She Loves Me - Menier Chocolate Factory

I'd much prefer people using their own accent than attempting something Eastern European and ending up in 'Allo 'Allo territory, personally.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Loves_Me

That is why.

Re the accents, the show is usually played with American accents, hence everyone the same. A point is made in the programme that using British accents (as they are) raises the class issue and they have to now deal with that. Like others here, I found it a distraction.

I actually liked the use of English accents in this version. Normally I find them cringeworthy in say Wicked and Lion King, they even get a tad annoying in Les Miz. So when I saw She Loves Me at the Menier (on its first preview!) I remember going, "oh, dear they're going all British with this" (especially since the Savoy version was based on the Roundabout production from the US). But TBH I thought it worked very well, or at Katherine Kingsley made it work very well for her and milked it to get more humor.

Saw this yesterday and thought it was absolutely fantastic!

Negative bits first.  I'd never been to the Menier before and hated it.  I nearly went down the stairs far quicker than I'd intended  and why oh why had they saved all the lightbulbs for the restaurant bit? Seriously, not the place to go if you wear reactolight lenses!  I was going to say I'd never go again but have just seen what's coming so I'm going to have to have a re-think!

Due to the crowded darkness of it all we'd not found anywhere to buy a programme until the interval.  I'm donning my tin hat now as I've read the thread and realise I'm out on my own with this and may well be carted off to the tower, but here goes......Scarlett Strallen.  Seriously?  As I didn't know what she looked like (never seen her before - I'd seen Summer in Top Hat and she was, ahem, perfectly adequate) I honestly thought we had an understudy.  I can't remember seeing such a wooden, hammy, am-dram acting performance - even up against Les Dennis, who wasn't as bad as some have made out in my opinion.  I hated her singing voice.  Piercing, out of place with the piece and really just not a pleasant thing to listen to.  I would not go again to see anything she is in.

Enough. The rest of it was amazing.  Stand-outs for me were The Set, Katherine Kingsley, The Girls' Shoes, Norman Pace and Alastair Brookshaw.  I'd never heard of KK or Norman Pace (or, indeed, AB) so wasn't expecting anything.  These three had their comic timing down to perfection.  I was close to the stage and, for me, comic timing is such a wonder to behold when given such a masterclass.  They all had this ability to let the audience know, a split second before, that they were about to give us a gem and had our full attention for its delivery.  I just loved them.

The set was stunning.  Clever, effective and enough has been said up-thread.  If you saw it when it was broken I seriously suggest a re-visit.

One thing about the script that got me a bit - in spoilers and don't click if you don't know the story and are going as it gives away the ending for one of the characters.


A great show - and maybe I'll work out how to get out of spoiler mode before my editing time is up!


 

I can't seem to work the spoiler tags so avoid reading the following if you want to remain spoiler free...

@tom89

Anyway. Thanks for putting me straight. There was so much to enjoy it was obviously too much for me to catch everything when I didn't already know the story.

ETA:  LOL!  I still can't do the spoiler thing, despite @theatremonkey 's best efforts!  It is there under one of those tags!  Honest!

saw this today, its very hard to not enjoy this show!

clearly the director has seen the recent broadway revival, lots of similarities. i must also commend them on the revolving set, and how beautiful it looked! some very cinematic moments it was lovely. As were the new orchestrations, it was like listening to it for the first time!

I enjoyed Scarlett Strallens performance, and the ensemble, particularly the female shop customers, did some lovely dancing and framed the show wonderfully. Katherine Kingsley, who I have been a fan of for a while, I had to warm too. I understand why the cockney accent was chosen but I'm not quite sure if the artistic intention outweighed the jarringness of it. She was a much more brash Ilona, but by her Trip To The Library she'd won me over once again! Similarly with the gentleman who plays Arpad and his Welsh accent. I didn't find an issue with the british accents but these two accents stuck out. Mark Umbers as George gave a rather odd performance for me, his complete change in character at the end of act one all of a sudden being incredibly hostile to Ms. Amalia was not in keeping with his almost cringe bumbling nature for the first act (even when he didn't like Amalia he still wasn't being incredibly rude to her) his Tonight at Eight lacked but his version of the title song was very nice. (Also you can't have a character wear glasses for just two scenes the continuity doesn't make sense ! As a fellow glasses wearer haha!)

Very enjoyable, I would love for it to transfer. I also found Amalia's 'Dear Friend' letter from Vanilla Ice Cream land around my feet, a lovely little souvenir!

I hope you're not on twitter in the middle of your lessons, miss! 

I'd have thought you'd have been busy running yourself up a costume for World Book Day next Thursday!

I've just seen today's matinee & really enjoyed it. It was so romantic at the end that I started crying! I was impressed by the production, a very good set by fringe standards. I can understand why they cancelled it when I was supposed to see it back in January as the set is used a lot. I thought all the performances were very good, even Les Dennis who I was dubious about beforehand. I liked it being done in a variety of British accents & was impressed that Katherine Kingsley managed to maintain hers when singing.