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Post by fiyerorocher on Jan 19, 2022 23:23:12 GMT
This is truly just god awful, isn't it...
The two redeeming features of this show used to be a) the spectacle of it all, and b) the cast has talent.
Since the tour set is massively scaled back, the spectacle is all but gone. It's not clear where things are happening and attempts to try and suggest it are just confusing - like the constant doubling of Raven to suggest she's in her room. The best of the special effects are gone too. No pool, no car in the pit. Without them, it's often boring.
It would be wrong to suggest this cast don't have talent, but they lack something the original cast had. There are a couple of weak links, but some truly great voices from a couple of them too. It's the acting that lets most of them down - maybe they're just aware it's a bad show that no amount of work can turn good, so they've given up.
With all the changes made, this show is now just a laughable mess. Literally, at times. The dialogue is nothing a human has ever organically spoken and the book scenes are so cringeworthy it is genuinely painful to sit through them. The songs are mostly well-performed, but they hang on a plot so full of holes they may as well have just performed a concert of Steinman songs and not bothered with a storyline at all. Especially now Tink lives? Granted it's nice that they've swerved away from killing their only queer character, but as it stands now, act 2 just falls apart at the end.
It was nice to get upgraded from the upper circle to the royal circle. Even that was maybe 1/3 full at best, though. Can't say I blame people for staying away :')
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Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2022 9:06:13 GMT
This is truly just god awful, isn't it... The two redeeming features of this show used to be a) the spectacle of it all, and b) the cast has talent. Since the tour set is massively scaled back, the spectacle is all but gone. It's not clear where things are happening and attempts to try and suggest it are just confusing - like the constant doubling of Raven to suggest she's in her room. The best of the special effects are gone too. No pool, no car in the pit. Without them, it's often boring. It would be wrong to suggest this cast don't have talent, but they lack something the original cast had. There are a couple of weak links, but some truly great voices from a couple of them too. It's the acting that lets most of them down - maybe they're just aware it's a bad show that no amount of work can turn good, so they've given up. With all the changes made, this show is now just a laughable mess. Literally, at times. The dialogue is nothing a human has ever organically spoken and the book scenes are so cringeworthy it is genuinely painful to sit through them. The songs are mostly well-performed, but they hang on a plot so full of holes they may as well have just performed a concert of Steinman songs and not bothered with a storyline at all. Especially now Tink lives? Granted it's nice that they've swerved away from killing their only queer character, but as it stands now, act 2 just falls apart at the end. It was nice to get upgraded from the upper circle to the royal circle. Even that was maybe 1/3 full at best, though. Can't say I blame people for staying away :') I am so glad you have posted this! Me and the husband went to see it in Birmingham a week or two ago after hearing raves in London. We both admitted in the interval that we at the start of Act 1 we had both considered leaving. We grasped the main thread of the plot but to be honest didn't have a blooming clue what was happening most of the time. When we walked out of the theatre I said to him "Did Tink live then? as one moment he was alive, then he seemed to be dead, then he sat up to sing a verse, then he appeared to die with people crying, then he walked on in the end?!" When we got home I looked up the plot on line and obvioulsy with the changes that appear to have come in, ended up even more confused! Yeah there were some really funmoments (dashboard light for example) but definitely wouldn't sit through it again (not least because of the atrocious audience behaviour!) |
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Post by happytobehere on Jan 20, 2022 9:14:49 GMT
Yeah I can admit this show is pretty awful, but I absolutely love it. I’ve seen it 7 times lol. I can’t help but enjoy it!
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Post by leanne23 on Jan 20, 2022 11:37:57 GMT
I adore the show with all my heart. I admit the book is shocking - it is completely ridiculous and utterly nonsensical, but the whole production radiates such infectious joy, that I’m prepared to suspend my disbelief just to exist in it’s world for a few hours. We all know this isn’t high brow art, but it’s riotous fun and a production with a huge heart…don’t take it too seriously!
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Post by danb on Jan 20, 2022 11:45:30 GMT
Goodness yes. As a huge fan of the show I will readily admit that it is diabolically bad in terms of its dramaturgy, book & story, and contains some of the whiney-est ‘shoot me now’ characters ever committed to stage. But there is something about it that I just love and crave to see again and again. Whether that is the powerhouse music delivered by a stunning band with the best sound design, or some spot on casting of leads that just get that it is a pile of crap but give it their absolute all every single performance. Yes, the tour staging has removed some of the flashier effects but the music is the heart of the show.
Congrats to Sharon & Rob (Sloane & Falco) who have just announced that they are expecting.
