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Post by Sotongal on Aug 19, 2022 11:48:51 GMT
Interesting that Robert Tripolino (thought his name rang a bell) is joining Les Miserables as Marius as he’s been playing The Man in Whistle Down the Wind at the Watermill Theatre, which runs until 10th September, which we went to see. ”Adam Filipe learns leading Whistle Down the Wind role in 24 hours. The actor was brought in to play The Man”. ”The company was forced to cancel Monday's performance due to additional absences, but quickly found someone willing to save the day – Adam Filipe, who, despite not knowing the material or the staging and being contacted on Monday evening, learned the leading role of The Man in a day.
He then performed off-book for Tuesday's evening show – less than 24 hours after accepting the part. He also performed two shows again yesterday.
Filipe, who graduated in 2018, already has a variety of stage credits to his name including Les Misérables, The Prince of Egypt, and recently Tony in West Side Story at Ljubljana Festival.”www.whatsonstage.com/newbury-theatre/news/adam-filipe-whistle-down-the-wind_57181.html
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Post by Sotongal on Aug 19, 2022 11:46:03 GMT
Interesting that Robert Tripolino (thought his name rang a bell) is joining as Marius as he’s been playing The Man in Whistle Down the Wind at the Watermill Theatre, which runs until 10th September, which we went to see. “ Adam Filipe learns leading Whistle Down the Wind role in 24 hours. The actor was brought in to play The Man”. “ The company was forced to cancel Monday's performance due to additional absences, but quickly found someone willing to save the day – Adam Filipe, who, despite not knowing the material or the staging and being contacted on Monday evening, learned the leading role of The Man in a day.
He then performed off-book for Tuesday's evening show – less than 24 hours after accepting the part. He also performed two shows again yesterday.
Filipe, who graduated in 2018, already has a variety of stage credits to his name including Les Misérables, The Prince of Egypt, and recently Tony in West Side Story at Ljubljana Festival.”
www.whatsonstage.com/newbury-theatre/news/adam-filipe-whistle-down-the-wind_57181.html
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Post by Sotongal on Aug 16, 2022 20:38:22 GMT
glad I'm not the only one who was wondering... Just curious, since the Cinderella closing and the inference that LW had some family issues going on - has there ever been any confirmation of that? Just wondered if that was why we hadn't heard anything else about a revival of something (or any Cinderella news for NY) Just remembered in the Daily Mail, it’s got photos of ALW ‘last Tuesday, Nicole Scherzinger, 44, dazzled in a sparkling gown as she was escorted by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, 77, to dinner at Craig's in West Hollywood, LA’.
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Post by Sotongal on Aug 7, 2022 15:11:57 GMT
Saw this yesterday evening. Olivier about 2/3 full maybe (it was a captioned performance).
Enjoyed it though we thought the verbal sexual references may have been funnier if they’d been a bit more subtle than obvious. Likewise, there were a lot of swear words, which used sparingly can be very funny and meaningful, but used excessively lose their edge.
Family of four in front of us, parents, teenage daughter and son of about ten. Could see them cringing at times and the father and son left in the interval.
We felt it needed more work - not as funny, well written or developed as One Man, Two Guvnors.
Also, hadnt been to the NT since pre Covid and were surprised how tatty round the edges it’s getting. It used to be a great experience going to a Peter Hall production at the NT, full of expectation of seeing some big theatrical names or Productions. Times and audiences change, I guess.
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Post by Sotongal on May 15, 2022 21:04:23 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Apr 5, 2022 15:03:07 GMT
Tried to book tickets for a (birthday present) date in May last night, when most of the tickets left are £105 each, but the website kept dropping out half of the payment page, so couldn’t purchase them.
Tried again today, only to see the same seats are now £245 each, to include some sort of dining! (There are others on the site, also presumably including dining(?) now £270 each! )
So, I rang the Box Office and asked about the original seats and was told that the prices/offer had been changed over night and if I had bought them last night, I would have been contacted today to have them moved! The Box Office person said the dining tickets had been instigated by the Production Company(?)
