Tiger Bay, The Musical

There were no plans for any tour beyond this run originally- I think they were banking on it being a runaway hit and being snapped up elsewhere. However considering ticket sales have been dire and the show itself is...well dire I wouldn't hold your breath (and think yourself lucky of the escape)

Can you tell I didn't like it much? I'll post my proper review later, but for once Mark Shenton and I are in agreement- it dies by it's over-ambition. It's a mess in that it wants to be the 'Welsh Les Mis' but then it wants to be 'Welsh Billy Elliot' but then it just goes full 'Welsh Annie' in the second act. It's 3 hours long which is at least 45 minutes of unnecessary material. It tries to do a Les Mis and have multiple stories at once but none of them really gets fleshed out and at least 2 of them are either dull or ridiculous.

It's a criminal waste of John Owen Jones and his voice- he barely gets one proper number. The cast do work incredibly hard, and there's some talent there but it looks like one hell of a slog on their part.

Argh, that's one of the worst forms of torture - shows (and movies) that just don't know when to end.  

I would "like" your post, except that I feel "dislike" would be more appropriate here. Meh.

At least my kitties knew when to end and sod off after Grizabella flew to heaven yesterday.

Thank you for saving me the £100 I’d spend on tickets, petrol, the bridge & dinner Emi! I wanted to go and support Dom Hartley Harris who had been such a standout in 🦇🔥, but nothing is worth enduring a lengthy new score that sucks.

Wow! As lyrics go, that's up there with Too Close To The Sun's "I don't trust that pirate girl"!

To give another perspective, I thoroughly enjoyed this last night. No it’s not perfect, yes it needs some editing and some of the dialogue was jarring (Ianto saying ‘Tidy’ in the early 1900s?!) but for me these were minor quibbles. I thought the score was beautiful and there were no weak links in the cast. It is long but I didn’t feel it dragged at all. I do agree that John Owen Jones deserves some bigger numbers to sing though!

Ah I didn’t mind the jokes but yes the colloquialisms did grate on me a little!

Oh Nye and Jennie should be good @n1david I sorta know the bloke playing Nye, and I've heard good word of mouth on it. Enjoy the view from the St David's hotel though!

Also c/o viserys Guardian receive 2* l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fstage%2F2017%2Fnov%2F16%2Ftiger-bay-review-wales-millennium-centre-cardiff-les-mis&h=ATMh-1rQg73_s22P-JzMZabQ4nE4i9zUl_kf4viFsZKTS1VSrTcI_-DnH5c0HeeaCMveojmX7LKDLPmd_7cbFoo62nyfQ4jx0mc-1P1JNZzvJxQ8h6xZY9N8SFc_RGwBj84hVITTmVw

Sounds a bit like when I saw ‘Martin Guerre’ in previews. I wanted to take my own life it went on so much, but they did get there eventually. I loved it by the end of it’s London run and don’t feel it needed further tinkering. Are there not even any lush repeated melodies that you enjoy over and over?

This seems to be getting consistently great reviews and comments from local bloggers and newspapers!

Well, I can’t say I thought this was dire but it was disappointing. Three big issues for me.

1. Urchins. I’m allergic to urchins. And there are a LOT of them in this show. Not singing very well. And not acting very well.

2. Relentless activity. No confidence in letting the music talk. There were some good tunes in this - particular stand out was “Who I Am” performed by Vicki Bebb - but it was notable for ending up on a bare stage with just her singing. Most songs overchereographed, ensemble members on stage dancing, moving bits of scenery around (at one point I just wanted to scream “leave them alone”). So the songs themselves get lost in the frenetic activity.

3. The plot.


There was potential in this -some decent songs and the mostly great cast working their socks off. But ultimately it failed for me. About 70% standing ovation at the end and relentless retweeting of praise by the show’s Twitter account show I was in a minority in the audience. But that’s how it is.