score. I just can't see it working in arenas, where many audience members will be sitting a long way from the stage! A gala performance in a theatre, with former cast members, would be a far more sensible (and fun) idea to celebrate the 50th anniversary.
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Post by johartuk on Apr 23, 2017 14:52:44 GMT
NT Live relay to cinematic premises? As ALW has said he's planning to bring the show back to the West End 'later this year', it would make more sense to wait until then to do an NT Live relay to cinemas, or wait until the 50th celebration performance next year (whatever that involves) to do it.
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Post by johartuk on Apr 23, 2017 14:43:44 GMT
Just heard Jason Manford on Michael Ball's radio show say there could possibly be a return of the show next year as 2018 will be the 50th anniversary of the film. What do we think? Another tour already or West End transfer possibly? Hopefully neither, the production that just finished touring was AWFUL - packed with useless, talentless celebs. Saw the first performance in Southampton - Michelle Collins and Martin Kemp were a disgrace and there were major technical problems. Let's put this rumour to bed pronto please! To be fair, there were cast changes, and from May to September, both leads (Caractacus and Truly) were played by musical theatre performers. Also, the ensemble were all musical theatre performers, as were the Child Catcher, the Spies and Grandpa Potts. In fact, the only roles filled by Celebs from May to September were the Baron and Baroness, so hardly a cast "packed with useless, talentless celebs..."
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Post by johartuk on Mar 29, 2017 11:21:58 GMT
Ok great, so tell me about it. Who is in it? Based on which production? Details Steven details!!!! lol It's been years since I watched it, and it's buried in a cupboard on VHS somewhere. But by the wonders of modern technology, it's also available on YouTube: Blimey, that's...interesting! The Narrator couldn't look any more 70s if he tried! Also, ALW is one on the musicians, according to the end credits. I did wonder if he was the pianist, and it seems as if he was.
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Post by johartuk on Mar 28, 2017 12:17:19 GMT
Have to agree with the above. I thought Emma Watson was charming and engaging throughout. I find her likeable. She doesn't have a great voice- that's for sure- but she still made the role her own. Watching the animated movie back, the characterisation of Belle is quite bland so as an actress I think Emma did well, given the limitations of the role. I'm not sure what people expected... Someone who could sing and had depth to their voice. If you listen to Belle's singing voice in the animated film, it's strong, has depth and you feel the emotion coming through when she's singing. Emma's voice is thin and emotionless by comparison.
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Post by johartuk on Mar 23, 2017 0:51:29 GMT
Now I'm imagining Liam in a loincloth and Cheryl as the Narrator (miming to Linzi Hately singing it) I had a similar thought...but also with the rest of One Direction as brothers! I actually wouldn't put it past ALW to try and do that! Oh dear, now I'm imagining the rest of Girls Aloud and Little Mix as the wives and Rylan Clark as Pharaoh!
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Post by johartuk on Mar 22, 2017 23:39:08 GMT
Can Liam Payne even sing?
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Post by johartuk on Mar 22, 2017 10:44:15 GMT
Blimey, she's good! It always impresses me when someone can sing like that and make it seem so effortless.
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Post by johartuk on Mar 20, 2017 13:09:02 GMT
Just listening to some of the songs. 'Prologue' - I just love the music, and have done since the original film. So haunting and beautiful, it really sets the scene. Not sure about the female narration - I prefer the male voice from the original film. I can't help thinking Ian McKellen would have been a better choice to narrate the prologue. 'Be My Guest' sounds good. 'Belle' - the autotune is really apparent on Emma W's vocals, not least because everyone else's vocals either aren't autotuned or are autotuned to a much lesser degree, so they sound much more natural. Emma also seemed to have missed the memo about singing with English accents, so there are times when an American twang creeps in. Luke Evans sounds fab, great vocals! 'Gaston' - Liking this, great vocals from Luke again. 'Beauty & The Beast' - OK, but Emma Thompson's vocals lack the warmth of Angela Lansbury's. I also agree about Emma's accent, though it's not quite Dick Van Dyke bad! 'Beauty & The Beast' (Finale) - Is that Audra singing the first bit? Love her voice! 'Evermore' - Blimey, is that Dan Stevens? Great job from him, and a tricky song to sing, so well done! 'Something There' - Again, fab from Dan Stevens! Emma is autotuned to within an inch of her life (she does sound rather like 'Siri') and the American twang is there again. 'Days In The Sun' - Lovely song. Audra sounding great again, but Siri..er...Emma is really starting to bug me!
