& Juliet - Opera House MCR / Shaftesbury / U.K.Tour

It's a shame because the show is really good!

I've always found him utterly ghastly. And yes, the narcissism shines through.

Christ on a Bike…

Disappointing. The original cast didn’t rely on ‘tv’ names to be a success - why now?

It’s a genuinely fab jukebox - saw it from workshops to West End.

I’m booked for the tour so will keep an open mind.

They’re not even the right age! 😂 I loves me a bit of targeted or even risky stunt casting, but he’s at least five years too young and totally lacking the smooth, Gomez Adams-esque charisma needed for this role. Thankfully Lance isn’t a massive part of this for me, and only really needs to have chemistry with the nurse character.

Pretty much - but they do need a whole lotta charm and charisma to pull off some of the jokes and "emotional" (??) storybeats (or, rather the character arcs related to Francois)

When David Bedella deadpanned in a ridiculous French accent “I thought we weren’t doing zee accents”  I LOL’d. I doubt that Dr Singh will have the same effect.  

I thought the joke was one of the others say they’re not doing accents and he says “ve AREN’T??!!”

But anyway, that is a really good point. It needs a good comedian in the role. Dennis Lawson in Anything Goes was a massive step down from Robert Lindsay.

The audience needs to be laughing at an actor delivering the lines in character. People will just be laughing (or not as the case may be) at Dr Ranj delivering the lines.

The more I think about it, the more ghastly it seems. I adored the original casts in Mcr and London. No gimmicks or cheap casting needed.

I assume he will just camp up his lines for an easy cheap laugh, that's all he has done before

They already have Matt Cardle as a bit of a name, he is certainly someone you can wheel out for tv interviews. Plus all the famous songs. It seems, unnecessary.

I can't put my finger on why, but there's something about Dr Ranj that I've always found a bit creepy. Hopefully his understudy is on when I see it.

Once again the horrific state of touring conditions in the UK put off so many performers these days who would rather take a short TV gig and get paid for a small role as much as they do in 3 months on the road.

Dr Ranj's instagram says he's doing the tour July - October, other social media makes it sound like he's doing all the tour 🤔. Maybe they will take on board what has been said when they cast Lance after October.

I don't have an issue with stunt casting and I do like Dr Ranj but I'm totally baffled by this decision.

I’m sure they’re working on someone just as bad, or worse, for the other dates