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Post by mrbarnaby on Jan 21, 2024 11:12:14 GMT
I think a lot of older plays, particularly comedies, come off a little bit static and dated when they're revived nowadays. They're such a stark contrast to the more hard-hitting and/or frenetic plays we've seen emerging in recent years. I'll try and see this if I can do so cheaply. Good luck with that!
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Post by theatrefan62 on Jan 21, 2024 14:16:36 GMT
A lot of Neil Simon's stuff hasn't dated particularly well. The idea of paying £300 to see this is preposterous. As if anyone would have remotely considered forking out more than £50 in 1999 to see Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason in The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Haymarket! Everyone's lost the run of themselves these days. It's no different to forking out hundreds to see Madonna or Beyonce in concert. It's the chance to see someone you really like/admire doing what they do in the flesh. People aren't paying for the play, they are paying to see SJP live.
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Post by alece10 on Jan 21, 2024 14:33:32 GMT
I've booked to see it in mid Feb. A friend wanted to see it so I bought tickets. I had no idea what it was about so it was a surprise reading above about it being 3 plays. I will however go with an open mind. I'm looking forward to seeing Matthew Broderick on the stage, SJP didn't have any pulling power as I've never seen her in anything including Sex in the City. Why have I got Maggie Smith in my head? Did she do a film version if this or was that something completely different?
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Post by Rory on Jan 21, 2024 15:53:48 GMT
A lot of Neil Simon's stuff hasn't dated particularly well. The idea of paying £300 to see this is preposterous. As if anyone would have remotely considered forking out more than £50 in 1999 to see Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason in The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Haymarket! Everyone's lost the run of themselves these days. It's no different to forking out hundreds to see Madonna or Beyonce in concert. It's the chance to see someone you really like/admire doing what they do in the flesh. People aren't paying for the play, they are paying to see SJP live. Yes, and fair enough if they think she's worth shelling out 300 quid to see in an old star vehicle.
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Post by Jon on Jan 21, 2024 17:48:49 GMT
Neil Simon's plays aren't performed that much anyone. I do think a revival of The Odd Couple would do quite well with the right cast.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jan 21, 2024 18:10:23 GMT
It's no different to forking out hundreds to see Madonna or Beyonce in concert. It's the chance to see someone you really like/admire doing what they do in the flesh. People aren't paying for the play, they are paying to see SJP live. Yes, and fair enough if they think she's worth shelling out 300 quid to see in an old star vehicle. Producers set a precedent with Cabaret, Cock et al and found the public coughed up. Then they pushed it further, changed the casts to lesser names but kept the prices high and the public still coughed up. The genie is out of the bottle.
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Post by Rory on Jan 21, 2024 18:13:54 GMT
Yes, and fair enough if they think she's worth shelling out 300 quid to see in an old star vehicle. Producers set a precedent with Cabaret, Cock et al and found the public coughed up. Then they pushed it further, changed the casts to lesser names but kept the prices high and the public still coughed up. The genie is out of the bottle. You're right. Unfortunately.
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Post by Being Alive on Jan 21, 2024 18:54:32 GMT
This is ultimately it - lots of people said at the time "people won't pay that" but people did, and thus producers are right to assume people will pay it again
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Post by callum on Jan 21, 2024 21:03:30 GMT
Saw this at the 5pm Sunday performance (I think the first time I've ever seen a show at that time) and had a terrific time. I was sceptical going in but SJP and Broderick have such magnetic chemistry, and both have brilliant comedic moments. Loved a lot of the jokes, and didn't feel particularly dated as the stories are explicitly framed as taking place in 1968/69. I think I enjoyed Act 2 the most, but Act 3 was pitch perfect farce alongside some unexpected melancholy in Act 1. Noticed shades of Pinter coming through in the writing.
I was in F28 in the Upper Circle, sold at £25 for restricted view due to a safety bar. The restriction however was negligible, and would strongly recommend if this seat is available and you fancy saving yourself up to £275! And if anyone cares, I'd also say the majority of the action in Act 1 and 2 takes place on the left side of the stage (from the audience point of view), and on the right side for Act 3.
My seat also meant I was straight out onto street level right next to the stage door and got a barrier spot. I can't remember the last time I did a stage door, but thought why not for these two. I have never seen so many people at a stage door before - there must have been well over a hundred people there and the queue was 6 to 7 people deep. I left to give other people a chance once I got my signatures so didn't see how long they stayed, but the rules were no selfies and only Plaza Suite merch to be signed. Both absolute pros and only took around 10-15 minutes to appear! Programmes £8.
