Company

You heard the announcement at the beginning, you heard the announcement at intermission! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!!!

Appears that they have gone back to the A4 programmes as opposed to the usual Delfont Mackintosh square ones.

Also, one of the merch items is already on the top of @ryan's shopping list... a purple cap with blue writing with "does anyone still wear a hat?" written on it.

There’s a set - Bunny Christie - so the likelihood of it making sense is slim.

And I cried at the curtain call. For god sake people, find yourself someone who looks at you like Patti looks at Rosalie.

No it just is a bare stage and with the back wall being the front curtian too, I just assumed. I haven't been following the videos much so I don't know about any set stuff.

After the miracle of actually making it to the theatre in time for the show to start I have to say I really enjoyed it. I knew it was a comedy but I didn’t expect to laugh as much as I did. Like I’ve said previously, I have never seen a production of Company before. I knew some basic stuff about the plot and some of the key songs but that was it. So all the changes that were made to the show didn’t really matter to me as I don’t know the show in any other form. The production really felt quite modern. Like it was written very recently and not nearly 50 years ago.
The director, Marianne Elliott, came on stage at the very beginning to welcome us but to also point out that they had just done their first dress rehearsal and that things may go wrong and the show may be stopped at points. There were a few little mishaps including a runaway bench but on the show the show ran really well.
The cast was a fantastic ensemble and Rosalie Craig did a great job leading the show. I wouldn’t say there were any weak links in the cast at all and as they get more and more confident they will only get better.
And yes Patti does do the pre show announcement to warn you turn off your phones. You have been warned!

Can’t wait until Patti let’s rip at someone using their phone.. it will happen.. (grabs popcorn)

This one of course. Right here lol.

It only finished at 10:25pm, so everyone's still catching their trains.

The reworking really works, with the blokes in the places of the girls incredibly effective.

Some spoilers follow. . .

It's going to be handbags at dawn for the biggest showstopper every night, as Patti Lupone's terrific too-soused-and-weather-beaten-to-give-a-damn "The Ladies who Lunch" is almost upstaged by Jonathan Bailey's so-fast-and-frenzied-and-covered-in-sweat-role-I-was-born-to-play-delightfully-bonkers "Getting Married Today!"

Bailey is so good (forget his general excellence in York Realist, American Psycho, etc, this is his starmaking role) that he assumed the role of lead character in my eyes, for the duration of his song, and I found myself wishing for an immediate sequel all about his crazy character's marriage to the loveable and level-headed Alex Gaumond.

The two Urinetown leads, Richard Fleeshman and Matthew Seadon-Young, joined by George Blagden, make for a wonderful, quirky and believable trio of boyfriends for Rosalie Craig, and are like a 50's style smooth suited rat pack for their charming "You could drive a person crazy."

Fleeshman really distinguishes himself as a comedian too, playing a supremely dopey boyfriend, forcing Rosalie Craig's Bobbie to undress him while he spouts boring stories. Hilarious staging.

Anyway, A4 Dress Circle proved a steal, as very little was staged at the extreme sides, and I had a great view of Sondheim at the other side of the Dress Circle at the end of one of the rows.

Will be going back to this, but everything new about the show works for me.

So, what was Sondheim's reaction? And did they acknowledge him at the bows, as Imelda did at the first preview of FOLLIES?

Can't wait !!!

I can't decide if I enjoyed the show or if I enjoyed the event-like buzz of it being the first preview

Some random thoughts:
-It looks a lot like Angels in America
-It's pretty "concept" and has an Alice in Wonderland style
-I couldn't tell if Bobbi wanted to settle down with a person or not, even at the end. Being Alive first starts with this terrific new reading of the material.."Someone to need you too much, someone who'd sit in your chair..etc" was performed with contempt, which I loved and thought made sense for this version. But then it switched into the standard interpretation of wanting someone, which threw me off.
-LuPone was LuPone but was giving us Karen Walker.
-Not Getting Married Today was fan-tastic and pretty much the best scene. Laugh out loud funny moments and pure comedy joy.
-Richard Fleeshman was actually pretty terrific. I've only seen him in Ghost and was so impressed at everything he did. Barcelona was a bit of a snooze though and lasted a bit too long.
-Another Hundred People was a clunker. It looked like a staging from Metropolis and the singing (and sound) wasn't great.
-A few mishaps that were handled so wonderfully and resulted in great comedy.
-Bobbi and her friends are in their mid to late 30s I presume, but they live the life of much older people especially in modern day New York.
-The adaptation works if you want it to work. But if you want to scrutinize, there's plenty of gaps.

Otherwise a highlight of the evening was meeting the charming and intelligent @couldileave you and southstreet, geeking over everything musicals, debating PJ's accent (is he supposed to be Australian?), debating actors who can sing vs singers who can act and stagedooring until La LuPone came out and signed and took pictures with everyone.

I adored it from start to finish. It was extraordinarily polished for a first preview (rogue bench and drifting balloons notwithstanding) and I think it is going to be an enormous hit. I loved the gender-switching, and I have to think more about that. Patti was Patti (to the point of glaring at my area of the stalls because we dared to laugh at the pre-written jokes about Chicago (it's Chicago for god's sake, try not to let the meat jokes hit you on your way out) but she was very good for all that. As was Rosalie Craig. But the star of the show for me was Jonathan Bailey, whose big number was perfect and perfectly performed (especially for a first preview).