Just For One Day - Old Vic / Shaftesbury

In the interval. I LOVE IT.

Went to the Matinee today and enjoyed it. Didn't see anyone leave!

I liked how they mixed some of the songs together. Simple staging and great to see the band on stage and brought forward for moments too.

The Mrs T and Mr G rap reminded me of some of the Churchill moments in Sylvia. There was no Julie Atherton so Kerry Enright was Margaret and I thought she played the role well.

Great talent on the stage and I like how people were not look-alikes and songs just wove into the tales we were being told.

I enjoyed it more than I expected! Think they are missing out on merch opportunities as lots of people were wearing Live Aid and Live 8 tees!

A few covers on tonight:

- AJ Lewis on for Ashley Campbell as Jim
- James Hameed on for Joel Montague as Harvey (possibly the start of paternity leave, I wonder?).

There are just a few seats left for today's evening performance... Hurry up and buy them people so I can shift a lovely spare seat in Stalls L13 - one of the best in the house!

Of course, if you fancy that particular seat yourself, a quick call to the Old Vic Box Office and a request for that particular seat might see them sell it to you... No idea what the price is but imagine it will be around the same as other single seats sold on the day (i.e. significantly cheaper than the regular price).

Oh dear.

I saw it this evening.

It's never less than superficially entertaining, but it's totally superficial. It has a phenomenally talented, incredibly hard-working cast, a good set and great lighting and video projections, and no depth whatsoever. John O'Farrell's book features some buttock-clenchingly awful dialogue, and appears to be aimed at people who find flashcards too intellectually demanding. Matthew Brind's arrangements take an incredibly diverse selection of songs and compress them into the musical equivalent of a bargain-brand sausage. It's never painful to sit through when people are singing (when they're speaking, on the other hand...), and the singers are great, but it's as if Brind set out to sandpaper everything interesting out of this phemomenal stack of music. Particularly in the second act, far too much of it just all sounds the same - at least, if (as I am) you're old enough to have been an obsessive teenage pop fan in the mid-1980s. Very little of this music is bland on the original recordings, and that's a challenge Brind works very hard to overcome.

Nearly every significant moment is short-changed - most obviously I Don't Like Mondays, which loses impact by being given a more bombastic musical arrangement than the original single had. THAT pause during the concert was a heart-stopping moment, even on television; here, it's just yet another piece of bland sentimental uplift, partly because the dialogue surrounding the song is so painfully trite and partly because the song itself doesn't get space to breathe. One of the reasons it stood out during the original concert is that the song began small and was allowed to build, and it didn't sound at all like the song before it (the Style Council's Walls Come Tumbling Down). It was given space to breathe, and giving it that space paid off. Theatre can't precisely recreate what that moment looked like on the day, but it could give us some insight into how it felt and what it meant. That's what this show tries to do, but it fails at just about every hurdle. The show's attempt to discuss the very real issues with a) white saviour syndrome, b) the lyrics of Do They Know It's Christmas?, and c) the entire project's reductive understanding of the continent of Africa are so laughably simplistic that they would insult the intelligence of a seven-year-old. Throughout, the show has the same problem as The Little Big Things, which also didn't completely work but was vastly better than this: the creative team appear to be terrified of engaging with difficult emotional territory or morally complex ideas, to the point where everything is just dumbed down and pumped up into an endless stream of generic uplift.

And yet - as I said, when people are singing it isn't painful to sit through. The arrangements are bland, but the voices are great.  It doesn't work - at all - as an examination of the event it's supposed to be about, but it does have some entertainment value as a mindless nostalgia trip. And bless Julie Atherton's Mrs. T for supplying the only moments of genuine wit in the entire evening.

It just could and should have been so, so, so much better than that.

Two stars - and one and three-quarters of them are for the voices, which are excellent.

Agree with a lot of sf has to say, sadly. As much as one is thrilled to see a young, talented, diverse cast working brilliantly together, there was so much (almost everything else, I'm afraid) that didn't work for me, either. Mainly the book. But, overall, this sense that the idea behind the show and its staging could/should have played out differently. But such is life!

I agree about the understudies - I like the understudy Margaret (Kerry Enright) but prefer the Julie Atherton's portrayal more.  I have not seen cover Bob yet (despite seeing this show several times now) but frankly Craige Els IS Bob in my eyes.  Like you I really like the way Ashley Campbell works with Danielle Steers and I was somewhat disappointed with the understudy Jim I saw on Saturday.  I've also seen Dyd Wynford understudy Skye (usually played by the excellent Freddie Love) and I didn't enjoy Dyd's performance, but when they were the cover for Khalil/Paul on Saturday I thought they were superb with excellent comic timing and a very warm audience reaction. 

Somebody (other than Danielle Steers and Collette Guitart) who is consistently excellent in this is James Hameed who is great as Khalil/Paul, and who I saw on Saturday as a really lively and punchy Harvey.  I also think Abiona Omonua is fantastic as Amara - a great singing voice, but also a great narrator for the more serious storytelling. As it's a pretty much a roll-call of the cast, I can't not mentioned Olly Dobson who sings a couple of bangers and also has great comic timing.

All-in-all, every time I have seen this show it has had a rapturous response from the audience.  Presumably those who don't enjoy it either stay seated or leave before the end, as 95% of the audience are on their feet cheering loudly and applauding.  Populist theatre that happens to sell well - who'd have thought it...

Yes, I was there on Tuesday and it was the full cast - which, despite the talent of the covers / swings, really put a smile on my face.  Another rapturous audience on their feet and swaying and singing along to "Let It Be" at the curtain call.  

For a long period, all of us theatre fans pined for the opportunity to be inside a theatre, see a show, support the arts, and generally indulge our interests.  I'm probably over-sentimental, but there's something joyful about seeing 1000 people cheering having a great night out and enjoying themselves.  Three years ago we couldn't do this.

Really upset! Had family come down from the north to see it. Never mind. Hope everyone is ok.

Anybody know if this evening's performance has gone ahead? And if any reason was given for the matinee cancellation?

Was in tonight again. WOW!!! Hardly any of the cast were on. To the point that I felt sorry for the main cast who were in attendance. Danielle Steers off!!!! She was missed 😭 No chemistry between Ashley Campbell and the understudy. And the Suzanne’s had developed broad northern accents. Even though they are from western super Mare….. Bizarre. I know the show must go on….. But Tonight was a bit silly.

Great to see Just For One Day get recognition in the Olivier Award nominations. Cast album and a transfer would be nice!