Evita

What's the best offer for this?

Oh dear...

To be fair, this is the only bad review in a barage of glowing ones and the comments on the social media posts of this review seem to wildly disagree. It seems that we that hated it are in a minority.

It's a bit of a ridiculous review in my opinion, which is shared by some who have commented on this article on their facebook page. It's completely fair enough if you didn't enjoy it and yes Bill Kenwright will always get flack for his shows, but some of the comments were absolutely ridiculous. Discussion about equality and diversity in theatre is always great and should never be discouraged but his use of the all-white-cast and all-male-creative team arguments, whilst incredibly valid, seem rather shoe-horned into the beginning of his review, as if he's trying to score points. I don't feel like he cares for a second about those issues, more like using them as a way to take as many digs at the production as possible which, in my view, seems pretty insulting to those he's seeming to be arguing for. If he really cared that much, why didn't he use his platform to say something when this was cast over half a year ago? It's the same then as it was now.

Fair is fair, but you have to wonder whether he was watching the same show. When I attended (and by other audience accounts) Emma certainly didn't strain to hit any of the notes and it couldn't have been further from a "soulless and searching performance". Of course you can only go from the performance you see at the time, but if he was actually reviewing on Press Night on Wed, she didn't struggle.

Anyhow, it's also received 3* in the Telegraph, Standard and Time Out, 4* in the Independent, What's On Stage and BroadwayWorld UK and the (unsurprising) 5* from Mark Shenton on LondonTheatre so I think it's fair to say that it shouldn't be solely 'judged' on that review - not that yourself and anyone else was!

She definitely struggled with the high notes in Rainbow High when I saw it.

I'm with you on this one Burly. Surprised at all the negativity as I thought it was excellent when I saw it in Salford

Interesting, this song was pre-recorded with a click track in all previous versions of this production. The costume changes made live singing very difficult. Perhaps she had an off day when she recorded it?

Those bleedin' sunflowers still lurking!!!!

I'm glad this is getting scathing reviews. To be honest I've had it up till here with sh*tty productions touring the country, and worse off, coming to the West End and clogging theatres.

re: all-white cast comment. Cry me buckets of white tears. Yes, an all white cast is a problem in 2017. More effort is needed in making hiring and casting more inclusive. Notice how people have a specific problem with the critic flagging an all-white cast and not as much as all-male creative team. Both are problematic.

I'm sorry, but those comments on The Stage Facebook page praising this production are by a bunch of people who see crap shows that make it obscure towns in England that hardly set the golden standards in musical theatre.

Ahem. Following my vile rant, I fully plan to see this train wreck. Any discounts or day seats?

^ Agreed. WE generates its own nonsense, but at least its kept a lot of 4th tier tours out of London as well.

I dunno..maybe I was aggressive, but I think the standard has become so low in the last five years or so.

I don't want to put words into Ali's mouth, but I feel the general standard of new productions lately has been extremely poor, and constantly having not-great touring productions take residence in town is a sign that the general quality and creatively is lacking on an industrial level.