211 posts
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Post by BoOverall on Mar 7, 2019 21:41:36 GMT
Which Witch was something special - one of the very greatest of all dreadful musicals. I remember seeing it on a two show day - but had to check what the other show was - and it turns out that it was Kiss of the Spiderwoman Quite a contrast in terms of quality - though Spiderwoman should have had a longer run than 390 performances. I saw those two in one day, too. It was a treat with Kiss....loved that show: Chita Rivera, wow! Then Which Witch in the evening: now that was a total hoot because of its awfulness. Those acrobatic flying witches, hilariously out of place camp dancing, endless wailing and arm waving............ I kind of loved the utter bonkersness of it all, while wrestling with disbelief at what I was seeing unfold before me - and marvelling at how the cast kept such straight faces throughout. But boy did I want to climb on the stage and join her on the stake at the end.
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5,424 posts
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Post by oxfordsimon on Mar 7, 2019 23:12:51 GMT
I don't think the cast did keep a straight face. I remember a Radio 4 documentary about flops and the cast seemed to be having a whale of a time on that one. Not so much a mess-up matinee - just messing up every night for the hell of it!
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4,588 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on Mar 8, 2019 7:49:59 GMT
Wasn't WW billed as a swedish opera-musical? I was 14 or so at the time the time and thought it sounded fabulous. Alas I never got to see it, my Mother chose for us to see Kiss of the Spider Woman instead, now what was fabulous
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Mar 8, 2019 9:25:58 GMT
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4,588 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on Mar 8, 2019 10:18:54 GMT
Brilliant. That's my Weekend sorted :-)
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Post by horton on Mar 8, 2019 18:39:18 GMT
"spectacular lewdness" What a great phrase! And it reminds me of a real lost treasure. I loved 'Budgie' and still listen to my treasured CD often. I loved Budgie too! it's got some great stuff in it, especially Mary, Doris and Jane and of course, In One Of My Weaker Moments. There was talk on here ages ago about a reading of a revised version but haven't heard anything since. Mary, Doris and Jane is magnificent. But don't forget "If It Wasn't for the Side Effects"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2019 0:12:16 GMT
Mary, Doris and Jane is magnificent. But don't forget "If It Wasn't for the Side Effects" I've always thought that Mary, Doris and Jane could be a fantastic drag number! I also love If That Baby Could Talk. In fact i like all the female numbers in the show, it's the men's songs like You'll Never See Palermo Again, that i skip.
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1,936 posts
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Post by wickedgrin on Mar 9, 2019 5:41:15 GMT
We haven't had a big musical flop in the WE for some time though? Shows coming over from Broadway are already proven hits - hence the transfers, and "new" shows are worked on in fringe theatres, or subsidised theatres outside London and either finish there or become successful transfers such as Jamie.
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Post by stuart on Mar 9, 2019 8:00:43 GMT
I can’t believe we’ve gone 14 pages with nobody mentioning perhaps the biggest West End flop in recent memory.
I Can’t Sing - The X Factor Musical
Lasted just 6wks before closure with a reported loss of £4m.
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Post by basi1faw1ty on Mar 9, 2019 12:59:00 GMT
Tim Luscombe's Eurovision at the Vaudeville, November 1993. Lasted for only three weeks. Lost around £275,000.
Sir Lloyd Webber closed it early due to "negative critical appraisal"; someone in the Mail apparently described it as violating every clause of the Geneva Convention.
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Post by duncan on Mar 9, 2019 13:39:47 GMT
Never saw Budgie although I loved the TV series. Seemed very odd at the time that Adam Faith was playing the lead as he was about 20 years older than he was when the series was made. Or did the musical have Budgie as an older man? (edited to add - I see from this - www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_b/budgie.htm - that it was set in the late 60s so I guess not). Maybe Adam should have played Charlie Endell. Love a bit of Budgie, Iain Cuthbertson chews the scenery with a relish no longer seen. Got the DVD box set and rather bizarrely just watched the episode from Series 1 that forms the backbone of the Musical version. Budgie loses the money to poolsharks on TV rather than the bookies and I'm guessing the other part with the different ladies of the night is from another as yet to come episode.
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Post by n1david on Mar 9, 2019 13:45:20 GMT
Tim Luscombe's Eurovision at the Vaudeville, November 1993. Lasted for only three weeks. Lost around £275,000. Sir Lloyd Webber closed it early due to "negative critical appraisal"; someone in the Mail apparently described it as violating every clause of the Geneva Convention. I saw that at the Drill Hall in its original production and loved it - camp, tacky, cheap and funny. But even at that time, knowing next to nothing about the financials of theatre, when I heard about the transfer, I couldn't imagine it playing to a mainstream audience as a mainstream musical.
