Bare - Palladium, 7th April

Oof. Major oof. This was… truly very bad. It won’t take me long to list the things I liked, so let’s start off by listing all the people who deserve to be fired.

First up is the director. I’d listened to the Bare soundtrack before and found songs to enjoy, but the work is drenched in early 2000s indie rock energy that works better in high school productions than on a massive West End stage. My eyebrows were raised in the first scene, when the priest, rather than delivering his sermon with understated Catholic gentility, started crowing like a southern baptist. And as the show progressed there kept being lines that landed in that slightly “off” way that evoked laughter in Diana: The Musical. By the time Jason’s ghost was ascending the stairs at the back of the stage while Peter mimed CPR at the front of the stage and a flute played off-key, the confusion in the auditorium was palpable.

Second to be fired is the audio team. I don’t understand how, given the frequency with which concert productions of musicals are staged these days, technicians STILL routinely fail to cue performers’ microphones. Sister Chantelle had it worst; if you told me the soundboard operator was a vengeful ex-boyfriend of hers, trying to humiliate her by intentionally missing the first 1.5s of each of her lines, I would believe you in a heartbeat. And the muffled vocals behind the percussion meant I constantly missed lines in ensemble numbers.

Third up is the lighting designer, which is surprising given how low-maintenance you’d expect this show to be, lighting-wise. They had these profoundly ugly triangle patterns projected onto the stage for almost the entire runtime; it was presumably supposed to evoke stained glass, but all it made me think of was crazy paving. “The Role of a Lifetime”, my personal favourite song in the show, was soured by the bewildering decision to have spotlights slowly turn on and off in parts of the stage Peter wasn’t standing. I guess the idea was that Peter was refusing to “play his part” on the metaphorical stage, but it just came off distracting - like the actor was constantly missing his mark.

Fourth is the guy who played Matt. It pains me to pick on him because I saw him in The Little Big Things and can vouch for his acting chops when playing weepy leading men getting over their trauma, but as a jealous religious bigot he was less convincingly homophobic than the gay character he targeted. His f-slur landed with the spontaneous apathy of a fart. I also question the decision to cast a wheelchair-bound guy in a role that requires him to physically tackle someone, but that’s more an issue with the casting director than the actor in question, so let’s move on.

I have critiques for the score - the tunes are repetitive and samey, the lyrics are amateurish, the themes are underdeveloped - but honestly, I do see why lots of people relate to it. Hell, as an ex-Catholic, I relate to some of it, especially the scenes where Peter talks to his mom and Jason talks to the priest. But those good spots are surrounded by tedious sung-through mediocrity.

I’m glad I saw it, but I for one won’t be disappointed if this show is consigned to cult musical theatre history. 3/10.

He’s currently at Wyndham’s in Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

I saw him years ago in The Winslow Boy. Am happy to see he’s doing well for himself, but I seem to be fated to miss pretty much everything he does on stage.

Still a but gutted my performance of Spring Awakening got cancelled, especially having planned a trip around it, but looks like I dodged a bullet with this one.

This may be a naive question, but could these venues that tend to house concerts of musicals (Palladium and Drury Lane in particular) have an 'always available' sound design that's default for quick set-ups? Or is the problem that a lot of these events want to go beyond simple concert staging and over reach with complexity? I guess however good the sound template, it's no good if the person in charge fails to switch mics on, on cue.

Balancng sound in such circumstances can be tricky, but un-muting mics in time shouldn't be that hard in a concert setting. Seems they had a very novice sound designer/ op.

These producers are taking their audiences for suckers.

No I would put it down to a very minimal amount of tech rehearsals, rather than the competence of the sound engineer.

I wasn't there last night, so my comment is more of a general one about what sound technicians do and how, and it is based on my experiences in an am dram context where professional sound people have been involved. 

Because of how technology has evolved and progressed, a lot of the mic cues (and similarly a lot of the light cues) tend to be at least in part pre-programmed, so that during the performance a sound tech person will only need to, for example, press a single button for the volume on a group of mics to be turned up simultaneously, instead of having to act manually on multiple sounds tracks at once, etc.  Of course it's not just as simple as that, and there's more adjustments and fine-tuning happening live, etc.  

However, in order for this kind of set-up to work as smoothly and seamlessly as we typically hear on shows with a really good sound design, the sound tech team starts to attend rehearsals even before the shows goes officially into tech, so that they familiarise themselves with who is who and who sings what in the show.  They'll take notes and make plans with the director and musical director, so that what is ultimately created sound-wise also matches their vision and needs, etc.  Then, during the actual tech process, group numbers are often broken down and rehearsed in pieces so that mic cues and levels can be pre-adapted and the sound/light tech team end up with a very detailed map/timeline which attaches a certain set of mics being on at the same time with specific cues in the music or the script.  Solo numbers are clearly easier to manage, but there still may be need to fine tune volumes to create certain effects (see Elphaba's mic typically being boosted at certain points during her big solos).    

After that, the final rehearsal runs of a show (and typically the first previews when those are a thing) can be used for all the above to be optimised - after all, the sound/light tech team need to rehearse the sequence of actions that form that map/timeline to have it in top shape.  Very often it is also about adjusting sound levels on stage, which an audience won't be aware of, but which may help cue performers in, help with tempo issues, etc.  

Unfortunately, the producers behind some of these concerts are clearly skipping several ones of those steps in the process... For some of them, it's almost inevitable because, the team will only get into the theatre on the day of the concert, so there's little time for the them to adjust to the actual conditions in the space.  My guess is that other issues could potentially be made up for and dealt with if these producers invested more money and had the tech team more involved during the rehearsal process and (I presume) if they had more of a rehearsal process to begin with. 

My impression is that they put these events together over a very short time, they get everyone in the room only in the very lead up to the event, and then there's so much to be worked on that unfortunately... a lot gets sacrificed, and quality is badly affected.  

There are concert producers who get it right (Fourth Wall who do a lot at Cadogan Hall, and also some bigger stuff at Drury Lane and Palladium usually have decent sound, but their concerts look like they put a lot more money into them than the likes of the producers of Bare and Made In Dagenham)

These concerts do have their place, but there are too many different producers who simply are doing it as a cash grab, and they are tarnishing the companys reputation of those who do get it right, and most of the people attending have no idea it's not one production company doing all these concerts that pop up. It's really not fair on the ones who are putting the time, effort and money into ensuring the sound (the most important element of a concert!!!!) is good.

For my taste, I’d take a performance without blocking, without an attempt at costuming, and without lighting changes - if there was integrity to the sound. I wouldn’t mind a blank stage with all performers in rehearsal blacks just singing. If I can hear you, the material has the chance to move me. If all I am thinking about is missed cues, lighting changes and clumsy costumes - you’ve lost me before you really even get started. There was only one reason I stated past the first act and that was Laurie Kynaston’s beautiful voice - which was effortlessly moving , when I could hear it.

I am no sound expert, but isn't it easier to piggy back into an existing sound design?

All the concerts I have seen at Drury Lane have sounded superb. And I have assumed that given they are using the same set of speakers that are in situ for Frozen, it makes designing sound for a one off concert much easier.

Do venues like The Palladium have a set of speakers installed generally? Or does every single one off event have to arrange their own?
(Obviously I understand that the speakers are the very end point of a long sequence of sound provision; but having an appropriate set appropriately positioned already must make things easier).

You'll notice that the three the poster above says were poor were all from the same producer...

And yet it was the same people who produced Sideshow, so they can get it very right.