Overall, I think it's a strong soundtrack. It's just a shame they didn't get an actress who could actually sing to play Belle.
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Post by johartuk on Mar 10, 2017 13:52:55 GMT
I saw her The Bling Ring..she was fine, but again, anyone could have been fine, no? I'm just saying that she is really below special. I've never really understood her appeal beyond the Harry Potter films. She really is ordinary and, dare I say it, bland. It doesn't help that whenever she's interviewed, she's so serious, 'worthy' and up her own bottom. Sort of like a more intellectual version of Gwyneth Paltrow!
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Post by johartuk on Mar 8, 2017 16:17:09 GMT
Surprised no-one's mentioned the gems of the Joseph Megamix and Philip Scofield's Close Every Door! Any Dream Will Do also had a re-release in 2007, by Lee Mead. What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line and This Is The Moment from Jekyll & Hyde seem to have been covered quite a few times by quite a few people.
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Post by johartuk on Mar 7, 2017 0:24:29 GMT
I just caught up with it on iplayer (having not realised it was on last night). I agree that it was intriguing. I also thought it was well done. The scenes with the prostitute were poignant, as was the scene with her and her fellow street walkers. Those scenes reminded me of the wonderful TV Drama 'Five Daughters', which was told from the point of view of the victims (I noticed that the Iceni group which featured in the drama was also mentioned in the end credits of 'London Road').
Tom Hardy was great, but I agree that his appearance was a bit brief and random. The line about being interested in serial killers, but that didn't mean that he was one, made me laugh!
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Post by johartuk on Mar 5, 2017 14:04:10 GMT
I think the ITV programme ended when she got her 1st number one (may be wrong) so will be interesting how they include her songs. It ended with Brian Epstein's death, and Cilla securing her first TV contract (thanks to Epstein), so after she'd had most of her biggest chart hits.
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Post by johartuk on Mar 5, 2017 11:51:08 GMT
Seeing as Evans is gay himself, they should have had him play Gaston as gay. And the whole "wanting to marry Belle" thing being a cover. Beard and the Beast Beauty & The Beard!
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Post by johartuk on Mar 1, 2017 12:39:23 GMT
She did seem a bit obsessed with the whole thing, and with making it about her. I wish the media would stop encouraging her. The best thing for all concerned would be for this case to fade into history, so that Shannon can get on with her life without having constant reminders when she picks up a newspaper or watches TV.
Incidentally, I noticed that either Julie herself or the voice-over stated that the meeting with Karen in the police vehicle was Julie's idea - I'm sure that in the drama, it was portrayed as being Natalie's.
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Post by johartuk on Feb 27, 2017 12:30:11 GMT
I think the repeated negative attitude shown on the TV show to "musical theatre singing" or GB's constant remarks about not wanting "that kind" of show perfectly entitles anyone who actually loves musicals to have their own negative attitude about "The Band". Completely agree - he was most disparaging about musical theatre throughout the series saying things such as "too musical theatre" and "I don't want that sound in this show at all". Yet, happily promoting THE MUSICAL The Girls at every opportunity. I simply did not understand where he was coming from. To be fair, knowing what we know now about the nature of F2F's role in The Band, what Gary said makes perfect sense. The boys are supposed to look and sound like a boyband, not musical theatre performers. The problem is that Gary was saying all that negative stuff about musical theatre before revealing details of the musical, when perhaps he should have made it clear from the outset why he didn't want people with traditional musical theatre voices. Then again, the last time the BBC were looking for a 'young, poppy' male lead for a musical and made that clear from the outset, the public chose a 25 year old musical theatre performer who looked more like Rufus Sewell than Justin Bieber - and the runner-up was a teenager, but with a classical voice! The 'young, blond, poppy' one came third (and had been in the bottom two on three occasions during the series)! Though, IMO, the public chose well - just not the person who ALW et al envisaged for the role! So perhaps keeping things vague in LIS wasn't such a bad idea! Had Gary said he wanted 'poppy' singers, he might have ended up with a boyband made up of boys who sounded like they should have been manning the barricade in Les Mis!
