Groundhog Day the Musical - Old Vic

Revised version? It's perfect the way it is!

I fear to say it, but it really does need revising. The songs were too much of a pic n' mix style wise, and the central relationship needed a lot more adding to make us care. Hopefully they're working on these two points as well as others. It deserves to come back, but only if it's better.

Andy Karl has now been announced to take over the leading male role in Pretty Woman when it goes to Broadway. So if Groundhog does come over soon, any slight hope of him being in the show is sadly moving further away.

Oliver Tompsett for me!

I understand, and that probably still may happen (sadly! - I bloody love that revolve!). But looking back, Baz wrote an article in October that said they would make changes for the London production:

"Warchus and other executives connected to the production said they would do more work on the show: adding some new songs from Tim Minchin, and re-writing Danny Rubin’s book.

Peter Darling, the star choreographer, was not able to complete his work on the musical because of ill health and perhaps co-choreographer Ellen Kane will start afresh."


Back to possible names for Phill, I could imagine Alex Gaumond doing the role. He has a great voice and played Miss Trunchbull (and was Marley in the OV's A Christmas Carol) so there's already a bit of a connection.

As much as I liked the show I felt there wasn't something right with Act 2.
A lot of people didn't get the 'Playing Nancy' thing and from there into 'Hope' into 'Everything About You' it puts the show into a real downer, which is a fair reflection of where Phil and other characters are at at that point, but I felt like it took a while to get going again and never really recovered in terms of pace and intensity.

In terms of speculating physical changes to the show etc lets not forget that a completely different company on a different contract provided the revolve work in the US, which is where all of the issues were experienced. Once a revolve is physically made and programmed the running costs aren't as significant as you'd imagine, otherwise every producer and his dog wouldn't be using them! GHDUK's revolve already exists and is in storage. If they're looking at revising the show due to production costs surely it wouldn't make sense to design and build a brand new set whilst theres already one in storage.

Oddly, I found "Playing Nancy" one of the best songs in the show and very touching as it described perfectly how many women are trapped in such a role of being the cute sweet easy-to-have girl because it's their only way to find appreciation. But it was situated in a very bad position at the beginning of the second act and came pretty much out of nowhere. So if they find a better way to integrate it into the show and make us care more for Nancy I'm all for that.

The first time it was mentioned that the show would be 'revised' for London was back in October last year in this article.  Then in January this year Tim Minchin tweeted to say No ma’am. The show will be exactly the show you love.

So I don't think anyone really knows at this point what the show would look like if it was to come back.  As much as I loved the music (if they cut Playing Nancy I will riot), the staging is really what made this show - it would be devastating if they simplified it.

The show received a lot of positive reviews, an Olivier for best new musical and was a huge hit with the public.  Do they really need to change it at all? It obviously worked for British audiences in its original form.  I'm still convinced the failure on Broadway was not much to do with the show itself, but rather a combination of bad timing and poor marketing.

Really interested reading that as the one extremely vehement comment/criticism I heard from a friend who saw it on Broadway was how 'flippant and silly' it 'made' what was in the film.

Now for me it was exactly the opposite- the musical made far more serious and poignant elements that are for sure in the movie, but the songs in Act 2 particularly really brought weight to it for me. I have no point really other than that friend's critique really irked me at the time and that I personally think that run of songs works incredibly well.

Anyway another Jon Robyns for Phil vote for me. Shall we start a crowdfunder?

One of the top five British originated musicals of the millennium so far for me*, they shouldn't tinker with it too much at all. Maybe a song they can sell for the lead as a standalone for publicity purposes and maybe a similarly extractable 'I want' song for the female lead but the structure and tone both work really well as they are. They should also be very wary about responding to American comments, they aren't relevant here and you'd risk creating a more American show that doesn't play here as well.

*Alongside Billy Elliot, Matilda, London Road & Love Story (or maybe American Psycho but that was an all American writing team).

Matilda ran for almost 4 years on Broadway and won 5 Tonys - isn't that classed as a pretty huge success over there?

I agree with you about the marketing failure though.  Also opening in the same year as Dear Evan Hansen, Great Comet, Come From Away, Hello, Dolly etc was what really caused this show to struggle.  If they'd transferred to London after the Old Vic run then opened on Broadway in this (relatively lacklustre) season I think it would have fared much better against the competition and probably picked up a few of those Tonys.