Dreamgirls - Savoy / UK Tour

the first night of bristol has been taken off sale. no clue if it’s going ahead, nothing officially been said by atg or dreamgirls

Thanks, just snapped up a couple of front row stalls for £13. I’ve haven’t seen it happen at the Hippodrome before unless it’s the whole run of something cancelled for low ticket sales. Enjoy!

If its dewynters it'll be EPK and audience reactions for marketing purposes i expect 

The tour costumes look depressingly cheap compared to the opulence of the London ones

The costumes are fine.

Sharlene Hector has been on as Effie all week at MK so far. She's absolutely brilliant. We had a second cover on as Curtis last night who was quite weak. I wasn't sure about Deena when she started singing lead but I warmed to her, and Lorrell was excellent.

The film keeps a better pace I think, Act 1 drags a bit. And the racial injustices and civil unrest at the time are highlighted more clearly in the film. But it's still a really good night out 😁

Lots of the (non show gown) dresses are from Asos, and one from Joanie. I know because I have the same dresses, lol! I went to see the show with my partner in Bristol and in the interval he was like "they've taken your wardrobe!".

Yep, barring illness Sharlene's still doing that schedule so will be on Wed/Thurs Eve and Sat matinee in Wimbledon.  

It’s lost the pizazz of the Savoy production which wasn’t a particularly complicated production but was very very well done. All the leads are good, Nicole Raquel Dennis delivers but her voice didn’t come from deep inside like Amber Riley and neither did her acting. Deena (Natalie Kassanga) is suitably second rate to Effie but was totally outdone in Listen.   Lorell was great and I thought Curtis (Matt Mills)  was excellent. Jimmy Early was pretty over the top throughout which is what we expect of course but it occasionally went too pastiche. 

The production has most of the elements of the original but in a noticeably cut back version. It looked a bit cheap at times unfortunately, and I hated the cloth with an arch shaped aperture cut out and surrounded by lightbulbs which was used several times including the finale instead of that incredible breathtaking original crystal curtain. There IS a crystal curtain of sorts at the back of the set but it’s all a bit apologetic. Having said that even with a cut back version those lighting towers which slide in and out were effective.  Costumes ok, wigs - some were questionable from the front stalls. Big company. They’re not skimping on ensemble. 
Audience loved it. X-Factor style applause at several points throughout And I Am Telling You, with “obligatory” SO for end of Act 1. 
Savoy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tour ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 

Just got an email regarding Belfast date in January being cancelled due to producers ending the tour early.

This has been a massive tour, it’s down to the last two stops and I’m surprised that there has been so little buzz or even comment on this show over the last year.

Where are you regional members?

We were all over it at the Savoy and now it’s a very definite afterthought.

I saw this on tour and it was meh just a bit boring. None of the cast held me, the story is fine, musical numbers are obviously very good but the performances let them down for me.

I’ll always love the score but the production didn’t live up to the West End unfortunately. As Burly said the set was very cutback and nowhere near as opulent, and some of the costumes were downright ugly imo. Nicole is very good and I definitely saw a lot of improvement between Bristol in January and Cardiff in April but she doesn’t have that “magic” (the best way I can describe it) that Amber Riley and Marisha Wallace had. I am going to try to catch the show one last time in Birmingham, hopefully with Sharlene this time.