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Post by johartuk on Feb 26, 2017 11:31:29 GMT
With a lot of these shows it is probably better NOT to win. One Direction and Susan Boyle spring to mind as does Jessie Buckley who did not win the I'd Do Anything Nancy search but has forged a successful acting career. TV exposure is valuable as no doubt agents are watching the show and will sign up guys who they think can work and put them forward for roles. The "right" band won but felt a little sorry for them in that I felt it was like applying for a job that you had no idea what it even was or what it entailed. I (and I assume them) did not even know it was a touring show to start with and rather assumed it was going straight into the West End - perhaps after a tryout somewhere. As I have said before the chances of seeing all 5 guys at one performance will be slight, given injuries and holidays - 5 x 4 weeks holiday is 20 weeks straight off where they will not all perform together and one even hurt himself during the show! In shows like X-Factor, winners have tended to disappear pretty quickly, but that hasn't happened with the Casting Show winners - they're all still doing well. Also, other contestants (e.g. Jessie Buckley, Sam Barks, Daniel Boys and Rachel Tucker) have also got successful careers as a result of being on the shows. It helps that these shows have always had a realistic and achievable aim for their contestants - careers in Musical Theatre with the possibility of branching out into other areas of performing (non Musical Theatre/TV/film), rather than the 'instant fame/stardom' promised by the likes of XF, which tends to fizzle out pretty quickly. I do think LIS suffered from the musical and the roles being so vague, unlike the Maria/Joseph/Nancy/Dorothy shows, where we knew the musicals and the roles being cast. It also didn't help that there were so many contestants - I was still struggling with individual names in the final! It might have been better if they'd had a similar format to Popstars: The Rivals, where the contestants who made the live shows performed and were voted on individually, with the five left standing in the final becoming the 'band'.
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Post by johartuk on Feb 26, 2017 10:56:24 GMT
Five To Five were the best band on the night (helped considerably by decent song choices), but there were a couple of good singers from each of the other two bands, so I hope they get something out of being on LIS.
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Post by johartuk on Feb 24, 2017 21:45:25 GMT
A few more:-
Mr Wroe's Virgins Five Daughters Wolf Hall
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Post by johartuk on Feb 24, 2017 21:34:45 GMT
This made me so mad. Yes there are worse shows to do it in. But I'd be furious if I'd been in the audience. I'm watching. Chicago, not Mel B making a prat of herself Jeez! Calm down. She literally sang less than 10 words of one of her biggest and most iconic songs... so what! I thought it was fab, as did most of the audience by the sounds of it - good on her! I've seen far worse pranks on final cast shows which would be more annoying and confusing to anyone who didn't get what was going on (costume and wig mix ups, ad libs, etc). I would love to see her perform Roxie (ad libs and all) in the UK sometime. The problem with it is that she disrupted the performance. By the looks of it, the audience took a while to settle down, and Mel had to actually say she was going back in to character. It's one thing having a 'muck-up' performance to celebrate someone leaving the cast, but the 'muck-ups' shouldn't disrupt the flow of the performance.
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Post by johartuk on Feb 24, 2017 20:04:44 GMT
Tenko Pride & Prejudice (1995 version) Upstairs Downstairs (original version) Edward & Mrs Simpson Band Of Gold Elizabeth R
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Post by johartuk on Feb 19, 2017 15:33:07 GMT
I'm sure they must have assessed the "acting" side of things somehow, but it would have been nice to see it. Otherwise, they risk finding five winning boys and then having to replace a couple once they got into serious rehearsals. It's not just the "acting", it's the discipline, maintaining fitness, work ethic etc. But I think there's enough of a pool there for them to cast a band and some understudies/alternates. I still think the fixed band line up thing is silly and I'd almost guarantee that the winning five won't necessarily all end up in the show.Which I'm still not convinced has been written. Surely they would be casting to specific roles if so? Such as The Cute One, The Dancer, The Songwriter Who Can't Dance, The Rebel, etc. Those types aren't consistent across all the bands. Messy old format. I was sorry to see Alexis and Freddy go. Spot on. Completely agree. Any skeletons boogied out of any cupboards yet for example? Deaglan Arthurs (the Irish lad who sang New York, New York as his audition song) had a story about him in one of the tabloids the other week - his dad was an IRA terrorist. Deaglan went out of the competition in the first week when the lads were singing as bands, with famous singers, so before the public vote stage. I agree about the acting. In previous Casting shows, the judges mentioned it a lot, and rightly so. It seems odd that nothing has been mentioned on this show. Another issue is that we haven't been given a chance to get to know the contestants on this show - I'm still struggling with some of the names, and we're only a week from the final! A final problem - we don't know anything about the musical, except that it's about a boyband and will feature Take That songs. In the previous Casting shows, we were familiar with the musicals and the roles we (the public) were supposed to be casting. We don't have that with LIS, so it's all a bit vague.
