Opening Night - Gielgud

Sheridan has been very vocal throughout the press for this that there is support available for her when she needs it.

It's very telling that I can get a Rush ticket for tonight in the stalls.

Having just remembered I started a thread, a while ago, titled something like "Bring back the feel bad musical" I'm now feeling a responsibility to like it! 

A mental health and well being expert on is show is a new thing. I understand the intimacy experts on set or people needing advice and support when playing "damaged people" on stage and screen. Plus when a "difficult" subject is approached the the performer/director has the means to speak to actual people who have experienced this or someone from that field is used as an advisor.

On musicals certainly there would likely be cast members who have done yoga even mindfulness training so can lead relaxation sessions and organizations often do have trained wellness people or a number you can ring. So big theatrical organizations and Equity etc having this available too would make sense.

I get the sense some people really hate Ivo and want him to lose his career. 

They’ve already got the publicity images out with the 4* reviews and quote bites from their saviours the Daily Fail, Guardian, and Time Out.

Without them they’d be in trouble.

...I quite like the curtain call 👀

I think we're supposed to stand and applaud, while laughing at the performative nature of our own Pavlov's dogs response to a cast who are taking the rise out of curtain call walk downs and how easily those can manipulate audiences. Maybe they could lead the audience in a chorus of 'musicals are sh*t' and the audience could respond with a chant of 'we want our money back', before going to the foyer to buy some expensive merch on the way out; but buying it ironically, in order to then chuck it in the nearest bin on Shaftesbury Avenue. 

Still not seen this, but there is something deeply intriguing about it all!

I saw it a second time this evening, after seeing the first preview. It’s better but not much better. Ivo van Hove should have let someone else write the book.

I love Magic! I want to see the show that belongs in, and the Broadway one, and the one with Myrtle and the writer, and the I’m ready for battle one. It’s like flicking between two channels.

The last scene has changed a lot and it’s better.

The ex-boyfriend is a drip, the director is just horrible to watch and the producer is a little bit interesting. I think they’re deliberately like that, but they’re not enjoyable to watch. The ex-boyfriend now redeems himself somewhat in the last scene.

Nancy is just stupid really, she doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of it. It skirts with being a fantasy thing, I wish it leaned into that more.

I didn’t care about Myrtle and the ex-boyfriend’s relationship until the last scene, I guess you’re meant to? Amy Lennox is completely wasted. Her and the director need to be fleshed out characters for the quartet to work.

I think we need to know more about the play and the play needs to be more exciting. Act 2 I think and the producer is moping about Broadway and theatre being tough, but the incidents with the play feel minor, I suppose because everyone acts pretty indifferently when say Myrtle starts singing in the play. Everything but Myrtle feels undercooked. Get all the people stood about with their arms crossed off the stage, they’re depressing.

That rally the troops song, it’s just so unearned and inappropriate for what we’ve seen of the play. It doesn’t feel like they’ve been through a struggle, it doesn’t feel touch and go.

I still don’t know how she comes to her conclusion in the last scene. I like the first woman, second woman thing and it’s nice when they acknowledge she’s been imagining Nancy, it feels like it knows what it is for once. It’s just so haphazard. That Trojan woman song, ugh.

I love how they do Nancy’s death, but it should have been in the street, I don’t get that. Unless it’s some ironic thing, the drunk scene is meant to be comparatively trivial.

At the end, you want to feel like you’ve gone somewhere with Myrtle, but it’s Sheridan you’ve been with, Myrtle’s journey you just get little fleeting vignettes of that don’t add up to anything.

Yeah! Nancy opens a door and goes inside and then gets hit, I can’t remember her doing that originally.

She still is and it still goes on for ages. They err overlay the footage on itself to make it more dreamlike/interesting to look at!