Funny Girl

Sadly a lot of people do read it for the news and believe everything they say.

Except that many famous people push what they're doing in their spare time into the media, or out on Twitter so it's understandable that people respond accordingly. And Sheridan is a bit of a one for that, isn't she? 

Decesions. Deceisions. Day seat or book seat in the Upper circle?

Two things don't quite add up:

1 - For the story to be false, people on Twitter would have to be making up their stories about seeing behaviour that appeared to indicate drunkardness - and I can see no reason for people to manufacture that sort of detail.

2 - Why haven't the producers or theatre-management provided full details of the 'technical' issues? That would have nipped this in the bud very rapidly.

If the problem was with Sheridan, why wouldn't the understudy continue the performance? It doesn't make sense to halt the entire show for one person, not when they have to refund/exchange.

Exactly. Several people commented on it as soon as the unexpected break began. Only later did the since-deleted tweet appear. It does seem odd that only one performance has attracted such tweets. They were asking if it was an acting choice, why have people at other performances not asked that?

As for putting the understudy on. Who knows? Maybe they thought by saying technical issues and cancelling the whole thing, no one would've noticed and they would've got away with it. If they put the understudy on they would've drawn more attention to Sheridan's performance pre-stoppage.

Perhaps she was having her double chins smoothed out

Well that's a simple one to answer, because it was the only performance where the audience only saw the start of the character arc. Everyone else only commented after seeing the transfomation throughout the first act.

EDIT: should have read ahead, as Kathryn said the same.

if a performer was unable to perform then the understudy would have gone on, you don't turf an audience in situ out if at all avoidable. 

Barnes got good audience reviews and ENO had just done the same with Close. Now they have to compensate all the audience as opposed to the portion that might have left if seeing an understudy.

People get the tabloid treatment whether they crave it or not, although lazy journalists now trawl through twitter and the Internet now rather than going out and looking for real stories.

I saw Funny Girl tonight and Sheridan wad incredible. She is a real talent and plays the role perfectly.

In my experience audiences often love it when someone has to take over mid-show. There's the disappointment of breaking the suspension of disbelief by being unexpectedly dropped into reality for a while, but there's also the appreciation that it's not easy to switch roles with no notice and there's the whole the-show-must-go-on feeling of being there for something special that other audiences won't have experienced. People are there for live theatre, and it doesn't get more live than something going wrong and someone stepping in to fix it.

In contrast, having the show cancelled a short way in means the audience is left with a wasted journey and an empty evening. I doubt anyone's going to be hanging around twiddling their thumbs and saying "Well, this may be boring as hell but at least we're not watching a show where someone in the cast had to be replaced part way through. That would be the worst."

Set problems hardly stop shows. The revolve occasionally breaks at Les Miz, and the cherry picker does malfunction at Wicked. And these are very vital technical mechanics that have a huge impact on the shows story telling. Elphaba needs to fly, and the revolve at Les Miz helps the transition of scenes. And yet both shows have clear contingency plans for these malfunctions.