The Phantom of the Opera - His Majesty's Theatre

I'm a long-term fan. Phantom's my go-to show when there's nothing new I'd like to see.

I'm very much on the pessimistic side of the fence, I'm afraid. I certainly don't buy that the changes were in any way driven by safety or maintenance concerns nor indeed by anything other than money. I'm surprised that ALW has gone along with them, although I'm not entirely certain what the business relationship is between him & CAM (i.e. who has the whip hand) -- all of the changes seem to me to mitigate against quality & in favour of economy to such a degree that there's really no mistaking their true purpose.

I don't feel that "modernising" the show is of any benefit since (for me) its oldness was part of its appeal. I don't want modern & fresh & bright; I want classic & proven & dark. Albeit I agree that HMT was in a bad way, dirty & dusty when you actually looked at it closely. I always put that down to cheapness, too -- there was a gap in the black orchestra pit curtain that annoyed me for years whenever I had B11-B14, partly because no-one ever fixed it but mainly because it let bright light out from the pit. Although even the run-down state of the theatre had a perverse charm.

I left early on opening night, mainly because of the sound quality. I found it very thin & flat. I also didn't like any of the principals, but this could easily be down to my annoyance with the sound. I generally don't follow theatre news lately, so didn't actually know about the orchestra being cut in half until I started looking at other's views on the night of the show. I've no idea what a professional musician costs, I guess maybe £50-60k all-in, so perhaps the orchestra cut saves £1m or so per year, but it seems like madness to me to make such a cut unless in extremis. Even then, I'd say the musicians should be pretty much the last thing to go from a musical.

I think someone said on Twitter that restoring the orchestra might save it even in the face of the other changes. I guess maybe. But everything combined is like an almost deliberate attack on the (mock-)gravitas of the show, where its appeal-to-me sat. There are plenty of modern musicals already, and they are almost always not very good. Phantom was a monster because it was Phantom, an impossible-to-recreate combination of deliberate & accidental things. This new show is not whatever that was, nor do the qualities that contributed to the success of the old show necessarily get inherited by the new. I don't understand, having once caught lightning in a bottle, the temptation to start tinkering with the bottle. The bottle should be put on a cushion in a safe & surrounded by armed guards 24/7. If the bottle requires repairs, they should be done tentatively, by a master, with the aim of invisibly preserving the original. Anyone who's inclined to rant on SM about detractors needing to get laid probably shouldn't even be in the room (nor threatened with the sack, it's far too minor an indiscretion for that).

This is all very negative. And I know my small-c conservative mindset is one that's easy to attack in the modern world. But not everything new is automatically superior by dint of being younger or fresher. This new show seems to me to have been reduced in every conceivable way, and I think its x-factor is something that's been inadvertently modernised-out in the process. Its momentum would certainly carry it for a very considerable time whatever changes were implemented. But it will certainly end one day, which means there must be a beginning of the end, and this seems to me to be the thing you could look back at 5 years from now & say: here is the beginning of the end.

​​Come on, now. My original little grumble has been blown out of proportion! All I wanted, was some better manners and proper decorum, from someone who has a more public-facing persona than you and me, AND who has a contract-mandated responsibility to represent their employer well. Pretty sure most of you would not accept it had it been someone from your workplace!
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​​I haven’t witnessed any slagging off and was not even condoning it here- don’t twist this into yet another phans vs producers argument. Also, organised bullying- overactive imagination much? And just because jobs are hard to come by doesn’t mean one can do it with a bad attitude and expect to stay on.




Lol, just lol.

Does anyone know if Phantom are back doing the Thursday matinee day tickets?

Oh they don't even have matinee on Thursday anymore... 

That is indeed inappropriate; the cast have no responsibility for what ALW and Cam Mac have done. What are they saying to the current cast? I haven't found anything on Twitter but maybe I'm not looking in the right places. That said, if the current cast are claiming it's the original production and it is "bigger and better" than the original, then I can see why there would be upset.



Less sure about that. It's been a couple of years now and the original Miz is very much still discussed and lamented online. And in the case of Phantom, CM only has the rights in certain territories and there's nothing to stop RUG from mounting the full version internationally outside of the UK/US/Oz. Meanwhile, the Broadway incarnation is still around and it will be a while before Cameron can downscale that. 

Separately, can anyone clarify whether the first set of doubles in the title song are used any more? I read on Tumblr that they've replaced that with Raoul just wandering around with the ballet girls...which has nowhere near the impact of the sudden darkness plus seeing the first set of doubles descend into the lair and then 'magically' the Phantom and Christine appear high above. That effect still got gasps as late as 2019 from first-timers!

Oh GOD, that was my favourite moment in the show as the cinematic fluidity of the transition was so perfectly in sync with the music. And it's why I loathed the staging of the same number in the Connor tour where everyone was just stationery to a pulsing beat.

OK, so that change isn't anything to do with making the show smoother or safer. They can certainly still do that...so...why?!

I've always found the doubles a bit funny/naff. Weird how they (seemingly) haven't changed the other naff/dated bits. That bloody player piano! The whole staging of the Don Juan Rehearsal for me was always strange, when they go into a "trance". The whole point I thought is that the Phantom relies on mechanical gimmickry and mental intimidation, not actual Jedi mind tricks...

I think ALW genuinely doesn’t think of the stage “decoration” as part of the show. That’s why he seems convinced the show remains the same.

I think he (and CM) are incredibly lucky to have had a Director and Designer that created something of such high quality that, even after chunks are ripped out, it remains at a level above most musicals.

As someone who has been a huge ALW fan for decades I think I have reached the end of my fandom. All of his recent media shenanigans have been ridiculous. Am glad the Conservatives, who he has loved for so long, have now treated him the way they treat non-billionaires. Poetic justice.

I find it hard to imagine anything can be put on like "42nd Street" again, with the enormous cast, incredible sets (and production numbers) and Jae Alexander's fabulous band. Wasn't that just unbelievable? It was so brave of the producers to go all out. Phenomenally cast, too. The best dance ensemble I've ever seen in a musical.

I think I was spoiled! (I went many times)

Re: Phantom, I suspect you're right. If I were to see it, it would be fine - as you say, it would suffice. Knowing this, I just don't want to see it. The orchestra situation and a few other things would annoy me, and I know that in advance, so it would be a wasted trip. I'd probably go though if they cast a Phantom that really excited me, or I knew someone in the show.

Personally I don't think this would bother me. It's a small moment and a case where colourblind casting really isn't necessary. It's not a huge moment, doesn't affect the plot and can even be explained away in universe.

Maybe the Phantom could only steal a white mannequin from the costume department, as that's all they had? Done.

I'm all for colourblind casting unless it messes with the narrative. It's up to the casting director and producers to ensure that doesn't happen and in this case it's a non-starter.

And, speaking as a light skinned mixed race person I just want to add one more point about this. It could become very easy to cast yourself into a bit of a wormhole with race matching. Casting an understudy based on their race can cause problems with their appropriateness playing their regular track, and so on.

In an ideal world, roles would he cast based entirely on ability, appropriateness for the role and nothing else. As long as the pipeline is full of talented, trained, West End ready talent from all backgrounds then a racially mixed cast will happen naturally.

If that has gone and wasn't just a blip the other day it would be a shame - that is one of those "hang on, how..?" moments which both gets the audience thinking and ensures there's no bizarre break in action on stage.

As others have said, there's no safety reason why that would have been culled - and from a casting perspective it's a bit of a silly reason to mess with the staging when most people wouldn't have noticed as Christine's double was always directed to face upstage anyway...