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Post by Sotongal on Jun 5, 2021 21:48:36 GMT
Isn’t she amazing! I’m so glad she’s doing sunset Boulevard as I’m not sure I’d want to go to Mamma Mia again (no offence to those who like it). I was at the matinee too and rather distracted by the frequent squeaking noises. Too off-putting for my easily distracted self. I think it was an alarm that kept going off. I first noticed it in the interval. Seemed to go on for a few minutes and then stop for a few and start up again. It annoyed me at first but I managed to block it out after a while. The air conditioning was going on and off through some vents in the side walls of the theatre, maybe it was that?
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Post by Sotongal on Nov 18, 2020 11:38:22 GMT
Brian Conley is on This Morning saying there’s 900 seats for sale out of 2,500, there’s ten in the cast, a thirty piece orchestra and twenty in a choir but that they’ve cut back on crew by having back projections instead of all scenery.
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Post by Sotongal on Nov 18, 2020 8:42:10 GMT
Appearing tonight!
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Post by Sotongal on Oct 24, 2020 8:49:39 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Oct 8, 2020 16:23:14 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Sept 10, 2020 12:35:05 GMT
Camelot is a lovely score with some hidden gems - it is a shame that the book is so plodding. I do think it is a shame that they were only selling tables of four tickets - I understand the economics - but not everyone can put together (and then afford) a suitable group to take advantage of the offer. It clearly hasn't meant they haven't sold - as it is a sell out. Just a little unfair on singletons Think someone asked them this on twitter and it's something they said they'd look into. However, the two outside shows have now finished, but they've got three socially distanced indoor ones coming soon. Its a great location, for anyone who hasn't been!
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Post by Sotongal on Jul 18, 2020 11:06:17 GMT
It becomes a good, well written article, but what Will Gompertz conveniently forgets to mention is that along with The Guardian and The Stage, the BBC also ran with the Covid angle on 6 May, so if they are at fault, his employer is too. Think they didn’t know what had been going on then - but journalists seem to be keener on asking how people how they feel than digging out facts and properly interviewing people these days. ACE, Southampton City Council and the University of Southampton have together obfuscated the facts on this closure. It suited them at the beginning to use Covid as something to hide behind. It would have been more obvious something odd was going on if it hadn’t coincided with Covid. On rereading the article a couple of times, the nuances of what went on become a bit more obvious...
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Post by Sotongal on Jul 17, 2020 16:45:40 GMT
The word to describe ACE, Southampton City Council and the University of Southampton handling of NST Theatres is...disingenuous.
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Post by Sotongal on Jul 17, 2020 16:01:52 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Jul 10, 2020 15:43:04 GMT
Northern Broadside’s production of “Quality Street”, by JM Barrie at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, on 12th March 2020.
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Post by Sotongal on Jun 29, 2020 14:46:18 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Jun 26, 2020 20:21:36 GMT
The last time we went to the Theatre Royal Windsor, the skinny chap in the seat next to ours went out in the interval and on his return sat down to be accompanied by a loud cracking sound as his seat fell to pieces beneath him and he fell through it onto the floor.
Hope Bill Kenwright has found a few quid for maintenance since then!
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Post by Sotongal on May 14, 2020 9:52:43 GMT
Eldridge wants your money when you go to see his plays but that's the extent of the participation and contribution he wants from you. We went to a talk last year by a producer on how he started off/how to be one and he basically said (I paraphrase) that he was really glad of small investors when he started off, before big investors got involved, but that once he’d got big investors involved, he’d found the minor investors a pain in the b*m as they questioned everything! So, to him they’d become an irritation, even though he’d been glad of their money, once upon a time. What’s On Stage probably thought they were giving some amateur writers something to do and aim for and £500 for most unemployed creative people at the moment might have been a welcome boost. It wasn’t a commission job and didn’t say it was for career playwrights.
