Mean Girls - Savoy

This has popped up on Netflix. I assume it’s new. I just watched it for the first time. 

Vapid. 

Im assuming that the musical version has vastly improved on the film? Has it? Because that was absolutely sh*te. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the queen of low brow but this was just rubbish I kept thinking I’d seen it before, but then realised what I’d actually seen before was Clueless, which was also vapid but better than this. 

I never 'got' Heathers and I absolutely hated Clueless, but I think Mean Girls is literally the funniest movie ever made.

I mean it ain't a great movie, the romantic leads are crap and the story is as ridiculous as it's faux morality, but it has so many great performances and amazing one liners and that is why people love it so much. They are all complete idiots obsessed with the most pathetic superficial bullsh*t, I can't see how anyone would not enjoy seeing them all get their comeuppance.

If you didn't like the movie there is no point seeing the musical. The music is bland and the book is pretty much the film script. It's biggest crime is it loses some of the best one liners from the film because they take the sentiment behind the line and make a 3 minute song out of it, so they even lose all the best jokes. It had some nice sets/projections and the choreography was pretty good, but nothing really that different to anything you'd see elsewhere.

Ouch, yes. I loved it when it came out (it was really "Spielberg light" at the time, sort of Indiana Jones for kids) but it's rather cringeworthy today as well.

danb - Outsiders isn't TERRIBLE, it still makes some good points, but the hamfisted references to Gone with the Wind made me laugh out loud now and some of the story development just boggles the mind. I heard there's a musical adaptation brewing somewhere, so I'd still be interested in seeing it tweaked a little and improved on. 

I don't think movies date, I think we change.

A movie is always a moment in time and they always remain the same in their time periods, but our tastes and critical eyes mature.

I don't think The Outsiders was ever a particularly good movie, but we all watched it as teens and could identify with it and that is why we loved it.

Most commercial movies from the 80's/90's had a very particular style and format. They were extremely commercial and were designed to entertain and make money more than be great films.

Most of the John Hughes teen films still hold up today and would never have been even made in this day and age.

I don't think MG's has aged at all considering the social media influence nightmare some still subscribe to today.

I think most of it's idiotic characters would've been the first in line to book flights to the Fyre festival 2 years x

I think I'd have enjoyed it more if I didn't see it on a weekend matinee surrounded by actual mean girls and their cool moms who all sat on their phones for 2 hours.

The worst audience experience I ever had was for A Doll's House Part 2 on Broadway.

It was FREEZING in the theatre, so obviously that caused coughing fits left, right and centre all night. A woman had an asthma attack and was taken out by her husband and a fair few other people left throughout with very audible objections.

Then just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, some woman starts screaming 'I can't speak, I can't speak' at the top of her lungs while lashing about in her seat gasping for air. 

Now my first thought was 'ummmm why do you need to speak while you're watching a play', but I digress.

Ushers start running into the theatre and the house lights come up. Chris Cooper and Laurie Metcalf are just left standing on stage with bewildered looks on their faces. The ushers are calling out 'is there a doctor in the house'...'is there a doctor in the house'...it was complete bedlam!

So of course the guy next to me was a doctor and out he goes to see what's wrong with her and the ushers help her out of the theatre to meet the doctor in the foyer so the play can continue.

The audience quietens down. The stage lights go out. The house lights go out. The stage lights come on again. The audience gives a round of applause and the actors smile. Chris Cooper repeats the last line of dialogue he'd said before the mayhem began. Laurie Metcalf says a line. The stage goes dark. The play is over.

WOW. WOW...

Both are London productions but here goes:

I experienced something similar at Angels in America (Part 1) just before the end of the first act someone had a fit ... it was so surreal as this was after terrorist attacks; everyone was on edge anyway. The actors were still acting but you could tell they weren't all there as it was like a ripple effect throughout the audience and my friend and I were in the front row wondering what was going on. She was taken out and given medical attention

At the end of the entire play, as we exited to get our coats from the NT cloakroom we heard shots and it was really alarming. Security were telling us not to panic, it was the Lord Mayors Fireworks. Which in my opinion should NOT have gone ahead. My nerves were on edge...Quite a stressful evening mentally. 

Another time I was watching Farinelli and the King and there was onstage seating. A woman fainted. Presumably because of the heat - there were candles. Mark Rylance was mid way during a monologue (there were a few in that show to be fair...!) He froze and said something which may have been a trigger word and the lady was taken offstage. During the interval, there was an empty seat next to me (I was on a date!) and an audience member asked if it was free. Said yes, sure - turned out it was her onstage! She said she felt so woozy but it was so good how Mark dealt with it and how the front of house acted in that moment.

My point? Having been front of house and witnessed incidents like the above; FOH need WAY more credit where it's due.

There isn't a free theatre - everyone is having enough trouble working out where Six might go when it gets kicked out of the Lyric so they can finish their refurb!

The West End doesn't need this and Pretty Woman running at the same time, even less so when Moulin Rouge is added to the mix later in the year.

Apparently not, no.

I see mean girls at the savoy, it will come I recon next autumn 2022 or spring 2023 it will be in the west end :-)