Summary of the show is yes it's eyewateringly expensive, however if you can find a bargain then you'll have a very charming and entertaining evening, which will be enhanced if you're a fan of Broderick or - in particular - SJP.
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Post by mrbarnaby on Jan 22, 2024 16:33:27 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs/filming
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Post by Jon on Jan 22, 2024 16:35:31 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs! Why no one goes full on Patti, I don't know.
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Post by mrbarnaby on Jan 22, 2024 16:38:08 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs! Why no one goes full on Patti, I don't know. YES… UNLEASH PATTI
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Post by A.Ham on Jan 22, 2024 16:42:27 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs/filming Good for her! It must be so distracting for those performing, as much as it is annoying for fellow audience members (as we frequently discuss in the Bad Behaviour thread)
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Post by theinvisiblegirl on Jan 22, 2024 17:29:39 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs/filming She broke character just long enough to say “Please put your camera down…thank you” and then went straight on with the show like it never happened.
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Post by callum on Jan 22, 2024 20:04:38 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs/filming She broke character just long enough to say “Please put your camera down…thank you” and then went straight on with the show like it never happened. I have to say - I was there yesterday and didn't even notice!
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Post by theinvisiblegirl on Jan 22, 2024 20:46:00 GMT
It was in the last Act, when she was sat on the sofa.
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Post by fluxcapacitor on Jan 23, 2024 2:32:08 GMT
Apparently last night SJP stopped the show and told someone (politely) to stop taking photographs/filming She broke character just long enough to say “Please put your camera down…thank you” and then went straight on with the show like it never happened. This sounds very classy and dignified. Good on her.
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Post by JJShaw on Jan 25, 2024 11:24:24 GMT
Grabbed a seat for £55 yesterday rear dress circle, so they are doing a little dynamic pricing.
Very enjoyable evening, felt very 'Broadway' with a luscious set and tight direction. Loved SJP and MB was very solid too (with more shining moments in act 3) but felt a tad stiff, perhaps an off night or just tired so focusing on movement and placements but they were both very fun. I'm more of a SJP fan but the audience were loving MB.
I didn't feel that it was dated all that much, I really liked all three acts, I imagine once fully settled in and into the swing of it there will be a few more moments that pop but I was excited to see the show and very glad I managed to get a reasonably priced ticket. Nothing will ever ever be worth some of the top prices some shows are trying to charge(and as someone else mentioned above concerts) but if you can get a ticket do go see it! £55 is a bit higher than my usual price or what I am comfortable paying but it was worth the little splurge for myself.
Will be interesting to see what the critics think on Sunday, really don't know which way they will go.
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Post by thebroadwayboy on Jan 26, 2024 7:59:51 GMT
Fun Fact They both met in How to Succeed
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Post by A.Ham on Jan 26, 2024 10:00:14 GMT
I saw this last night and really enjoyed it - to an extent it is a little dated as others have said, but they make the 1968/69 setting clear (and of course the costumes highlight the time period too). It definitely builds - Act I is probably the weakest in terms of laugh out loud moments, and the narrative is one we’ve perhaps seen more of than the stories told in Acts II and III. So for those unimpressed after the first act, stick with it!
Coming back from the interval, Jesse and Muriel’s story is amusing, but they definitely save the best till last with a farce-like final act with the Hubley’s bridal daughter locked in the bathroom. Laugh out loud funny in places here and the audience were very much wrapped up in it and laughing in all the right places.
Thankfully no bad behaviour to report, although the Savoy’s tills clearly didn’t stop ringing with sales of champagne, gin and the rest - based on the number of patrons looking very ‘merry’ the bar take must be rivalling the box office, even for this show. But everyone sat very quietly and respectfully so it does show it can be done. Perhaps there’s just less opportunities to join in at a play than a musical?!
Although I’d booked stalls row A when this first went on sale last autumn, this has now become the third row, and having been at Sunset a few weeks back and knowing the front stalls are inevitably flat with no rake, I called ATG last week and was able to switch into a central row AA seat by paying the difference. The stage isn’t particularly high and there’s around a metre of gangway in front of AA, so this proved to be the perfect spot to see and appreciate all the details, of both the set and the acting. There’s a lot of dynamic pricing going on with those front few rows - time it right and they’re not as horrendous as some of the coverage of the show’s prices would have you believe, and I spotted AA at £125 which is a lot less than they’ve been at times (unless you’re a lucky lottery winner of course). I was also able to retrieve the paper aeroplane that Karen Nash makes with the hotel’s headed paper and flies at her husband in Act I, which makes a nice piece of memorabilia given it’s printed with the Plaza hotel logo.
