The ToyBoy Diaries - Hope Mill MCR

Hope Mill's 2018 season also includes Spring Awakening from 19th March to 3rd May and Aspects of Love from 5th July to 8th August.

Cannot wait for Spring Awakening!!

Do you think Sinitta will star? She's already got one song they can use.

I took a friend to Little Women and she was so impressed she’s asked to see this with me, so I’ll be giving it a whirl! Great to see the Hope Mill team inside the top 100 Stage list too!

Just read a stinker of a review in The Times. Seeing Saturday. Has anyone here seen it yet?

Caught the final performance last night. House was about 90/95% full, that said, it's not indicative of the selling ability of the show as the show has been giving tickets away via the popular 3-word free ticket distributor for the last 2 weeks. Some of those who did pay for tickets seemed pally with Hope Mills owners and had turned up on the night with the intention of haggling on the ticket prices. "We've come here and theres 5 of us wanting tickets, we're not paying £10 each" was part of a conversation I overheard in the bar pre-show. Anyway.

The Toyboy Diaries is told from the perspective of Lilly, a middle aged antiques seller with two divorces, two children and a resilient obsession with younger men driving the self-told narrative of her flings and sexual encounters. The show itself consisted of a cast of 5. 2 females playing static characters and 3 males playing interchangeable characters and ensemble roles. The lady playing lead had maybe total of 6 minutes not on stage for the entire shows duration and didn't seem to falter. Commendable. Unfortunately for me, I found the lead character hard to like and as a result the whole show suffered. Credit to the actress playing Lilly, who despite being tasking with playing a fairly awfully flawed character, kept the show together and did a great job. With the exception of Polly, Lilly's best friend, who provides most of the comic relief throughout the show, the rest of the characters are disposable and fairly meaningless as Lilly works through man after man in various circumstances

Most of the songs were playful yet forgettable, but it was the book that was the shows real weakness. For me musicals are an escape, given that characters can burst into song at any point to express their emotions and tribulations, so scenes in Pubs and Police Stations really don't do it for me. There was a real mix of genuinely funny moments with contrastingly cheap laughs. And call me a prude, but the inclusion of a song about the rampant rabbit dildo seemed a bit of a needlessly distracting piece of filler.

As with Pippin at Hope Mill, the lighting rig seemed to be plagued with issues of moving lights resetting themselves mid-scene becoming completely distracting, an issue HMT really need to address in the future. Nice to see some new original theatre programming, but not my kind of show.

I guess you could say that. It was a pleasant evening out and a good distraction. Its just very British and whilst I am from the UK myself, I generally seem to find overly British musicals bland and boring. And by 'British' I dont mean composer/creatives, but British characters and circumstances.

I enjoyed it — kind of - but I’d had a few drinks beforehand. Sober I suspect it would have left me totally cold. Not a patch on Parade and the gorgeous Little Women. No stand out songs apart from the one used in the trailer. The leading lady very good, the men cute.

I believe so. aria-entertainment.com/portfolio/the-toyboy-diaries/