Heathers: The Musical - TRH / The Other Palace / @sohoplace

I meant does it? They always leave cast announcements so late! 

Based on my experience and backed up by Twitter no! Radio silence all round

I didn't win

I didn't win either

I think it's very reasonable that the person who wins the tickets has to be there. Otherwise, people would just enter many times with fake names in an attempt to win. I'm sorry if that's not a popular response, but there are a lot of people who love the show, entered the competition hoping to attend and played by the rules.

Plus, they may well have allocated your brother the seat where they've set up the filming for Steve, so they're dependent on him turning up!

I completely agree! The only reason that my brother entered 'for me' (bad wording on my behalf, sorry!) was because he wanted to surprise me with the tickets as my 18th birthday present. I never outwardly stated that I was entering the ballot myself, so he only found out about that last night when he called me to say that he got them. If he had known that I had already entered, I doubt that he would have tried to get them for me, in all honesty, in order to give other people a better chance. My family are all avid Heathers lovers and so we weren't all entering the ballot explicitly for me to win; if my sister had won, for example, I doubt that she would have even brought me along as a plus one!

I managed to draft my brother in to join so it seems like he is coming to London with me after all (again, he loves Heathers too, but he wanted me to bring along my own friend as it was a birthday present), so that fixes our ID issue, at least. However, I totally agree with the idea of needing it for the show if you have no intention of actually attending. The amount of people I've seen on Instagram or Twitter trying to sell on tickets for obscene amounts of money, or getting people to join them as a plus one if they buy them food and drinks is crazy, and also incredibly unfair on those who really wanted the tickets the exact same as those who did get them, and are now being dragged around as third class citizens just because they lost a randomised ballot.

Sorry if my post sounded like I was nitpicking; I really didn't want it to come across in that manner, and I am absolutely ecstatic at the fact that I got seats, I'm just not the best at articulating what I want to say in the easiest of manners 😅

So I'm thinking of booking for Saturday (since I did not win the lotto), but I still have no idea who the new cast are? It's only a few days away, I don't understand why it isn't announced yet, unless I've just missed it. Anyone heard anything?

I would be rather surprised if they end up in a situation where anyone’s first performance of the show in front of a live crowd is for a filmed performance.

Well, as in I’d expect people who have been in the show previously or on the tour (not the most recent cast).

Hopefully they’ll have a cast board at the venue at least. Otherwise I can imagine fans camped out at the venue to see who goes in.

Hope everyone who is going today enjoys!

Vivian Panka was excellent in 9 to 5, can't wait to hear her belt out Never Shut Up Again.

I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the proshot filming last night and, to put it simply, that cast is phenomenal! I've seen Ailsa and Simon before (on 3 occasions with Ailsa at TOP), and Simon once last year on tour, but never together (after the cast change in February, I saw Ben Karran as JD instead), and their chemistry onstage was amazing. I'm not too sure exactly who were new - and who were returning - cast members because they all did remarkably well, even though this was their 2nd Heathers performance in front of a live audience. Vivian Panka smashed her role as Heather Duke and her rendition of Never Shut Up Again was probably my all-time favourite!
The actual show itself was normal, but the entry aspect was incredibly overcomplicated. Firstly, owing to trespassers on the line, the entire west coast train route coming into London Paddington was at a standstill. My brother, who I was seeing the show with, was coming in from Oxford and he was held in Reading for around 20 minutes, and caution speeds all the way into Paddington after that. We were already cutting it fine for time despite this; my train was arriving into Euston at 18:50, whilst his was arriving at 18:30, so respectively we'd reach Victoria at around the same time. Due to his delays, however, he didn't even reach London until 19:00, giving him 30 minutes to get the tube to the theatre. The Circle line was rammed for the tube which stopped at Victoria, so he had to wait until quarter past before he could even get onboard, and then another 15 minutes until he'd get to the station. Basically, he likely wouldn't make it before the very advertised 'strict 7:30 start', where no latecomers would be allowed and seats would be given out to those in the returns queue, instead. Now, this wouldn't have been too bad; I could have watched the show very easily by myself. But the issue stemmed from the ID debacle. I had virtually no proof that the ticket holder was anyone that I knew, despite the fact that I showed the FOH staff our message conversation about the train delays and how he likely wouldn't make it to the theatre in time, so I was barred entry until he turned up. In the end, I had to ring him so that he could have a conversation with the FOH staff explaining the situation again, and they let me into the theatre. Definitely could have been handled worse - and the amount of people in the same situation (from what I could hear outside of the theatre) was quite reassuring to show that it wasn't just an isolated experience - but it was a stressful start to the show!
Upon entry to the theatre we were given different coloured wristbands when dictated when we could go inside; until then, everyone was penned into the little auditorium, which made it pretty claustrophobic. Although we had been allocated seats, they gave up with this idea at the last minute and so, when we were allowed into the main theatre, we just had to file along the rows to fill it up seat-by-seat (assumedly so that they could work out how many returns seats they could allocate far easier). I was in the dead centre of row E, which was a great seat: you never had to crane your head to see the whole fill of the stage so almost everything was within easy eyeshot. Due to the train delays and sheer amounts of people waiting for return tickets, people were still spilling into the theatre at 7:45 (the show was meant to start at 7:30). My brother - one of the last to enter - had been saved a seat by the FOH staff next to me, which was very nice of them to allocate, and he arrived just before the lights went down. Andy Fickman gave a very sentimental speech about Heathers and what the show meant to him, whilst pointing out Heathers alumni in the audience (such as the OG off-bway Duke, McNamara from the film, and some of the tour cast who were sat a few seats away from me). It was everything that you'd expect from a "you're being filmed so don't do anything stupid" talk, with a few other rules such as that we couldn't film the bows at the end. For this reason, the show didn't officially start until a little after 8pm.
When I say that the audience atmosphere was incredible, I mean it! There was a solid minute of applause at the opening of Beautiful where Ailsa looked like she was about to break character and start laughing, and at the end of Act 1 it was a near-instant standing ovation.
Some of the songs were amended slightly, a few extra lines added here-and-there (nothing memorable, but they were apparent at the time), and the ensemble did more backing to some of the solos which I hadn't registered before. Hopefully these changes weren't just for the cameras, because they did really boost some of the performances. 'Steve' was sat in row C and he played the role great considering the cameras trailing him, and the audience support (as normal) there was great. Other than that, however, there was nothing different about the show since the start of its TOP run, which definitely made for a much more authentic experience.

All in all, I am so looking forward to seeing what it looks like when (and where) it gets released!