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Post by johartuk on Feb 15, 2017 15:07:06 GMT
Strangely I thought it was the cast around Sheridan Smith that impressed more than she did. Obviously she was the "lead" and she was good in it but it was a very Sheridan Smith-by-numbers role/performance and she didn't really stray outside of that formula but some of the others in the cast were really terrific. Same here. Gemma Whelan was brilliant, as was the actress who played Natalie. It did annoy me a bit that excuses were being made for Karen Matthews. Nothing was said, for example, about her having drugged her daughter for several months before the 'abduction'. Which goes against the 'pathetic woman who'd been abused by others all her life, hence her being easily manipulated into committing the crime' argument that was made for her in court by Julie. I'd have been interested to see Julie's reaction to being told (or hearing) about the long-term drugging.
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Post by johartuk on Feb 12, 2017 21:11:53 GMT
I thought it was really well done. The actress playing Karen was excellent, ditto, the actor who played Craig. I watched a documentary on yt about the case the following day and they really did get those two absolutely bang-on! Sheridan did a good job, but it would have been interesting to have the drama done from the POV of Natalie (Karen's friend who quickly started to doubt her). Julie (played by Sheridan) seemed to spend most of her time barking orders and organising events, whereas Natalie spent a lot more time with Karen - hence she saw more dodgy behaviour. It felt like Julie missed a lot, so we had her being told about it, instead of seeing it. A special mention should go to the lad who played Julie's son - he was brilliant! I loved his comment when they were going to the vigil - "We won't have to pray or anything, will we?" Which documentary did you watch on yt? I've had a quick look but there are so many... and some of these are only minutes long. I'd be interested to watch it. (I remember watching something ages ago about how body language is studied by experts in these sorts of cases. This case featured heavily along with that of the McCanns.) I also loved the kid playing her son- he had some great one liners. There was one about the reward for Shannon being £20,000 and he quipped something about the one for Madeleine McCann being three and a half million! The doc I watched was Tears, Lies & Videotape - about people who tearfully appeal for information about crimes, when they actually committed them! There were some great one liners. Craig taking a Calpol overdose "...because it was the only thing I could find" made me laugh as well!
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Post by johartuk on Feb 12, 2017 16:35:47 GMT
I thought it was really well done. The actress playing Karen was excellent, ditto, the actor who played Craig. I watched a documentary on yt about the case the following day and they really did get those two absolutely bang-on! Sheridan did a good job, but it would have been interesting to have the drama done from the POV of Natalie (Karen's friend who quickly started to doubt her). Julie (played by Sheridan) seemed to spend most of her time barking orders and organising events, whereas Natalie spent a lot more time with Karen - hence she saw more dodgy behaviour. It felt like Julie missed a lot, so we had her being told about it, instead of seeing it.
A special mention should go to the lad who played Julie's son - he was brilliant! I loved his comment when they were going to the vigil - "We won't have to pray or anything, will we?"
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Post by johartuk on Feb 8, 2017 0:37:56 GMT
I agree. It's creepy and disturbing.
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Post by johartuk on Jan 29, 2017 16:40:40 GMT
Just caught up with it. I agree that it could have done with a fourth ep. A good watch, though.
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Post by johartuk on Jan 22, 2017 16:43:32 GMT
Just caught up with ep 2. I enjoyed that - fascinating stuff.
I can't help thinking that 'A Chorus Line' was the inspiration for today's TV talent shows, with auditionees being encouraged to share their life stories with the voting public.
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