Funny Girl

At the interval now. Nothing is amiss. Sheridan is incredible.

Eek. The Sun's posted an article too.

This is why idle gossip isn't good because it's cannon fodder for the tabloids.

Guess all the producers have to do is put out a statement confirming what the problem was and it shuts everyone up. The worry is that they know this and the fact that the tabloids have been sniffing around all day for a story.

Surely this can all be cleared up by a statement confirming what the technical issues were?

Exactly. They're making it worse by not elaborating.

I worked on Martin Guerre and it was just about the most technically complex show ever at that time. Not really a fair comparison.

They still didn't bother to tell us that the show was nearly finished, communication would have been nice so that those who needed to get trains etc. could make a decision.

Anyway, long time ago.

I initially approached this evening's show with some trepidation, preparing myself to be a little disappointed or at least notice a marked difference to the usual theatre trip, in light of yesterday's events.

Sheridan's performance was nevertheless a wonderful thing to behold, as it was when I first saw her star in the role at the MCF. None of the audience reports from yesterday's show correlate to tonight's, and Miss Smith owned the main character just as she did before. She seems to have developed a realness to the songs she performs, although I couldn't help but feel that being so far away from the stage (Upper Circle) dampened the atmosphere somewhat in comparison to the deliciousness of the intimate Menier.

At the stage door, there were several - what appeared to be - press photographers, which I'm not sure is usual for someone like Sheridan. The tell for me was the fact that they took no images of Darius, that I was aware of, but the flashbulbs set off immediately as Sheridan emerged. One fan directly asked her what the problems were last night, and she only gave a very vague "just... Technical difficulties".

Overall, I can't help but feel utterly bias towards the first time I saw this in November, it seemed to suit the close nature of the MCF, whereas in the Savoy the audience didn't necessarily react to some of the laugh out loud moments from the former. Rat a tat tat, for example, was hilarious mostly due the visuals, and the many faces of Fanny. Sat up in the gods, in Row C, might I add, made for reading her expressions much more difficult, resulting in much quieter periods that had previously received huge belly laughs.

That said, I still adore the show, and the cast, and wait in eager anticipation for the release of the new cast recording!

I think it's really unfair of them to use a photo of her crying, quite clearly during the bows - which none of the cast got to do on Thursday night - to make it look like she's a mess.

At the end of the day, sheridan fans are the new kerry ellis fans. She could go on stage and shoot half the audience and they will still adore her.

Sheridan likes the celebrity party lifestyle, and if you are into that scene then the press comes with it (good and the bad). Lots of other well respected and famous actors don't get the tabloid treatment because they don't crave the attention

Surely The Sun isn't read for actual news?

(It drives me insane that even BBC website, the broadsheets and their websites report TV programmes as if they were news. If I wanted to know what was happening on Bake Off I'd watch it. Lazy journalism and free advertizing- it's a cozy arrangement but it just makes the news dumber)