Kiss Me Kate - Barbican / Cinema Release

What is the running time?

Sort of. It revolves as necessary to the relevant set and there are a couple of moments where it revolves continuously and actors move from set to set, a bit like a chase sequence. That's when it works best.

Saw this this tonight, and LOVED Stephanie J Block, the Gangster Duo, Jack Butterworth and Georgina Onuorah.

The book (gambling debts and letters comically delivered to the wrong people, exploding relationships) works brilliantly before the interval, delivering laughs galore, but peters out completely after the interval, when it all devolves into a very good musical revue show.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Adrian Dunbar's Dean Martin reminiscent crooning is warm, he hits the notes, and is pleasurable to listen to, though he's not up for a dance, so, after the dazzling "Too Darn Hot," Dunbar's "Where is the Life of Late I Lead?" feels awfully anticlimactic.

Peter Davison is neither up for a song nor a dance, so his plot interjections feel even more tedious in the second half, as the plot has fizzled out anyway, so it feels like he's just time wasting.

The highlights of the excellent second half revue show are in reverse order:-

(4) A criminally underused and under characterised Charlie Stemp singing and dancing up a storm in "Bianca;"

(3) Georgina Onuorah magnificently building to belting "Always True to You in My Fashion," interspersed with some hilarious comedy bits, although never attempting all the dance moves we got from Zoe Rainey at the London Coliseum a few years back;

(2) Nigel Lindsay effortlessly giving us the gangster character he's played a million times, but in an American accent and funnier, and singing the duet, "Brush up Your Shakespeare" with insistent precision comic timing, bouncing off the hilariously inexpressive Hammed Animashaun, whose dry wisecracks are zingers;

(1) Jack Butterworth absolutely killing a sweaty languid ensemble tableau with his suave, smooth, swaggering, sensuous, atmospheric, precise but loose and dangerous "Too Darn Hot," getting synchronised back-up from a superb Charlie Stemp (heretofore essentially superfluous).

But my personal highlight of the show was essentially the climax to the conflict of the first half, when the plot was still firing on all cylinders, and Stephanie J Block's 2 characters and Adrian Dunbar's 2 characters were locked in increasingly frenetic and funny combat.

At the point of greatest conflict, Stephanie J Block's "I Hate Men" was a comic masterclass in a character turning a mellifluous song into wailing, panting, snarling, frothing-at-the-mouth righteous and rabid explosive catharsis through song, and she even got the audience to sing along, which was doubly hilarious, and a flag in the sand for which character we favoured. That song was SUCH a ball, and it came from character, so it was so much more than mere revue.

We are lucky to have Stephanie J Block visiting with us, as she's utterly brilliant!

4 stars overall from me.

Is Stephanie hitting all the insane soprano notes at the end of act 1?

How is everyone finding SJB's "I Hate Men"? Thank you Steve for your thoughts already, but I'm curious if anyone else had anything to add/even a dissenting opinion?

Exceptional. One of the highlights of the show.

That’s really tempting. How high is the stage for this production?

Thinking of going tomorrow, would rather the matinee, but the evening show has all the best offers!

What is the best current offer? Better than OLT's £30?

Om sitting in the front row tonight (at pre offer price) so will report back.

Found a good £30 seat for the matinee, very excited, love the score.