I’m going for four stars in the poll - I think it’s probably a three star play but SJP and Matthew Broderick really do elevate it - great timing and expressions from them both ramp up the comedy and SJP in particular uses so many different looks, glances and grimaces that she ekes out those extra laughs. I’m not sure it would play quite so well further back/up in the theatre so looking forward to reading comments on this thread over the next couple of months to see what others think.
As callum has posted above, stage door was packed - several people deep all along the barrier and I’ve no idea if SJP and Matthew keep going until they’ve signed for everyone. They did come out fairly promptly though, and thankfully I’d got a good spot so was able to get my programme signed almost straight away before moving back - Sarah was very pleasant and enthusiastic, Matthew going through the motions somewhat!
It’s certainly a great chance to see two iconic American stars in a slick comedy so for me it made a great night out.
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Post by MoreLife on Jan 26, 2024 10:04:18 GMT
In my opinion, whatever you do, do NOT make this decision, to leave at the interval. . . Instead, if you are the kind of person who leaves at the interval, having little patience for average material, have dinner from 7pm - 8pm, and show up at 8:30pm for the second half, which plays from 8:45pm to 10pm. The difference between before and after the interval is chalk and cheese, where the first hour is whiny chalk screeching across a wizened blackboard, and the second half is a delicious comic cheese platter to be savoured. I really enjoyed myself tonight, feeling that the first half was decidedly average, with skilful performances lifting intrinsically poor material, but found the second half was very funny, with skilful performances lifting good material towards excellence. Some spoilers follow. . . The three plays presented are essentially three two-handers, one before the interval, and two after. The connection between the plays is that they are all set in the same suite at the Plaza Hotel in the late sixties, and although the plays do not feature the same characters, they all explore the role of communication in middle-aged relationships. The first play is about a failure of such communication, the second about successful communication, and the third about something in between, as well as about how communication styles might be passed from one generation to the next. Throughout the evening, Matthew Broderick, who I found to be a sensitive and emotive actor in "The Starry Messenger," at Wyndham's Theatre, just gets funnier and funnier. In the first play, Broderick gets more comic mileage than Walter Matthau got out of the same material, in the film (which I saw a couple of decades ago, but in which I recall Matthau being unpleasantly and off-puttingly abrasive), by channeling a kind of Wallace Shawn drony drollness, a much more pliant and comic doormat approach of dealing with the wife he can't agree with about anything. Sarah Jessica Parker spends the duration of this first play desperately and tragically trying to penetrate the drone, but as an audience member, I found the most memorable moment of the play was when Parker threw a paper plane across the room for it to land precisely on Broderick's lap. Cue cheers. Despite a couple of laughs, and an effective moment of melancholy, I'd rate the first play 2 and a half stars, raised from a 2 star text by the performances. After the interval, the second play is an insightful comedy zinger, with both Sarah Jessica Parker and Broderick fizzing comically with desire for each other, after seventeen years of not seeing each other, though they now speak completely different love languages, with Parker desirous only of hearing about her former beau's Hollywood star connections, as he is now a big producer, and he desirous solely for her straightforward simplicity. The way these two love languages play off each other is utterly delightful, and both actors elevate good material into the stratosphere, with Broderick's Wallace Shawn comic whininess now informed by a youthful Woody Allen (before he got a bad rep lol) comic lustiness. For me, this is the best play of the evening, as the play is the match of the performances, and I'd give it 4 and a half stars. The third play is the broadest comedy of all, about a couple who can't talk their daughter out of a bathroom on her wedding day. Now Broderick fires on more comedy cylinders than ever before, dressed in humorously grotesque grey aging makeup, getting more and more frenetic, a Wallace Shawn crossed with a young Woody Allen crossed with a Basil Fawlty crossed with the aging waiter who stumbled around in "Man with Two Guvnors," a comedy character par excellence. Unfortunately, SJP's straight woman character, albeit well done, gets a bit sidelined by Broderick's bravura comedy performance, so overall the play is not as interesting in what it has to say as the second play, but moment for moment it is the funniest, and I give it 4 stars. Play 1: 2 stars; Play 2: 4 and a half stars; Play 3: 4 stars. Overall, 3 and a half stars, but taken by itself, AFTER the interval rates a dynamic and winning 4 and a bit stars for me! So, in my opinion, don't miss the second half. I went to see this earlier this week and I couldn't agree more about how different in terms of vibe and quality the three sub-plays are. I also found the first one to be the weakest, partly because of the writing and the material feeling old and "dead", but also in part (I think) because of how it's been directed. There's so little happening and what the characters say in that first half that it could have benefited from a faster pace and maybe a more daring way of inhabiting those two characters... they're just plain boring, but not even in a way that makes you laugh at how boring they are, if that makes any sense. I loved Play 2, it was playful and quirky and gave both SJP and MB some good material to work with, plus their complicity and chemistry really shone through. Play 3 was funny and also well acted by both, although as you say SJP was perhaps a bit limited by the script in terms of what she could do with her character, whereas MB was given ample room to shine. To me, this (well, the second half!) made for a rather enjoyable night out and yes it felt a bit special to see those two on stage (I loved how at curtain call the way SJP waved and interacted with the audience suddenly felt more reminiscent of Carrie Bradshaw's mannerisms, which I believe to be closer to SJP's own). But... I also have to mention that my ticket cost £55 - had I spent £100 or above, as so many have done / are doing, I certainly would have felt the robbed, given the content and quality of the first half.