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4,588 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on Mar 9, 2019 15:26:38 GMT
I'm not sure if I can thank Xanderl for informing me of the youtube link to Witch! Absolutely terrible musical. My head hurts. From Wiki. I wonder what number 1 is /was?
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2,519 posts
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Post by n1david on Mar 9, 2019 15:29:09 GMT
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Mar 9, 2019 15:37:37 GMT
I'm not sure if I can thank Xanderl for informing me of the youtube link to Witch! Absolutely terrible musical. My head hurts. From Wiki. I wonder what number 1 is /was? I presumed, given the timing, they were talking about Bernadette, from a couple of years earlier. [EDIT: Carrie never got to the West End. I think the link is a later attempt to find a source for the quote, it doesn’t appear in the article and Cavendish would know better. I bought a number of programmes about twenty years ago, where they’d included all contemporary reviews they could find in with them. I know I have the Which Witch ones but they are all in a box stored away. The answer might be there. I also have that VHS....] The optimism in the following promo proved to be grossly misplaced.
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396 posts
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Post by djp on Mar 13, 2019 21:59:04 GMT
I can’t believe we’ve gone 14 pages with nobody mentioning perhaps the biggest West End flop in recent memory. I Can’t Sing - The X Factor Musical Lasted just 6wks before closure with a reported loss of £4m. Gave us Cynthia singing, and had a good puppet act.
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396 posts
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Post by djp on Mar 13, 2019 22:20:33 GMT
We haven't had a big musical flop in the WE for some time though? Shows coming over from Broadway are already proven hits - hence the transfers, and "new" shows are worked on in fringe theatres, or subsidised theatres outside London and either finish there or become successful transfers such as Jamie. The bad news is that there's been no, or very few, new domestic replacements- fewer musicals and more American imports, often with the US social issue of the moment, and often with US leads - because the producers know nothing about UK talent. After Spice Girls, X factor, Stephen Ward, and From here to Eternity flopped, Bend it, Mrs Henderson, and Love Never Dies undersold, Shout exploded after i day, Water Babies didn't float, Officer and Gentleman didn't get a London slot, and the experience that was Exposure, people seem to have given up trying. London started charging £125 to tourists for US musicals, the touring theatres booked fewer musicals and filled dates with clairvoyants and aged comedians, Blood Brothers became perpetual, and Joseph made it back from school trips nationwide, to the Palladium. Personally I didn't much like Jamie. Kinky Boots does the same theme far better.
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745 posts
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Post by horton on Mar 13, 2019 22:55:03 GMT
Carrie was ALMOST brilliant.
It still could be one day.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2019 23:11:31 GMT
Carrie was ALMOST brilliant. It still could be one day. Bringing back the original orchestrations would really help towards that.
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Post by crabtree on Mar 13, 2019 23:44:19 GMT
It's a shame that often the quality of a piece is confused with small audiences. Some times people just don't happen to go and see brilliant pieces of theatre for whatever reason and that piece is then labelled a flop. Money seems to dictate the appreciation of quality. It was ever thus. I'm involved with a production at the moment that is having audiences numb with tears, and laughing and gasping at all the right moments, but due to a tiny tiny audience the theatre will consider never putting on good drama again, and just doing 'Whoops there goes my knickers' or second rate Christie
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2019 22:24:55 GMT
Remember a musical called 70 Girls 70 about a group of OAP fur-thieves who are trying to raise funds to buy out their retirement home(yes,really),which I saw at the Oldham Coliseum originally.I believe it transferred to the Vaudeville with Dora Bryan but only ran for a few months.I particularly remember a lovely song from it called ‘Well-Laid Plans’.The director was the wonderful Paul Kerryson.
