Groundhog Day the Musical - Old Vic

First time I saw it was the £10 PWC preview ticket, second time was a stalls ticket reduced to £30 on the day, I'm going again to the final Saturday matinee - that was my original ticket and cost £67.50 when public booking opened. .
And now I'm going again on Monday, Front Row (Stalls C) on the VERY far left of stage.  For another £67.50.

(I feel that Kathryn and I may be having our own Groundhog Day thing going on)

Entirely with caiaphas on this one. It was a perfectly entertaining night out, but nothing more. I'm struggling to understand the love for this, or why people would be crying at it. It just wasn't anywhere near that deep, for me. I certainly wouldn't be rushing back, whatever the price!

You little lurker, you, will. Welcome!

See, it's never made me cry - but it has made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Weird, isn't it?

 I watched 'Matilda and Me' - the documentary about Tim Minchin and the show's opening in Australia - the other night, and when the girls playing Matilda started talking about 'When I grow Up' and what they thought it meant, it absolutely made me well up. 

Oh absolutely, agreed. It's just the way people seem to have wound themselves up into a frenzy over this final chance to get tickets, I really am struggling to see it's worth all that.

I mean, had I for example gone to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and come out hating it, I could at least see what other people might love about it (lots of magic, oodles of nostalgia, some standout performances, the theatrical appeal). 

Groundhog Day just felt rather pedestrian. It develops only two characters in a large cast, that I can recall. The poor ensemble are very much just a bunch of folks wandering about with a variety of costumes on all night. The singing wasn't always that clear, so I missed some of the jokes (and I wasn't the only one in the party I went with to feel that). I like a lot of Minchin's comedy work but you can get away with rather more rushed, breathless, clever lines, as he is wont to write, when you're one guy doing comedy - not so much when there are a bunch of characters together on stage and you're supposed to be able to hear one above the other to develop plot and make people laugh.

I dunno - it just felt to me like there was quite a lot working against it, so the reaction here (and from critics) is something of a surprise.  

The Broadway artwork looks awful!! Yes the west end yellow is a bit bright but I'm pretty sure I could do better than those 3 groundhogs on rectangles in Microsoft publisher when I was 5!

R.e. the critics.  A friend of one of the Producers told me that B'way had essentially said unless it got 5* reviews across the board, they wouldn't bring it over.  One can't help but feel this info was passed on to the reviewers.  I'm not saying bribery took place, but placing that thought into their minds…  And hey presto, a lot of 5* reviews.  Not across the board, but a lot.  And it gets it's Broadway run.  I just can't see it lasting on Broadway.  It's not moving enough, and the story not engaging enough.

I'd have expected a comment like that to lead to fewer 5* reviews, not more, as people called their bluff.

Don't forget, people, Bend It Like Beckham also got a raft of 4 and 5 star reviews, and so did Betty Blue Eyes and I can't Sing! It's hardly the first time that the critical reception of a new musical has been more enthusiastic than people here thought it should be.

Ha, not at all, theatremadness! It's just that reading this thread, I was in the position of, 'why do I feel like I'm in the wrong for not being utterly swept up by this musical?' So I thought I'd ask why, since so many of you have found yourselves so genuinely caught up in it.

A lot of people seem blown away by Andy Karl's performance and I freely admit, I'd happily have given him 5 stars where I'd only have given the overall show 3 stars. And as lovely as some of you seem to find him in his undies, it can't just be Karl that's provoking this reaction, surely?

Have others felt genuinely moved by characters beyond Phil and (possibly) Rita (though for my money Rita wasn't that strong as a character or performer)? Have you seen the ensemble shine where I didn't?

Were you really not just a teensy bit bored as the same scenarios played out again and again? Were you genuinely surprised and/or moved by the ending?

Did you love the songs? (There were clearly different musical styles being employed but for me, in the end it was just one big lump of vaguely amusing, intermittently hilarious, songs that I could neither particularly remember the words nor the tunes of.)     

I *could* do work this morning, or I *could* have a go at taking your questions one by one and seeing if I can shed any light, for myself as much as for you. I'll start with saying no one who hasn't been as impressed by the show is wrong, and also that even though I love the show, I'll happily concede there are flaws. Onwards!

To be honest, he's a very large part of it. He has one helluva character arc to play with and, by necessity of the concept, he's the only one that does get this character arc to play with. Fortunately, he's a brilliant performer who does the various aspects and the overall journey exceedingly well. I tried imagining the show with someone like Killian Donnelly or Michael Xavier in the role, and it honestly made my blood run cold a little bit. Never underestimate the power of a tremendous central performance.

Yes, actually. Phil is our POV character and he spends much of the show as a selfish asshole so we don't get a *lot* of time thinking about the other people in Punxsutawney, but when he starts trying to be a better person in the second act, we do get a bit more. Sure, the characters are very much still sketches, but if you're a skilled artist, you can convey a LOT with a sketch. Personally, I'd be more worried about people who *weren't* moved, however briefly, by people like Nancy or Ned or the homeless guy at the very least.

The problem with the basic story is that you need to invest a decent amount of time in establishing the repetitiveness, and that's time that you could invest in developing the supporting characters in a more straight-forward story. No one wants to be in a theatre for upwards of five hours (Robert Icke, I'm looking at YOU), so you make sacrifices, and telling this particular story in a reasonable timeframe at the expense of building up a few more characters is what they've gone for. That Nancy and Ned have a solo each is actually pretty impressive. And even though the characters aren't thoroughly developed, my GOODNESS the ensemble works HARD. SERIOUS hats off to the ensemble!

You'd think I would get bored, particularly as I find Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban a bit of a slog and that only really repeats a section just the once! But again, I think it was very skillfully handled which kept it from being tedious. Playing out the morning routine in full repeatedly, any potential tedium was mitigated by the difference in Phil's reactions. And when there would have been nothing in particular to convey by playing out the full routine again, nifty cutting kept the pace up. I think they struck the pacing and the balance just right with the repetitions, to keep it clear how repetitious it was for Phil without causing major zoning out on the part of the audience. I was not surprised by the ending at all (where else could it have gone? It's not a Caryl Churchill play, it needed an ending) but yes, I was EXTREMELY moved. Best theatrical sunrise I've seen, for emotional impact at the very least, hands down.

Yes, I have a lot of fondness for the songs, and I'm looking forward to the cast recording. After my first trip, I couldn't really remember any of the songs, I just knew that I'd found them fitting and been impressed by the lyrics while they were happening. But after my second trip (and a bit of poking around on YouTube), I've got a much firmer idea of the songs in my head. Tbh, I never remember songs after I've seen a musical, unless I already knew them going in, so I'm never fussed about the memorableness or hummability of a score as long as it serves the show while I'm watching it.

Well I don't know how much that helped anyone, but there it is!

I think the film works coz when they repeat summit they can just cut to the repeat (example when he orders the drinks) but in theatre it just felt a bit faffy.

I do find hilarious, on this whole forum, how much men get objectified! If someone where to say 'phooa it's a Stallen in her knickers is the reason I'm going back to soandso' would one not be branded a pig? What is it with gay men and it being ok to objectify other men? (Obs I'm a mincer myself but have always felt, in day to day life too, really weirded out by this)