Club Tropicana - The Musical (2019)

Well that looks as.... erm.. good as expected.

Ooooo it looks so tacky and fabulous!

Oooooo dear, do we have Doctor Dolittle vibes or will this one hold out? How's it doing at other venues?

Just had a quick look at the Liverpool Empire stop. Lots of seats available across the week. Might wait to later on to see what offers come up with my ATG card assuming the tour doesn’t get pulled. Cheapest so far is £18 on the Monday. Looks a lot of fun so hopefully the rest of the tour remains on track.

I always think of Tropicana fruit juice when I see this

Wow that was far more of a mess than I expected, I was going knowing to this because I wanted to go see a naff musical but this one is bemusing because it doesn’t have a clue of what this wants to be, you start off thinking it’s going to be the weddings couples story but that feels sidelined for carry on farce in the hotel which is a shame as their arc was compelling if they focused in it!

Characters motivations don’t make sense such as the bad best friend, I mean was she in love with her best friend or just couldn’t bear to see her friend happy so was selfish & a liar (who knows?!).

Lots of the songs are clunky but one thing I did enjoy was the choreography & the ensemble were excellent!!

You can’t compare this to ‘Mamma Mia!’ in the slightest!

Oddly I still glad I went to see this as it had some good campy moments, the cast are talented & whilst this will never be troubling the West-End they could have had a ok story if they decided on what this musical to be!!

Oh and they need to cut making you learn a dance at the beginning (that was cringe & so forced!!).

Yes you would think that they would check the rights before naming the show!!

I think if you go in not expecting much then you're fine, I preferred act 2 to act1 and the younger cast I really liked whereas put of the older ones it was only really Neil McDermott and Kate Robins I enjoyed.

They do let you take pictures during the megamix too which usually I hate but I'm a fan of 1 of the cast and thought the way things are going with tours at the mo no production pics will emerge.

They were also filming the show from the front row of the circle today but just the one camera that I saw

Although the tour doesn't arrive in Manchester until early June, tickets are already deeply discounted on Travelzoo.

I think that makes four venues...and counting!

Well, I started this thread, so think I should weigh in about Thursday in Bromley.

Tacky! Offensive! Dated! are all ways you could describe this show.

It's all rather funny if you're in the mood for hen party humour and can see it as a parody.

From what I can tell, they worked out what songs they were allowed to use and then formed them into a plot. Several are used in a karaoke scene. If you don't think too much, the music and the performances are quite good.

A lot of this could be ripped straight from 1980s TV sketch shows. You can just imagine aspects appearing on Little and Large or Cannon and Ball. Must be hard on most of the cast, who weren't alive at the time. Frankly, if you can't remember that far back, this probably won't work for you.

The humour isn't exactly sophisticated. The level is along the lines of "I'll just jump over this puff" (referring to the furniture, not the very camp man lying on it). There are lots of gay jokes, many as offensive as they were in the 1980s, but here they're acceptable if you treat this as parody.

Joe McElderry is very easily the start this is based around. Our Joe is really popular with the audience too. Everyone loves Kate Robbins, who pulls off all her impressions from Spitting Image. And I thought Kane Verrall was brilliant, who I've seen recently in Twang! and The Sound of Music (and his camp style here worked much better than it did for his Rolf).

It is all a bit of fun. Totally forgettable, but if you go in looking to brighten up a dull evening, and you like being surrounded with lots of drunk women, you'll have a good time.

And there's a fun moment in Making Your Mind Up, which I saw coming, but also shows how much they've designed this all to appeal to straight women and gay men.

I booked with a Groupon deal and was rather surprised to find my seat wasn't preallocated. I did end up with side Stalls, fifth row, with an excellent view (particularly with the wide seats and good rake in Bromley), but I was lucky in that there were lots of seats free. So plan ahead if you use Groupon elsewhere.

I hope sales pick up, but there are lots of offers everywhere. The whole idea of this one is rather a hard sell. If they base the advertising more on 1980s nostalgia (apart from a brief "future looking" nod at the end), almost all of this could have been performed then. We can see how things go, but I'd book early in the tour just in case.

I'm sure co-director Sam Holmes won't mind me saying he's not the butchest stick in the box.