Fabulist - Charing Cross Theatre

Entire run at £16 or £26

What are they thinking with this? Most dates have sold only a handful of tickets with many dates not a single ticket sold.

A question was raised on the cast a couple weeks ago, attaching a link which full cast and synopsis. I booked this evening, interesting that the front of the stalls have been cut to row K.
charingcrosstheatre.co.uk/theatre/the-fabulist

It feels like a mix of everything. The theatre itself is pretty hidden and out of view, not overly popular. Marketing struggles, and they tend to produce new shows. Which I think is a brilliant program, it just doesn't appeal to tourists in any way.

I'm always in that area, but have no idea where the theatre is.

Saw this tonight and it's a real curio, a comic opera by sidelined composer, Paisiello, given an extensive new libretto and modernised book by Global Security expert, James P. Farwell.

I enjoyed the first half well enough, but felt the opera derailed itself somewhat plotwise in the second half.

Some spoilers follow. . .

By way of context, Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" was a sequel to Paisiello's "The Barber of Seville," adopting and improving on Paisiello's sound, but history has pretty much forgotten Paisiello's work because Rossini later wrote a vastly superior score for the same opera.

Given the above history, it's no surprise the music in this comic opera actually sounds a lot like Mozart, but not quite as memorable.

The plot resembles a Shakespeare comedy (with 2 friends amorously pursuing two sisters, adopting disguises while dodging evil authorities) but not as tonally consistent or as funny.

The modernisation drags in Mussolini, Fascism and the Catholic Church as villains, but mainly sticks to the light comic tone of Paisiello's original opera regardless. The modernisation also amends the original book, which was about philosophers, to be about magicians and filmmakers instead.

The actors' singing is generally top notch, with Hungarian Soprano, Reka Jonas, and James Patterson (who originated the role of Don Attilio in "Phantom" and stood in for Michael Crawford as the Phantom when Crawford was indisposed) particularly good.

Dan Smith, as the magician lead, "The Fabulist," is excellent at magic, and passable in his comic performance, but he lacks the comic timing and attitudinal bravura of a zany John Hopkins type (which the bonkers plot calls for), to really make the humour pop.

All in all, I enjoyed the first half of this comic opera with an extensive book to the tune of 3 and a half stars, but the meandering 2 star second half pushed my rating down to a generous 3 stars.

PS: One of my companions thought this was good fun, the other thought this was a total disaster. The latter had expected a traditional musical, so the overarching operatic nature of this was a hard no for her, and the hit and miss Shakespearian humour didn't help.

This show was extensively papered, and if this completes its run, I can't imagine that will change, as it's such an odd curio. For the the very niche class of Paisiello fans, this will rate much higher. In all my years of attending operas, I have never before seen an opera by him, although he wrote more than 90. This must also be interesting for fans of Mozart, who was influenced by him.

PPS: Tonight's running time was 2 hours, 25 minutes (including one interval).

What is the format?

Perhaps they have surrendered to likelihood of low attendance.

It would seem to appeal to a limited number of theatre goers.
I am only taking the risk as there were low prices.