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Post by Being Alive on Jan 26, 2024 12:13:26 GMT
Extended by two weeks to April 13th.
Seats at every performance starting at £25, 21 seats per show in the stalls at £55.
If we start the stupid ticket price discourse when there are affordable ticket available again I'm gonna lose it...
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Post by A.Ham on Jan 26, 2024 12:31:29 GMT
Just saw the email - another fortnight is great and let’s hope there’s decent amounts of those more affordable seats.
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Post by thistimetomorrow on Jan 26, 2024 13:23:22 GMT
I've just grabbed some grand circle seats at £35 for the extension. Can't wait!
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Post by dillan on Jan 28, 2024 18:35:36 GMT
I saw this on Friday, I did indeed spend £125 to sit front row but I thought, let me just treat myself lol. The stage at The Savoy is low so the view is honestly 10/10 and it's a bit weird that the row behind is £75 more at £200.
Act 1 is my least favourite out of the 3, it's a bit slow paced and a little predictable but still enjoyable. Act 2 is great and the material shows off both SJP and Matthew's comedy skills, but Act 3 was the true star IMO, I was belly laughing in the theatre - I actually didn't think the script limited SJP's acting, I thought both did fantastic here! I also didn't find the play to be too dated like some have said. Overall, is it worth the £300? Probably not, but if you're a big SJP/ Matthew fan, then you'll definitely enjoy because their acting alone made this worth seeing.
I stage door'd after, it was busy but not as busy as I was expecting.. about 5 lines deep, don't worry if you're towards the back, they seemed to sign everyone's show merch and both were very kind. SJP recognised me from sitting in the front row too - luckily the person next to me filmed it!
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jan 28, 2024 19:28:47 GMT
I saw this on Friday, I did indeed spend £125 to sit front row but I thought, let me just treat myself lol. The stage at The Savoy is low so the view is honestly 10/10 and it's a bit weird that the row behind is £75 more at £200. Act 1 is my least favourite out of the 3, it's a bit slow paced and a little predictable but still enjoyable. Act 2 is great and the material shows off both SJP and Matthew's comedy skills, but Act 3 was the true star IMO, I was belly laughing in the theatre - I actually didn't think the script limited SJP's acting, I thought both did fantastic here! I also didn't find the play to be too dated like some have said. Overall, is it worth the £300? Probably not, but if you're a big SJP/ Matthew fan, then you'll definitely enjoy because their acting alone made this worth seeing. I stage door'd after, it was busy but not as busy as I was expecting.. about 5 lines deep, don't worry if you're towards the back, they seemed to sign everyone's show merch and both were very kind. SJP recognised me from sitting in the front row too - luckily the person next to me filmed it! dillan how nice! What a thrill for you.
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Post by Being Alive on Jan 29, 2024 0:20:08 GMT
Majority 3 star reviews which is what I expected, with a couple of 4s, and a 2 from the miserable woman at the Guardian and also from The Stage
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Post by Jon on Jan 29, 2024 0:27:47 GMT
Majority 3 star reviews which is what I expected, with a couple of 4s, and a 2 from the miserable woman at the Guardian and also from The Stage They really need a reviewer for the Guardian who actually likes theatre.
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Post by parsley1 on Jan 29, 2024 0:42:55 GMT
What a shame
To have the fan following SJP has
And choose to appear in such a brainless piece of nothing writing
You really have to be a mediocre actor to complete a run in something so pointless and tedious
2 stars not only from Guardian Also from Independent And iNews The Stage
It’s ironic she made her name playing a character on the edge of fashion and feminism
And chooses a tacky, dated and very irrelevant play
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Post by mrbarnaby on Jan 29, 2024 7:55:35 GMT
I’m glad the reviewers have seen through this and not been dazzled by her star power to give it rave reviews.
She deserves so much better than this terrible play.
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