The Phantom of the Opera - His Majesty's Theatre

Not exactly. London definitely does seem to be making a bit of a mockery of itself, scaling back it's bombastic talent and theatrical spectacle in favour of lower-budget "economic" shows. But hey, if thats pleases the GP and loud shouters here, who are we to question. Hopefully the same wont happen on Broadway, which thankfully has the saving grace of reputable Unions with actual power, rather than BECTU's plasticine policies.

Originally Jessica Koravos said they were going to spend an extortionate sum on building a brand new set based on the original designs, which is bizarre since: (a) no set cost as much she stated (didn't she say something like $10 million?!); (b) there are plenty of international sets already in existence for the show; and (c) it was obvious Cameron wanted to put in the tour.

Now that Cameron has stated it is the tour going in and the letters to investors admitted there was no money to build a brand new set (making you wonder why Jessica Koravos said that in the first place), the question is to what extent they will do anything to improve it. Frankly, in Leicester, it looked bare. The sides of the proscenium had no sculptures, and most of them had also been removed from the top. Then there's that weird cracked effect on the sides where you'd have expected it to rectify itself during the overture when you went back in time, but it didn't happen. What is even more worrying is, in the planning submission design, the set is so shoved in without any adjustments that you can even see the ugly gaps between the different chunks of the false proscenium! Any inclination I might have had to say 'oh, well surely they'll improve it for a sit-down production' went out the window when they went for the absolute minimum number of musicians. 

I think the poster above, barrowside, is onto something where s/he says the rationale is so that the West End is the same as the tour. In the 1990s Cameron used to pride himself on the fact he rolled out tours across the UK and the US that were equal in quality to Broadway and the West End. Now that's become too expensive, perhaps he figured the only way to claim the regions were getting West End quality was to lower the quality of the latter? Jessica Koravos even stated when the 2020 tour began that it was an "exact replica" of the West End/Broadway production, which turned out not to be the case, and caused a bit of contention amongst audiences...so this way they don't have that issue by downgrading the flagship production to the current tour. It's what Cameron's done with Miz and Poppins, and wasn't even the last Saigon revival essentially what had been the touring version?

Good debate all, keep it up.

Separate thing entirely...

Has anyone yet heard about moved tickets from the originally scheduled June performances?

With the greatest of respect, I'd say some people are talking art and other people business AND art and the potential difficult compromises and relationships between the two.
I don't think anyone is talking "all business."

Also whilst I'd hope it's not about sides, I don't think either is being "shot down" more than the other.
This is ultimately a forum for the exchange of views rather than a dedicated fan site.

But yes I agree, if when the new production opens it is indeed very different, then it should have it's own thread :-) 

Les Mis IS a newer production, and The Lion Ling has only toured in recent years?

You'd need to wear the raggy dress as well.

When does it go on sale? Can you book single seats or have you gone all ATG for The Really Burly Group?

Don't worry there'll be adequate distance given the orchestra pit, or are you going all Cam Mac and planning on just having a guy backstage plonking along on his Casio? Think of all those extra seats you can sell if you add a few more rows in place of the pit!

Gotta protect that voice love, an awful lot of singing each night. I can recommend a good steamer.

😡