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Post by Jon on May 27, 2023 23:41:41 GMT
Saw the play tonight and found it fascinating. I admit I know nothing about recent Russian history and so was going in cold. It's a good insight into how the Oligarchs were able to put Putin in power but also how easy it was for a kingmaker like Boris Berezovsky to fall from grace.
Tom Hollander was excellent was Berezovsky as is Will Keen as Putin who transform from bumbling deputy mayor to the most powerful man in Russia, Luke Thallon as Roman Abramovich was good as well.
The front row seats are great value at £20, you only miss a scene or two which is played to the back of the set but everything else is play front and centre.
Very mixed audience tonight, quite a few Russians and the normal well heeled crowd.
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Post by Jon on May 26, 2023 17:43:06 GMT
I'm more and more excited with each drip of pictures, clips and reports... I so wish they could film it and release it to the public! I know it's not very likely, to say the least, but one can wish! It's a shame, really, that hardly any recent production of ALW's shows got a video release after they closed; in my opinion, they all should have, even for the sake of being preserved for posterity. Stephen Ward, The Woman in White revival at the Charing Cross Theatre, the Glenn Close Revival of Sunset Boulevard, of course... Sunset Boulevard in Concert at the RAH with Mazz Murray... West End's Cinderella or Broadway's Bad Cinderella... They all should have gotten a video release after they closed! Please make it happen at least this time with this revival of Aspects of Love, whoever's responsible for such decisions! To quote Aerosmith: 'Dream On'
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Post by Jon on May 26, 2023 10:05:02 GMT
From a crassly commercial perspective, I'm intrigued to see if Turner's death prolongs the life of this show, in the same way that Thriller Live thrived when Michael Jackson died. I don't think it's a like for like comparison. Thriller was on the verge of closing when Michael Jackson died which caused ticket sales to increase.
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Post by Jon on May 25, 2023 20:09:49 GMT
I don't see Norris stepping down until 2025.
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Post by Jon on May 25, 2023 17:27:44 GMT
Has anyone seen Leopoldstadt on Broadway? Its grosses at Longacre Theatre are quite low and they never sold out, but it’s been running since late last year. It sold quite well originally but clearly not enough of an audience to justify the extension.
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Post by Jon on May 24, 2023 13:46:24 GMT
The Almeida has quickly become the theatre I know I’ll need to have a backup plan for, when I book for a show. I think that's a little unfair, it doesn't happen with all of their shows. Musicals seem to be an issue compared to plays.
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Post by Jon on May 23, 2023 16:33:49 GMT
Wicked Friday night - I've seen my fair share of terrible behaviour at the AV but this one is my new favourite: lady next to me gets her legs up on the empty seat in front of her (which is bad enough by itself and not the first time I've had this) and proceeds to slather them in body lotion through act 2. People really do seem to think they can behave as if they're in their own living room. Unfortunately my best frosty glares had no effect. My idea would be for ushers to have permission to use a stick to make people put their feet or legs firmly on the floor.
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Post by Jon on May 23, 2023 16:31:06 GMT
I'm torn on it - I'm not sure I approve of Nicole, but she does have a beautiful voice and will probably do well enough on the back of that to be worth a ticket, even if she can't act it (and hey, maybe she can). I doubt she'll have anyone leaving at the interval! I just wish she was ten years older. I think for me I need to see what the overall production is like. I'm one of the few who actually liked the actor/musician one from a while back (and you won't normally hear me say I liked one of those!) but this time I think I just want SUNSET BOULEVARD. Big, shiny, massive sets, ornate costumes. A car on stage. Maybe not a real monkey corpse, though. Sunset Boulevard in its original form is never going to happen again, it lost a lot of money for ALW.
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Post by Jon on May 22, 2023 21:49:25 GMT
Alice Orr-Ewing mentioned on Twitter she took over with just one rehearsal so I'm guessing there wasn't any cancelled performances, there wasn't an alternate Sybil before so I'm guessing she took over in the last week or so.
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Post by Jon on May 22, 2023 12:45:06 GMT
It'll be interesting to see how Nicole approaches Norma because I think while it's fun seeing the kooky, OTT Norma, I've seen bits of Betty Buckley who plays it more straight and actually her final descent at the end is more tragic because of it.
