The King and I - London Palladium / Tour / Dominion

I was fortunate (thanks to dynamic pricing on the Really Useful website) to get a single central seat in Row B of the Dress Circle for 59.00 for this and the view was fabulous! But do people really pay 150.00?

This is a fabulous show, and received a full standing ovation from a packed house on Monday evening - classed as press night although reviews are embargoed until after the gala opening tomorrow (Tuesday).

The show has a great score and you hum the tunes on the way in!

However, I am notoriously hard to please and although there are plenty of positives I do have a few nit picks with this particular production.

Staging wise it starts of spectacularly with a gold front curtain beautifully lit and an amazing opening sequence with the boat, but once we get to the palace I felt Siam looked a little short of funds set against an ugly stone wall and constantly sliding and flying pillars. The previous revival was burnished red and gold, opulent and bejewelled!

I have to agree with sf regarding the orchestra - especially after recently listening to Chess and Kiss Me Kate at the Coliseum. A few more strings would have made all the difference to the sound. Not good enough for the Palladium and the prices being charged.

Performance wise Kelli O'Hara is wonderful and gives a masterclass in musical performance. Her voice is glorious, her acting sublime and every gesture freshly minted, natural and spontaneous. Her connection with the children (delightful of course - especially the tiny ones) seemed warm and genuine. When she said she loved the children and would miss them, you really believed her. An exquisite performance and worth the price of admission alone. I also liked Naoko Mori's Lady Thaing - a wonderful voice and dignified stage presence. Na-Young Jeon as Tuptim also had a beautiful voice and made her stage moments count.

Less successful performance wise were the men. Ken Wantanbe as the King was certainly an audience pleaser, playing the comedy very well but the King is more than that and I felt he needed more gravitas at times and his diction and singing left a lot to be desired. Dean John Wilson has great pecs, but his stage presence is very bland. His performance in this was as lacklustre as his Aladdin.

It is well directed with all the set pieces in place - the march of the Siamese children, the "Shall we Dance" sequence etc. etc. etc. (see what I did there?) Although I did feel there was too much aimless wandering around by the principles sometimes - I felt like shouting - "oh just stand still!"

I love the Palladium though - such a lovely theatre and the show is such an occasion! 4 stars from me - my nit picks preventing a 5 and most of the stars for Kelli O'Hara!

So...

5* in The Times (I was not expecting that from Ann Treneman)
4* in The Independent, What's On Stage, The Stage, The Telegraph, The Arts Desk, Evening Standard
3* in The Guardian

Guys,
I'm just back from a long (very theatre intense) holiday and I've been a bit out of the loop and still in a bit of a haze. I just wanted to check if there has been a confirmed announcement on Ruthie Ann's involvement in the production? I'm seeing this in about two weeks and I'm looking forward to it, one way or another.

Summary of the reviews by the BBC...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44709484

I remember the night I went Elaine had a coughing fit through Lady Thiang's solo.Rumour had it is wasn't the only night that happened. HHHHUUUUMMMMMMMMM!

Bizarre re the orchestra error since all you have to do is count 'em in the programme, which takes half a minute

This production just oozes class. Three years since I saw it in New York, and whilst the staging is slightly different to how it was at Lincoln centre (where I thought it worked better), it works and makes good use of the Palladium stage.

Loved Ken Watanabe who had already left the production when I saw it last time, and of course Kelli O’Hara might just have one of the most glorious voices to ever grace a West End stage - I could just feel the audience falling in love with her.

It’s certainly not the most perfect musical, the second act is very drawn out, and The House of Uncle Thomas a bit of a challenge, but it’s full of such wonderful music that you forgive its shortcomings.

4/5 stars from me. I may return again just because of how wonderful Kelli is and how well she sings this score.

My seats,F49/50 in the dress circle were wonderful - plenty legroom!

Third visit last night (to the UK production) and easily the best of the three, now that this has bedded in. Wasn't completely planned for last night, but there was such an excellent seat available, I couldn't turn it down.

Great front row seat, thanks to TodayTix Rush. An excellent view (the tiny bit of the stage you miss didn't bother me). A well-behaved audience (there was an occasional singer somewhere nearby, but luckily she didn't know many of the songs).

Think I got a repeat cast of children. Archie Durrant was on as Louis and did a great job. I hadn't picked up before that two of the children are played by adults, but it isn't obvious unless you're sat at the front. Makes sense with the multiple crews.

Na-Young Jeon has really improved as Tuptim as well. The first time I saw her, she missed a few notes, but this time she was faultless. And Dean-John Wilson looks good from up close.

The reviews are mixed, but generally good. I know some people find this dated, but so many of the themes are still relevant today. Looking forward to going back again in a couple of weeks.

Kelli O’Hara must be dying of heat every night in that dress under those lights!

That's a point, how did the real Anna cope wearing Victorian dress in Bangkok temperatures?

Those real crinoline dresses were incredibly restrictive - women DIED because they couldn't exit burning rooms because they couldn't get through doors. I assume that if they were properly long, they would be too restrictive to dance in/the risk of tripping would be too big.

As for surviving in the heat - I've travelled to South East Asia many times and I ALWAYS wonder how people got by - must have been even worse for men in their stiff military buttoned-up uniforms.

However, there were many ways of adapting - houses used to be built to allow maximum air to move through, the midday heat was avoided completely and of course the colonial damsels had an army of servants to do everything for them. And of course they often fled the hot humid plains for cooler climates during the worst heat, ie. from Delhi to Simla in the Himalayan hills, from Mandalay and Rangoon to Maymyo and the French left Saigon behind for Dalat in the summer. It's also what you're used to, I suppose, they just couldn't fathom to wear anything different. I remember the story of the St.Geran shipwreck at Mauritius, that inspired the legend of Paul and Virginie - in which women rather drowned with the ship, than abandon their "modesty" by shedding their crazy clothes to be rescued.

For all that the hoops would have been a certain weight to carry, the fact that they held the fabric away from the legs, as well as the loose fitting linen undergarments (with a rather large strategic split!) would have ensured maximum air flow to keep their bodies cool.  As you say, wearing natural fabrics would also have helped. It sounds counter-intuitive, but very lightweight wool garments would have wicked sweat from the body, and kept someone a lot cooler, than the synthetic mix fibres we are used to today.

As for Kelli's slightly short skirts, I imagine that's been done for assistance with her dancing. For all that historical accuracy is great, these women would have had to hook their dress trains up in order to dance (either through their wrist with hooks or by bustling them).That's not feasible for this show, so they've made them a little shorter so that the skirts don't risk tripping her in the fairly energetic dance numbers.