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Post by Sotongal on May 13, 2020 10:21:10 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on May 11, 2020 14:55:45 GMT
I stand corrected on points I've previously made. I was talking with a friend today lives in Southampton and is involved in the arts. He brought up that the City Theatre was built as part of Southampton's bid to be city of culture in a few years. But in his opinion the problem they have is that Southampton is not a cultural city through and through, and therefore there isn't an audience to fill the theatre every night. Of course there is the Mayflower Theatre where panto, big musicals like Lion King, Les Mis and Wicked and stand ups sell out. Well known shows with names. Those are more attractive and I think I remember reading a comment on the old board about the fact Southampton is a touring stop not far from London with direct transport connections so there is an audience coming in to see the touring shows The Mayflower Theatre used to be known as The Gaumont and in the Seventies was a major stop for concerts - I saw Elton John and Kate Bush there. Once or twice a year it was used for a local drama /singing group to put on musicals like The Sound of Music. It had terrible access at the rear for productions needing good access. A couple of times Rank, the then owner tried to get permission to turn it into a bingo hall but were luckily refused. The council ended up buying it (and painting the interior a disgusting turquoise!) Since then it’s been run as a charity, been refurbished a couple of times, inproved the rear access and now luckily with an audience keen to see touring musicals is doing well. The council used to be much more pre culture in the Sixties and Seventies. I don’t think the current council could organise a p*ss up in a brewery. The museums only open a few days a week, there’s no vision from the council to join up the cultural events or cultural/historical places of the city and promote them . They’d been trying to get a theatre in the city for years, not just for the City of Culture bid. When the council handed over the City Theatre building to NST after a very short time both passenger lifts plus the theatre dock lift broke down and there were wrangles over getting the council to sort it out for months. With the theatre being on the first floor and the studio on the second this caused problems for access for customers and crew. The design of the City theatre meant that only the entrance is visible even though it’s opposite the main Civic Centre in the city, so many didn’t even notice it. The fact both theatres have the same prefix -NST - meant customers, not checking properly - sometimes went to the wrong one. As the original NST Campus theatre is on the University of Southampton site, over the years it’s not been very accessible if you don’t know where it is, have got a car or some other form of transport. It’s too far to walk to from the City Centre. So the original one never really figured in locals minds as a place to go to. Calling the second one NST City just added to the confusion and comprehension. Southampton City Council and ACE have a lot to answer for in this saga which will hopefully come out one day. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_Theatre
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Post by Sotongal on May 6, 2020 16:29:11 GMT
For anyone who doesn't know - there are two NST theatres in Southampton.
NST Campus is the original one, built in 1964, on the University of Southampton site and NST City, which is the new one, opened in 2018, in the city centre.
(Re parking. There's always been plenty of parking near NST City - within 5/10 minutes walk there is a carpark outside the Civic Centre, one next to BBC South and one near Watts Park. There's also Blue Badge parking behind NST City.)
NST Campus ‘is closing for much needed refurbishment from April 2020 for two years’, according to a university press release (but now indefinitely?) but the Campus building is owned by the University.
The NST City building is, I think, owned by the council.
Maybe questions should be asked of ACE, the University of Southampton and Southampton City Council, who have all withdrawn their support?
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Post by Sotongal on Jan 27, 2020 18:17:40 GMT
There's an interview with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber about Stephen Ward and The Profumo Affair in the Daily Mail (!) which touches on him writing Stephen Ward:The Musical. "... With the playwright Christopher Hampton and lyricist Don Black, I embarked on turning Ward's story into a stage spectacular. Some context: I was not a well man at the time, suffering from serious complications after treatment for back pain by (oh, the irony) a highly recommended osteopath. I was spaced out on super-strength painkillers. Looking back, I realise morphine and musicals don't mix. Large parts of the writing of Stephen Ward: The Musical are a blank to me. I don't recall how I got to the show's first night in 2014, for instance. I am proud of many of the songs and truly believe that, although it was deeply flawed, it had the bones of a terrific musical. But it closed after three months, causing me to recall the words of U.S. theatre impresario Jimmy Nederlander Sr, who once told me: 'There is no limit to the number of people who won't buy tickets to a show they don't want to see.' Perhaps if I'd called it Mandy And Christine: The Musical, it would still be playing to packed houses. Who knows?" www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7932095/ANDREW-LLOYD-WEBBER-asks-real-Profumo-story-locked-vault.html
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Post by Sotongal on Jan 20, 2020 21:43:30 GMT
Techy (Equity member) son is off to New York for a few days and wants to see as many shows as he can fit in. However, he's seen how much the tickets are and is wondering whether to buy in advance or try to get them when he gets there, hopefully a bit cheaper.