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Post by dontdreamit on Jan 20, 2022 11:58:52 GMT
I echo the above- this show just brings absolute joy and I come out on a high every time I get to watch it (which given that it is currently in Wimbledon is a few times over this week and next!).
And yes lovely news about Rob and Sharon, I think she said on Insta that she is going to carry on in the role as long as she can- tour is running to November I think.
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Post by fiyerorocher on Jan 20, 2022 23:26:55 GMT
I adore the show with all my heart. I admit the book is shocking - it is completely ridiculous and utterly nonsensical, but the whole production radiates such infectious joy, that I’m prepared to suspend my disbelief just to exist in it’s world for a few hours. We all know this isn’t high brow art, but it’s riotous fun and a production with a huge heart…don’t take it too seriously! It's not really a matter of taking it seriously or not. I should be predisposed to fondness for this show - I worked on it for months. It was tolerable in London, although we all knew it was an awful plot and the dialogue was some of the worst to ever grace the west end. The spectacle and cast talent made it watchable. We certainly didn't get bored. Now it's a shell of even that. I paid £13 for my ticket and still felt like that was too much for the production I got. Something doesn't need to be 'high brow art' for it to be a good show, certainly, but this is neither. Not sure you could pay me to sit through it again. I spent most of act 2 dying to get the book out of my bag and keep reading - words on a page did a better job of conjuring up a world than the bare bones of the staging that this production is left with! |
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Post by leanne23 on Jan 21, 2022 7:31:15 GMT
I adore the show with all my heart. I admit the book is shocking - it is completely ridiculous and utterly nonsensical, but the whole production radiates such infectious joy, that I’m prepared to suspend my disbelief just to exist in it’s world for a few hours. We all know this isn’t high brow art, but it’s riotous fun and a production with a huge heart…don’t take it too seriously! It's not really a matter of taking it seriously or not. I should be predisposed to fondness for this show - I worked on it for months. It was tolerable in London, although we all knew it was an awful plot and the dialogue was some of the worst to ever grace the west end. The spectacle and cast talent made it watchable. We certainly didn't get bored. Now it's a shell of even that. I paid £13 for my ticket and still felt like that was too much for the production I got. Something doesn't need to be 'high brow art' for it to be a good show, certainly, but this is neither. Not sure you could pay me to sit through it again. I spent most of act 2 dying to get the book out of my bag and keep reading - words on a page did a better job of conjuring up a world than the bare bones of the staging that this production is left with! I do somewhat agree RE. the staging - though the constant doubling of Raven, as mentioned in your earlier post, was a device used in London, the scaling down of the set is an issue in some of the larger venues on the tour. I imagine this is the case with Wimbledon. I did, however, think the new set looked great in Birmingham and Oxford where the stages were considerably smaller. The loss of the Falco’s living room and Raven’s Bedroom is a huge shame - it does leave what little narrative there is even more confused than it was to begin with. Nevertheless, I still think most of the staging and design holds up. As many have mentioned, the sound and lighting design is still some of the best around. |
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Post by Figaro on Jan 21, 2022 8:08:51 GMT
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Post by viserys on Jan 21, 2022 8:32:56 GMT
First Jim Steinman, now him.
RIP and thank you for the music.
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Post by lookingatthestars on Jan 21, 2022 9:50:01 GMT
RIP, sad to hear the news this morning. He was a unique performer who provided the soundtrack to so many people's teenage years (and beyond) So grateful for all the music him and Jim left for the world
Lol at Boy George's tweet about Meatloaf once turning him upside in a Chinese restaurant.
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Post by dontdreamit on Jan 21, 2022 10:10:28 GMT
RIP Meat Loaf, such a loss but Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s legacy will live on
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Post by ceebee on Jan 21, 2022 10:15:29 GMT
Heaven can't wait.
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Post by dontdreamit on Jan 21, 2022 21:00:29 GMT
I have a front row ticket for Monday on the notice board if anyone is interested.
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Post by ceebee on Jan 22, 2022 0:15:33 GMT
Well that was an emotional evening. A highly charged cast that sang and performed their hearts out. Classy acknowledgements before and after the show by the theatre, and a beautiful bunch of red roses and a photo of Meat Loaf in the foyer. I didn't have a ticket until 4.30pm when I decided to buy one, as I wanted to be there.
I know this show is silly, makes very little sense, has a daft plot... but tonight the music rocked, the speakers throbbed, the guitars ached, and the drums pounded. The cast were excellent, as were the musicians.