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745 posts
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Post by horton on Mar 16, 2019 22:36:15 GMT
Emma Finch is a great Kander & Ebb number, as is Coffee in a Cardboard Cup!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2019 23:03:32 GMT
Remember a musical called 70 Girls 70 about a group of OAP fur-thieves who are trying to raise funds to buy out their retirement home(yes,really),which I saw at the Oldham Coliseum originally.I believe it transferred to the Vaudeville with Dora Bryan but only ran for a few months.I particularly remember a lovely song from it called ‘Well-Laid Plans’.The director was the wonderful Paul Kerryson. Was that the same production that had Shezwae Powell in?? If so i remember seeing it, was it really the Vaudeville? My memory is playing tricks, i could have sworn it was the Cambridge!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2019 23:54:36 GMT
Just dug out my programme in the attic which says it was at the Vaudeville in 1991 and yes,did indeed feature Shezwae Powell with James Gavin,Peter Edbrook,Pip Hinton,Joan Savage and Buster Skeggs amongst others.According to the web it only ran for 35 performances on Broadway and one of the performers (David Burns)had a heart attack in the previews in Philadelphia whilst on stage and died soon after.I do remember another of Kerryson’s transfers from the Oldham Coliseum at the Cambridge which was a jukebox musical called Hot Stuff and featured David Dale and Peter Straker and was a real hoot! I was a resident in Oldham and saw some amazing Kerryson projects such as Hello Dolly,Godspell and a very graphic Sweeney Todd all produced on a shoe- string budget.How amazing that a tiny backstreet theatre in a Northern industrial town could deliver West End transfers which myself and others felt proud to follow South to support.
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745 posts
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Post by horton on Mar 17, 2019 1:40:34 GMT
I remembered it being at the Fortune, but the Vaudeville is quite similar. (Both were glorious flea pits).
Dora Bryan was a legend.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2019 7:40:56 GMT
Agreed.Dora Bryan was a real trooper and had fabulous stage presence.Not sure if they ‘make them like that anymore.’
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Post by musicallady on Mar 17, 2019 15:30:14 GMT
Remember a musical called 70 Girls 70 about a group of OAP fur-thieves who are trying to raise funds to buy out their retirement home(yes,really),which I saw at the Oldham Coliseum originally.I believe it transferred to the Vaudeville with Dora Bryan but only ran for a few months.I particularly remember a lovely song from it called ‘Well-Laid Plans’.The director was the wonderful Paul Kerryson. I saw this production when it was on tour at Billingham Forum and loved every minute. Dora Bryan was outstanding. Somewhere I have the cassette cast recording.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 17, 2019 16:53:55 GMT
I loved it too ('70 Girls 70') and saw it several times at the Vaudeville. The Kander and Ebb score was classic and Dora Bryan was terrific. I remember one of my theatrical friends saying the production betrayed its provincial origins but it gave me much pleasure.
After what had happened in the American production, there was always a possibility that one of the ancient performers on stage would not survive the performance but that just added to the fun wondering whether anybody would keel over before the end!
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1,903 posts
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Post by sf on Mar 17, 2019 17:30:48 GMT
Remember a musical called 70 Girls 70 about a group of OAP fur-thieves who are trying to raise funds to buy out their retirement home(yes,really),which I saw at the Oldham Coliseum originally.I believe it transferred to the Vaudeville with Dora Bryan but only ran for a few months.I particularly remember a lovely song from it called ‘Well-Laid Plans’.The director was the wonderful Paul Kerryson.
Directed by Paul Kerryson, but at Chichester rather than the Oldham Coliseum. It played at the Opera House in Manchester, I think between Chichester and the West End, and that's where I saw it. Charming show, and Dora Bryan was terrific in it.
(I'm from Oldham. I was in the sixth form at the time, and I saw everything at the Coliseum. In 1990-91, their musicals - also directed by Paul Kerryson, who was their artistic director at the time - were revivals of Company and Sweeney Todd and Kerryson's 60s and 70s jukebox musicals, Hold Tight it's 60s Night and Hot Stuff.)
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2019 18:38:38 GMT
Dug out my old programme collection the other night and yes you are right 70GIRLS70 was staged in Manchester.Do you remember a show called RAVING BEAUTIES at the Col which had a young Minnie Driver in the cast?Also I am reminded of great productions of PIAF,BREAKING THE CODE and many more.I think Kerryson left to go to one of the Leicester theatres.There is a book about the Col called THEY STARTED HERE apparently which I keep meaning to order as stars like Driver and Ralph Fiennes along with Thora Hird,Kathy Staff and half of the cast of Corrie seemed to get their big break at the theatre.We were well served in Greater Manchester and surrounding areas with the Col,Opera House,the Palace,the Octagon,the Contact and perhaps most strangely the King’s Hall in a funfair/zoo complex called Belle Vue where I saw my first ever Panto as a youngster featuring Stanley Baxter or so I am told.The King’s Hall was also a concert venue and was used for Boxing and Wrestling.There was also a smaller venue in Oldham called the Grange Arts Centre which I remember doing a Drama festival at.
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