Any good advice, please, on best way to get best, cheapest tickets in New York?
Many thanks!
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Post by Sotongal on Jan 13, 2020 16:38:33 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Jan 11, 2020 19:00:56 GMT
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Post by Sotongal on Dec 22, 2019 17:39:37 GMT
Don't know if this is correct, but we saw the film at the Reading Showcase cinema yesterday and Dame Judi was wearing a ring in that version. I wasn’t paying that close attention! It just sort of glinted out amongst all the fur for a moment!
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Post by Sotongal on Dec 22, 2019 15:45:42 GMT
Any way to tell which ‘print’ we saw? I saw the 11:20 at Vue Piccadilly today and there were issues but none of them seemed easy fixes! I noted around 1000 animators in the credits!!! I'm not sure if there's any way of knowing which version it was, as they don't specifically say what changes/fixes they've made. Don't know if this is correct, but we saw the film at the Reading Showcase cinema yesterday and Dame Judi was wearing a ring in that version.
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Post by Sotongal on Dec 3, 2019 11:34:06 GMT
No, no and no.
Someone please start a petition or something to keep it as Theatre Royal !
(Hubs is involved in the theatre world and says there's a trend to stop calling theatres 'Theatre Royal', to make them appeal more to the masses! Of course, the NT was the Royal National Theatre for a while until it dropped the Royal for those reasons....but it didn't say no to having the Duchess of Sussex as it's Royal Patron....)
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Post by Sotongal on Nov 15, 2019 13:58:11 GMT
Anyone else seen My Cousin Rachel yet, or planning to see it?
We saw it on its first night in Bath and first night of the tour.
Quite enjoyed it, mainly because I am familiar with and know that it's a good story.
Allowing for first night nerves, my thoughts are -
The set doesn't quite work and hampers the flow at times. This is mainly because there is a massive, narrowerish staircase which rises from stage right to the top of a sort of tower stage left. The set is on a revolve, so facing one way it's the interior hall of the Ashley family home, but then spins round to be a bridge facing the sea. So, at various times the cast have to trek up and down the stairs, which isn't too difficult for the male cast (wearing trousers!) but left Helen George, in her long frocks, trying to pull up the front of the dress so she could get up the steps, sometimes also trying to carry a candle and other things at the same time, (at one point she, understandably dropped something). She badly needs wrist loops on those dresses, so she can hitch them up!
(Having seen the NT version of Macbeth which had a massive slope across the stage, it sort of dominated, wrongly, in the same way.)
My main thoughts on Helen George is that she's too much of an English Rose in the role of Rachel, who's supposed to be an Italian Countess by birth. She wasn't quite foreign/exotic/enigmatic enough, though maybe that will come as the tour continues?
Jack Holden, as Philip Ashley, grew in confidence as the drama continued. The rest of the cast were also very good,with a special shout out for Simon Shepherd as Nicholas Kendall, who was excellent at enunciating and projecting his voice.
Did feel though, that the roughly two hours of the drama doesn't give much time to show how Philip, at the age of 24, who has grown up in a completely male household and who thinks Rachel has poisoned her husband (his cousin) then becomes completely enamoured with her and believes she can do no wrong.
Would be interesting to see how different/same this is later in the tour.
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