As a fan of the show, I didn't know what to expect after the criticism of the show in previous posts. I was in centre Row B stalls and had a perfect view. Yes, the set is smaller. Yes, the pool has gone. Yes, the car doesn't fall in the pit. (Though the engine does...!) Yes, the bike crash is more reliant on projections and the heart arrangement of broken parts doesn't happen. In my view, it doesn't matter - the show is still as bonkers as ever, with a high calibre cast and flawless band.
It was a joy to see it on such a special poignant evening. Everybody did Meat (and Jim) proud.
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Post by ThereWillBeSun on Jan 22, 2022 0:21:45 GMT
It’s just so sad, isn’t it? Two icons gone. 💔
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Post by FJ on Jan 27, 2022 13:32:30 GMT
I saw this on Tuesday for the first time. I had absolutely no idea what was happening and had to have my friend (who had seen it twice before) explain at the interval what was going on. And the whole plot was a surprise to me, even having just watched it.
But despite that I really enjoyed most of the musical numbers, and the cast and band were fantastic. I really got 'American Idiot' vibes from it, which is a show I didn't get at first but have now come to love. So overall an enjoyable night at the theatre.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2022 10:15:49 GMT
This is truly just god awful, isn't it... The two redeeming features of this show used to be a) the spectacle of it all, and b) the cast has talent. Since the tour set is massively scaled back, the spectacle is all but gone. It's not clear where things are happening and attempts to try and suggest it are just confusing - like the constant doubling of Raven to suggest she's in her room. The best of the special effects are gone too. No pool, no car in the pit. Without them, it's often boring. It would be wrong to suggest this cast don't have talent, but they lack something the original cast had. There are a couple of weak links, but some truly great voices from a couple of them too. It's the acting that lets most of them down - maybe they're just aware it's a bad show that no amount of work can turn good, so they've given up. With all the changes made, this show is now just a laughable mess. Literally, at times. The dialogue is nothing a human has ever organically spoken and the book scenes are so cringeworthy it is genuinely painful to sit through them. The songs are mostly well-performed, but they hang on a plot so full of holes they may as well have just performed a concert of Steinman songs and not bothered with a storyline at all. Especially now Tink lives? Granted it's nice that they've swerved away from killing their only queer character, but as it stands now, act 2 just falls apart at the end. It was nice to get upgraded from the upper circle to the royal circle. Even that was maybe 1/3 full at best, though. Can't say I blame people for staying away :') I am so glad you have posted this! Me and the husband went to see it in Birmingham a week or two ago after hearing raves in London. We both admitted in the interval that we at the start of Act 1 we had both considered leaving. We grasped the main thread of the plot but to be honest didn't have a blooming clue what was happening most of the time. When we walked out of the theatre I said to him "Did Tink live then? as one moment he was alive, then he seemed to be dead, then he sat up to sing a verse, then he appeared to die with people crying, then he walked on in the end?!" When we got home I looked up the plot on line and obviously with the changes that appear to have come in, ended up even more confused! Yeah there were some really fun moments (dashboard light for example) but definitely wouldn't sit through it again (not least because of the atrocious audience behaviour!) Morning all, I still stand by my comments that I didn't have a clue really what was going on, but both me and the husband have said this week that we have found ourselves regularly thinking about the show and that we actually really enjoyed it and would totally see it again! How strange what a few weeks of looking back can do! |
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Post by dontdreamit on Jan 28, 2022 11:00:54 GMT
That seems to be common with this show- when I got home from my first show I said to my partner that I could decide whether I’d really liked it or not and was going to book to go again... now it’s one of my all-time favourites!
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Post by inthenose on Jan 28, 2022 11:06:32 GMT
I haven't bothered seeing this, as I really love Meatloaf and don't really like jukebox/tribute shows of performers I actually like. I end up just wishing I was listening to the originals, rather than a couple of MT sorts "playing at rock and roll". Plus the plots are often so naff, as seems to be the case with this one.
That said, the best shows are the ones that make you think afterwards and feel something - whatever that may be. The worst shows/films/books for me are ones I don't remember a week or even days later. In my case I've come away largely disliking an experience on the night, but adoring the show in hindsight, usually revisiting where possible. E.g. The Lord of the Rings, The Woman in White (Palace)
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Post by interval99 on Jan 28, 2022 11:42:35 GMT
While the cast were superb the only redeaming feature of the London show was the fantastic merchandise shop they had and the great t-shirt designs.
Replacing the t-shirt will possibly be the deciding factor to see the show again.