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Post by Jon on May 21, 2023 19:40:17 GMT
I get that Ruth didn't rehearse with any of the 100 men but I wonder if the creative team had any output in what the men were going to say so that you didn't potentially have back to back identical scenes.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 23:52:26 GMT
I would interested to know how many of the men play it for laughs or who want to do it more seriously. If it were me, I would lean towards doing it straight as you probably get more out of Ruth Wilson than trying to disarm her with jokes and silliness.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 22:22:12 GMT
It would be interesting to see how Ruth is towards the end when she's tired and a little ratty, I think that makes a more interesting performance than at the beginning.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 19:44:56 GMT
I'm curious if the men who have been chosen have been able to 'rehearse' or is more like improv? I'm sure someone like Jack Thorne while not an actor probably would had an idea how his scenes with Ruth Wilson would go.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 19:30:26 GMT
The fact that ALW has given his approval and is co-producing with Michael Harrison and ATG suggests he trust Jamie Lloyd to do something different to the material.
Honestly I think some on here just want carbon copies for all time with no room for reinvention.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 18:39:03 GMT
Is the acting by the men good, bad or downright awful? Some better than others. A couple were poor but the rest not bad! I suppose it's the risk of having non actors amongst the actors.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 17:58:30 GMT
I assume it's playing at Home
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 17:30:34 GMT
Is the acting by the men good, bad or downright awful?
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 15:27:25 GMT
I do wonder why people are so against shows being reimagined. Theatre isn't a museum piece that is the same for all eternity. No, but often when a show is "reimagined" it loses the intentions of its writers. If a show becomes so reworked that it has lost all sense of its basic plot, why not just write something new altogether? I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but it's why the word "reimagined" in theatre can give many pause for thought. You could "reimagine" Harry Potter so that all the characters are transferred to a regular American high school, but it would lose everything that it was in the process. The thing about the musical version of Sunset is that it's a carbon copy of the movie but with songs and while some may like that, there is room for reinterpretation, it's been 30 years and surely that allows a new generation to look at it with fresh eyes. Daniel Fish's Oklahoma! was a way of bringing new perpective into a show that is 80 years old as was Cabaret by Rebecca Frecknall. If we stuck so religiously to how it was originally done then we wouldn't have had fresh revivals of plays like A View From the Bridge or A Streetcar Named Desire.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 14:05:44 GMT
I do wonder why people are so against shows being reimagined. Theatre isn't a museum piece that is the same for all eternity.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 12:26:13 GMT
Nicole is only 5 years younger than what Norma is in the show/film so age isn't really an issue plus we've seen roles cast younger before like the most recent revival of My Fair Lady where Eliza and Higgins are closer in age.
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Post by Jon on May 19, 2023 11:54:00 GMT
Is this an ATG or Really Useful production? Any other details on the production team - is it Soutra Gilmour designing as usual etc? ATG and Jamie Lloyd Company I would assume.
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Post by Jon on May 18, 2023 23:47:43 GMT
Given this is supposedly going to the Savoy, the chances of a big set are zero.
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Post by Jon on May 16, 2023 14:51:37 GMT
I know it is impossible to have live action singing fish and so forth but the amount of animation in this makes me wonder why on earth they bothered when a brilliant animated version already exists and has been enchanting audiences for decades. It isn't a live action film in any meaningful sense and the joins between the live and the animated are too obvious for me. Very hard no on this one. Disney should drop these remakes in favour of creating new musical animated films. The talent and the stories are out there. Remakes are not the way forward. Disney already do new animated films, see Wish later this year. The live action remakes are mining the IP, no difference to adapting them for the stage. Clearly it's working, making loads of money and being noticed as Universal and DreamWorks are doing a live action version of How To Train Your Dragon and I would bet Shrek is in the pipeline, the latter would make a ton of money.
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Post by Jon on May 16, 2023 13:52:10 GMT
I don't have any issue with the Donmar maximising income, they no longer have ACE funding so they can charge and allocate however they like.
Also, why it is so taboo for theatres to want to maximise their income?
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Post by Jon on May 15, 2023 23:59:03 GMT
I'm surprised they knew where the dressing room was and how he was able to get a camera anywhere near the window, that must have been one long selfie stick. I don't know about this particular theatre, but traditionally the "star" dressing rooms are stage level so may be closer to the ground floor. I'm guessing it's possibly near the stage door.
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Post by Jon on May 15, 2023 22:48:26 GMT
I'm surprised they knew where the dressing room was and how he was able to get a camera anywhere near the window, that must have been one long selfie stick.
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Post by Jon on May 15, 2023 22:45:03 GMT
Interesting that this wouldn’t go into an LW theatre… Aspects of Love is in a Nimax theatre so it's not like it's that unusual not to mention none of the LW Theatres are available.
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Post by Jon on May 15, 2023 21:40:19 GMT
Is Sunset a limited run or is planned to be open ended?
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Post by Jon on May 15, 2023 20:05:45 GMT
Wouldn't it have to be completely reworked in order to work as a film?
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