1,345 posts
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Post by tmesis on Apr 28, 2019 11:55:24 GMT
I so wanted to love this but in the end I found it a distinctly average affair. I've been playing the songs of Fats Waller on piano for most of my life and have a great affection for them. Since this is more or less a revue presentation of a large number of his songs the emphasis was very much on the performance of the numbers with little character to hide behind. The cast of five were all terrifically appealing and had great energy but none had quite the right type of voice, or vocal class to sell the songs properly. The three women were better than the two men - at least they had a bit of sass about them but a lot of the funny lines missed their mark; this was not helped by the poor sound balance, a recurring feature at Southwark. Let's hope when they move they sort this out.
The production looked very handsome and fitted the space brilliantly. The band were particularly mediocre. Flabby rhythms, no feel for the syncopations, a particularly insensitive pianist who played everything on one monotonous level. Waller's music is not particularly subtle but deserves better than this and again the poor sound balance let down the brass and reeds players rendering them virtually inaudible most of the time.
Having said all that you may love it. The audience went wild at the end.
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4,779 posts
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Post by Mark on May 7, 2019 16:39:36 GMT
Enjoyed this for what it was. A good selection of numbers with some standouts.
If there’s three reasons to go and see this though: Landi Oshinowo, Renee Lamb & Carly Mercedes Dyer. They were all fabulous. Particularly loved seeing Landi having seen her in a fair few musicals before - always great.
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Post by missthelma on May 7, 2019 17:44:21 GMT
Let's start with the good shall we? The set, minimal though it is, looks great, the five performers give their all, nailing number after number with strong powerful voices and clean dance moves. The women come off slightly better than the men I thought but possibly as they had more numbers, or so it seemed to me. The songs are just fabulous, funny, charming, heartbreaking in turn. The musicians in the band play well but without any particular flair, reading the bio's in the somewhat pitiful programme, seems to indicate a couple are quite young so maybe they need time to settle or feel able to improvise and let loose. I would think it's almost impossible to not have a good time at this show, the audience I saw it with certainly went slightly doo-lally at the end.
The bad? Well to call this a musical is an insult to most musicals, at best it is a revue, there is no attempt to have a through story or develop characters and often songs that could go together or after one another are split to different parts of the show. I don't remember the male performers being given names but the three women are called by their own names, which again seems to take it out of the world of musical and into a concert. Even most modern jukebox shows try for a semblance of a story to hang the songs on. The other issue I had was I felt that the show slipped into very tired stereotypes, especially of black women, at times. Even allowing for the fact that the songs were written mostly in the 1920's and 30's and the show was created in the 1970's, I really feel we should have moved on from 'sassy' and 'no count'tropes. Maybe just me, the predominantly white audience ate it up. I just felt a little uncomfortable, not all the way through, just at random moments.
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3,304 posts
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Post by david on May 14, 2019 16:48:29 GMT
Caught today’s matinee. Unfortunately due to cast illness we had a shortened production this afternoon (though we did get free programmes as way of compensation). Despite the reduced production, what I saw was a top class revue with the remaining cast giving great performances. Though it was the ladies, particularly in Act 2 that really stood out. The set really was as great as the pictures posted earlier.
For a tuesday matinee I think the auditorium was around 80% full and really enjoyed the production ( except a lady sat by me who couldn’t stay off her phone during the 100min show and was apparently bored senseless as she told her friend during the interval).
It’s just a shame we couldn’t of got the full production, but great work by the remaining cast and production crew to get the show on and for making it a nice
afternoon’s entertainment.
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3,325 posts
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Post by Dr Tom on May 21, 2019 22:43:05 GMT
I saw this yesterday and it was enjoyable, with a lot of talent on show. The skills of the pianist are well worth watching too. It's quite a skill to play stride piano like that.
As others have said, there's no plot, just lots of songs with different combinations of the cast of five performing. Everything is varied. The only thing I could have done without is the surprise gunshot (I must have missed the warning).
I wouldn't go again, as it's not quite enough my style of music, but I can't fault this for what it was.
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