I presume there's a good range of merchandise at the theatres
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Post by steve10086 on Jan 28, 2022 12:30:38 GMT
I haven't bothered seeing this, as I really love Meatloaf and don't really like jukebox/tribute shows of performers I actually like. I end up just wishing I was listening to the originals, rather than a couple of MT sorts "playing at rock and roll". Plus the plots are often so naff, as seems to be the case with this one. That said, the best shows are the ones that make you think afterwards and feel something - whatever that may be. The worst shows/films/books for me are ones I don't remember a week or even days later. In my case I've come away largely disliking an experience on the night, but adoring the show in hindsight, usually revisiting where possible. E.g. The Lord of the Rings, The Woman in White (Palace) It’s not a jukebox musical or a tribute show for Meat Loaf. It’s “Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell”, the musical he was writing for decades. |
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Post by inthenose on Jan 28, 2022 12:55:25 GMT
I haven't bothered seeing this, as I really love Meatloaf and don't really like jukebox/tribute shows of performers I actually like. I end up just wishing I was listening to the originals, rather than a couple of MT sorts "playing at rock and roll". Plus the plots are often so naff, as seems to be the case with this one. That said, the best shows are the ones that make you think afterwards and feel something - whatever that may be. The worst shows/films/books for me are ones I don't remember a week or even days later. In my case I've come away largely disliking an experience on the night, but adoring the show in hindsight, usually revisiting where possible. E.g. The Lord of the Rings, The Woman in White (Palace) It’s not a jukebox musical or a tribute show for Meat Loaf. It’s “Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell”, the musical he was writing for decades. Steinman reworked his existing hits - mostly from decades ago - and framed them around a loose plot which allows the songs to be performed. This is the ur-example of a jukebox musical. If you Google "Bat out of hell musical jukebox" without the quotation marks, it is referred to as such in reviews by The Observer, Seetickets, Broadwayworld, Playbill, The Guardian, The NY daily news, etc etc. Whilst I understand your point about it having the involvement of the original creator, so have several jukebox musicals to varying degrees of success. If this were an album of new material, with a book which was written in simpatico, it would be a different matter. What made Jim Steinman and Meat's collaborations so special was how Steinman could write for Meat's voice, and Meat could bring Steinman's theatricality in his music and lyrics to life through his performance. Songs like "Bat Out of Hell" are so intrinsically connected to Meatloaf, I just don't think I would enjoy Johnny Arts Ed/Matty Mountview singing it (no doubt very beautifully and with excellent vocal control). It's just not for me 👍 |
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Post by steve10086 on Jan 28, 2022 13:03:51 GMT
It’s not a jukebox musical or a tribute show for Meat Loaf. It’s “Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell”, the musical he was writing for decades. Steinman reworked his existing hits - mostly from decades ago - and framed them around a loose plot which allows the songs to be performed. This is the ur-example of a jukebox musical. If you Google "Bat out of hell musical jukebox" without the quotation marks, it is referred to as such in reviews by The Observer, Seetickets, Broadwayworld, Playbill, The Guardian, The NY daily news, etc etc. Whilst I understand your point about it having the involvement of the original creator, so have several jukebox musicals to varying degrees of success. If this were an album of new material, with a book which was written in simpatico, it would be a different matter. What made Jim Steinman and Meat's collaborations so special was how Steinman could write for Meat's voice, and Meat could bring Steinman's theatricality in his music and lyrics to life through his performance. Songs like "Bat Out of Hell" are so intrinsically connected to Meatloaf, I just don't think I would enjoy Johnny Arts Ed/Matty Mountview singing it (no doubt very beautifully and with excellent vocal control). It's just not for me 👍 No, not really. Songs on the original Bat Out Of Hell album were written for a musical, recordings of which exist. The plot and characters have changed and adapted over the years, but it’s the same “world” that Steinman was creating and writing for, with most of his subsequent work also written with that world in mind. This is not the same as a jukebox musical, whatever people in newspapers who don’t know what they are talking about have said. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2022 13:59:24 GMT
The plot and characters have changed and adapted over the years, but it’s the same “world” that Steinman was creating and writing for, with most of his subsequent work also written with that world in mind. This is not the same as a jukebox musical, whatever people in newspapers who don’t know what they are talking about have said. Since the start of the first previews in Manchester in it's first run there, Steinman hasn't written anything for Bat Out of Hell and all the rewrites have been done by someone else. He was brought in by the producers to make some changes, and alot of things changed during the Manchester run and also between Manchester and the Coliseum. None of those changes were made with Steinman's world in mind, they were made to try and salvage something from it. What the producers wanted and what the show needed were 2 very different things. Its an incoherent mess that can only be saved by major overhaul, which will never happen. |
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