Dreamgirls - Savoy / UK Tour

Running time is around 2 hrs 35 including interval so 5:05pm

Matinee.

Just collected my tickets and seen Amber is off.

That's a shame, but I'm sure Karen will be great.

I'm seeing this on Tuesday. Was hoping to see the full cast (as I love so many of the principles in this from their previous works) but I'm sure everyone will be fab!

When's press night for this? Gotta be soon, hopefully everyone's well by then!

Well if that is a poor understudy as people said on twitter I'd love to see a good one as the three US are playing a blinder.

Karen just slayed And I Am Telling You

Tosh was excellent as an understudy in Show Boat as well. He shouldn't have to understudy anymore to be honest.

We were 11 and 12 (or 12 and 13), so yes, pretty central.

Karen did sound remarkably like Amber which I think was good as there were probably people in the audience who missed the signs.

Tosh was amazing, very strong.

See, that irritates me.  If they've all been told to take "vocal rest" (like Amber's tweet) and not do both shows today, why not split them between the two, rather than having three principals out at the matinee?  Matinee audiences aren't less important than evening ones.

Disappointing that this was the case.

We got to still see a great show for £15 though so neither of us can really complain. But if the role is so demanding for Amber then she should never have been advertised as doing 7 out of 8 performances if so early in the run she's going to be taking breaks. I hope this isn't the start of weeks of controversy as she takes shows off all over the place.

Not living in London (or really close enough to get to swiftly) my abilty to see the show on a lottery ticket is limited as I much prefer to know what I'm seeing whilst I'm on my trips as opposed to risking lotteries and then having to find a reasonable deal which suits me when I inevitably lose. I enjoyed this show enough though that I may treat myself to an evening performance higher priced ticket to see the full cast perform (hopefully).

That may be, but if they keep mucking around with the schedule that's going to have an effect on word of mouth, no matter how good Karen is. They can't announce an alternate schedule, which people who're travelling a distance to get there or arranging their timetables specifically will trust, then just change it around all the time to suit. Either set a schedule and stick to it, or remove it and go with no set schedule. People might grumble about the latter, but at least it's closer to playing fair.

I'm lucky that I'm now close enough to the city that I can just try the lottery whenever I have a free afternoon/evening and make it in if I win, but having spent most of my life visiting a couple of times a year from Edinburgh, it's not hard to imagine how I'd feel if I'd made a specific trip to see it.

At this point early in the run it's hard to know. It wouldn't surprise me if they change her 7 shows to 6 if her voice gets weak, but at the moment maybe she is just feeling under the weather and can't handle the two shows in a state of illness.

I like that currently Wednesday matinees are an Amber day while evenings are not. It isn't usually that way around. Nice that those who prefer the matinees get to see the 'star' and those who can't go to them due to work get to support the understudies they want to see.

I think if Amber is reduced to 6 shows it won't be the Saturday matinee that gets the chop. But only time will tell.

I've said all along, Amber is completely untested as a MT theatre actress (performing live on the Glee tour is not the same) and expecting her to perform at that level in her first show is insane. The producers should not set people's expectations like that, its ridiculous especially as they've just had a similar situation with Funny Girl.