Funny Girl

I thought everything closed at 5.30pm up north? 😁

Apologies in advance cos I clearly missed it but when did Darius take over full time as nick? I though Chris was doing it?

Chris had a better offer.

He's working as a lecturer at the Ministry of Funny Walks.

No idea why Chris left but when I saw it in Bristol he was there for act 1 and was replaced by the understudy in act 2.... medical reasons I think. Saw it in Cardiff last sat and we had the understudy again (can't remember his name!). He was much better this time as he had clearly had time to prepare rather than being shoved on after the interval!

I'll be there on Monday, looking forward to finally seeing Sheridan.

I must be in the minority to have seen the show both in London and on tour and haven't seen either Sheridan or Natasha!

Behave will you!

Just back from tonight's performance.

A couple of funnies, the dressing room set didn't roll on at one point and had to be almost thrown on manually. In the final scene where she takes her dressing gown off to reveal the sparkly dress, the tie wouldn't undo and in the end she had to wriggle out of it.

Glad I saw it one last time. I still think she mugs too much in it but you can't take your eyes off her and her emotion at the end is 100% believable even from the front row.

And Darius, I swear to god there was an audible gasp from the audience (ladies and a few of the gents) when he made his first entrance and said in that deep voice "good evening". Swoon. He totally strikes the right note with that performance. 

Nearly two two years since I saw this with anthony40 at the MCF after that scramble for tickets. They all deserve some well earned time off from it. I guess we won't see a revival for a good few years. 

I caught the matinee today and no sign of Darius but his understudy, Tom Partridge, is rather gorgeous and sang and danced brilliantly, though perhaps not the greatest actor - his arms were very limp, but yep, very splendid. I rather loved the production. Simply stage with lovely touches. I enjoyed all the ghostly reflections, though if this is a flashback, as suggested by the beginning, it doesn't really resolve that. And yes, Ms Smith was incredible, working so hard. Only one moment of staged 'corpsing', but sitting on Nicky's leg in You are Woman, when they were getting frisky, she suddenly looked surprised and collapsed giggling. It seemed fresh but is there every night, as is the moustache gag. Let's hear it for the ensemble too. I loved a lot of the detail in the set, like the platform numbers lighting up in the walls. A standing ovation today - what will Saturday be like.

I still quite work out the deceptively simple wing flats that have images on the reverse, and it's their reflections we see. Not sure how many different sliders there are but it is very effective. Is the flashback device in the original script - it's a bit half hearted and allows things to flow, but I suspect the audience had long forgotten that once things had started.

What musicals could Sheridan potentially do in future? Joanne in Company maybe (she would love the challenge of Sondheim)? Lauren in Kinky Boots? Chris in The Girls (I know she loves playing real people)? Would be good to see her play a Northerner. Maybe Tell Me On A Sunday (challenge of doing a one woman show).

It will be interesting to see what Sheridan does next. I doubt she will want to undertake another big role in a musical for a while. She would have been fabulous as Bridget Jones in the proposed musical, but that seems to have fallen through. I predict more TV roles, or perhaps a limited run of a play.

I'd love to see Sheridan as Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers. Would pretty cool to see her go back into Legally at some point and do Paulette too