Bend It Like Beckham The Musical - Phoenix Theatre

Also funny that they mention all of the awards they are up for apart from Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for Preeya... I bet Lauren is pissed considering she was tipped for one.

Even in their last week, some still cannot resist having a dig about the cast and the show. Wonder what they'll do once it's closed?

The fact remains that despite the best possible reviews any show could hope for

It still massively underperformed at the box office and audiences have been basically paid to see it

And it's closing in under 12 months in a theatre which can hardly be described as capacious

That is not exactly success central for a show which took almost 10 years to come to fruition

Much of this blame lies with the cack handed marketing and amateur promotion compared to most WE musicals

The director behaves like she is directing a school nativity rather than a professional show

They need to have a think about what went wrong
SF seemed to have given up on the show by last autumn and she genuinely couldn't see why audiences weren't attending the show and regretted not having an out of WE tryout

We all know I loved it but even I can see the rough edges and sloppy execution
The end product is a very warm hearted and very well performed musical badly directed and cheaply staged

No matter how good one thinks something is, if no one else wants to see it then you need to reconsider carefully
What I do think is excellent is that Natalie and Preeya (my good sisters) will get a massive career boost from their noms and for them I am really proud!
X

Bit pointless when the show is closing

Like NHS excellence awards

Means jack sh*t

Harsh but true

I doubt this show will ever be back in the WE

Ultimately I think it lacks universal appeal in order to generate high profits needed and does not have the spectacle necessary to compete with the biggest shows charging top whack

The irony is that the cast is one of the biggest in the WE
I have seen it for the last time now as I will not be able to attend the final show

I don't think the relative lack of success needs such a deep analysis. Non jukebox British musicals simply don't do very well these days and this one didn't have particularly good songs or anything particularly witty or charming. It was also quite cheesy in parts with some of the staging. It did as well as it deserved, despite a lot of people hoping it would do really well

Kinky has more wow factor,   and also has the same social message. Bendit might logically win for musical originality  - if you marked it on the final versions. The heart of the  show is Natalie,  Lauren  and Tony so its nice to see Natalie get a well deserved nomination. A lot of actors I think are excellent,  seemed to like Gypsy, but I thought Imelda was playing  Dolores again, and Lara didn't have much to do - but I still expect they will sweep the vote. Its more interesting who has got nominations to add to their CVs than who will get the predictable vote this year. At least its not completely like the plays where Judi and Ken get the gongs, and the more interesting younger players in their shows  don't get nominated. .

sonia friedman

The nominations it got it deserved, particularly for the two acting catagories. The only one I think it didn't really deserve was the weird music category, as the score really isn't strong at all, although the nomination is more just because the score is different with the bangra music etc... which the same can be said Kinky is just because of the Cyndi aspect and In the Heights is because of the Hip-Hop aspect. Just depends how you look at things.

I've seen three of the ones nominated. I'd struggle to pick out of those three. Kinky has the most catchy songs but is probably the least coherent so I'd be tempted to give it to Bend It or In The Heights.

Bushey or Barnes or Kew, or Paris or Pinner ?? Kampala, Delhi, Rio, Rome.

Are those all right?? What am I missing? I'm going mad listening to it!!

Natalie isn't far behind in terms of sickness she has taken

Although she actually spends a lot of time on stage and we role is at least moderately demanding in terms of acting and singing