Popular things you haven't seen and probably won't...

What's the point of having preferences if you're not going to use them to decide what to do?

The logic you're trying to apply here is the sort used by the most numbingly boring and tedious of fans, who suffer from the delusion that the things they love are objectively the best of all possible things and so if you don't love them as well it must be because you haven't been subjected to the right persuasion and if they just try hard enough you'll see the light and become a fan too. But it doesn't work that way: often the very aspect of something the fan loves is the aspect that others view with ineffable loathing. For me an example would be a horror movie: it's no good trying to persuade me that any particular horror movie is worth a try because of its especially good characterisation or remarkable effects or intricate plot twists, because the thing that puts me off it isn't the possibility of poor characterisation or shoddy effects or simplistic storytelling. What puts me off is that it's a ****ing horror movie. There's nothing unknown about it I might like that counteracts the thing I do know about it that I hate.

Usually, low expectations are low for a reason, and that reason has nothing to do with not knowing what to expect.

Out of all of those I would recommend you try and catch Kinky Boots (maybe a £20 day seat if you don't think you'll be keen.) The idea of it didn't appeal to me but I ended up loving it and it's in my top 5 shows

Sorry for the double post.

So you're accepting other opinions as correct and, presumably, will never know - or care - whether or not they sync up with yours. 

Yes. In a life where I have neither infinite time nor infinite money, it's the best method of triage I have.

Naturally I have assessed the taste of the people who have said this and judged it to more or less align with mine. When people who I regularly disagree with hate something that won't stop me seeing it.

You're conflating two different situations in an attempt to defend your point. If there are a wide variety of different views of something about which you have no personal knowledge then it would be silly to pick the most negative ones and assume they represent the one and only truth, but nobody here is claiming to do that. It's a different matter when nearly everyone is reporting the same thing, and especially so when it's an objective fact about a production.

People can't see and do everything there is to be seen and done. Nobody here will believe for a moment that you don't combine your personal experience and preferences with what you know about a production when deciding what to see, so stop trying to claim that everyone else is being narrow-minded for using their own experience and preferences to choose how to spend their own time.

Let's also remember that the name of the thread is "popular things you haven't seen and PROBABLY won't". I personally am not saying I don't want to see any of those things on my list. I just want to see other shows more. Ideally I would see every musical and judge for myself. But that takes time and money. And as there is always something new to see, those shows inevitably end up getting pushed to the back of my list.

I have generally not enjoyed jukebox musicals, so they tend to get pushed. Beautiful is the exception. Although I still didn't think it lived up to the hype.

Just to make you jealous, I queued for a couple of hours for a Mamma Mia! return and at the last moment a stylish European group organiser swept up and presented me with a prime front circle ticket for which she refused to accept any money!

haha amazing! that's the way to see Mama Mia! 

I'd suggest the best way to see 'Mamma Mia' is sat on Alexander Skarsgård's lap with Agnetha and Frida on one side and Benny and Björn on the other and enough champagne to drown a small principality but horses for courses I suppose . . . 

I think I'm the only one who doesn't want to see Harry Potter! Never seen any films or read a book

I never said anyone was narrow minded, did I? But I would say people should broaden their horizons. Seeing bad theatre intentionally or not makes you appreciate good and great theatre.

A good case example was some posters including the O/P and board founder stuck their neck out and went to a fringe venue in Manchester to see Parade, definitely not a mainstream musical, if you read the synopsis or reviews, then this could persuade you not to go, if you listened to the terrible OBCR then you wouldn't have booked tickets. But because board members took a calculated gamble and went to see this, when pre research may have advised people not to see this, but they went and heard on this very message board superlatives such as 'one of the best musical I have seen' and 'moved to tears', so doing a bit of off-roading paid off and rewards you in a way that only theatre can.

I would defintely not let a review/s decide what I should and should not see.

Thriller (like most people seem to have on their lists!)
Jerry Springer: the Opera
Wonder.land
All the Fun of the Fair
Annie Warbucks
Grease 2
Oh! Calcutta!
Any more versions of Peter Pan (I've seen one, as well as the play and several pantomimes. I've concluded that I just don't like Peter Pan as a story).

But I try to be open minded; I surprisingly loved Avenue Q, despite hating Sesame Street, most puppet shows and crude humour. I only went because I was in London, it was cheap and there was nothing else I wanted to see. But I was really glad I did. I also LOVED Carrie, despite hating horror; I only went to see it because it's such a notorious flop. But I listen to the soundtrack all the time.

On the other hand, sometimes I pre-judge and my judgments are right ;-) I did see Beautiful, because my Mum wanted to go for her birthday. I thought it was a bit dull.