The Band/Greatest Days - Tour/Theatre Royal Haymarket/Tour

Just seen a giant advertising board for this being driven around Manchester Ring road. Things must be getting desperate

You don't half get about shady23 are you a truck driver or something?

Newcastle to Manchester, £3.50 on the Megabus.

The glamorous life of a theatre fan

Well.

Yep

Crowd largely dreadful and it's sort of ruining it for me

The whole thing seems a bit under rehearsed and there seems to be a lot of problem moving it/crew coming on to shift things and open doors quickly

There are some nice narrative elements and i was genuinely moved at one point (avoiding spoilers) ome funny moments (there may be more if I could hear over the audience).

The young girls on the whole are really good.

Some interval notes.

First act was just over an hour.

I'm going to start smashing people's phones up. So much photo taking throughout the performance. Unbelievably rude. You are not at a concert!

Some bits good.
Some bits not so good but so there is lots of potential here.
Will post full thoughts at the end.

Lots of scenery glitches. It's a glitch-y set that keeps being moved about. Not sure why it needs to be moved around quite so much.

Take That are here. FAINT!

Yes often the links to songs are flimsy at best but the emotional one you mentioned was glorious and sung beautifully.

They sound a great idea.

Ah you are eagle eyed. I'd not noticed that until now. That's pretty clever. Well done design team.

Well. This was my first ever proper 'opening night'. I've been to press nights and first nights of runs...but never proper premiere open nights. I was sceptical about it and honestly thought the whole thing was going to be dire. I don't know why; I love Take That, I love reality telly and I LOVE musicals so the whole process should've worked for me but I was left feeling a bit MEH in the run up to it all.

My negativity going in probably did impact on the first half for me. That and the awful 'audience' who thought they were at a Take That concert (standing up MID show, waving camera phone lights, singing, shouting, waving). I'm all for a bit of clapping along but it really did put a dampener on the whole thing for me because other than that, I actually thought the whole thing was a joy.

Sure there are a lot of improvements to make but it was the first night and there's a lot of potential. I've never seen a set quite like it, it seems to transform but stay exactly the same at the same time...I really liked it. The projections and some cool tricks really made it. However, this was obviously a problem for them and the moving of the set failed numerous times resulting in crew running on and a delay or two. But I'm sure this can be ironed out.

I really did like the story, the play on the past and present and the numerous Take That references for the fans (of which there were a plenty). I don't want to give away any spoilers but there are some really really moving moments and some really funny ones too.

Music - we know the music, it's nothing new. There's a few different arrangements of TT number as expected but other than that just standard. They didn't really fit the narrative and the link between the song and the book were very dodgy at times but nevertheless, the songs just seemed to 'work'. I admit to having a little cry during 'Back For Good'. Very lovely moments there.

Both sets of leads worked together really well together and there is some real talent in the younger set of girls. I also really liked 'Every Dave' which added some humour throughout.

Not sure what else to add without giving spoilers but it is a really really nice show with great potential. I'd probably like to go and see it again when I can hear the dialogue properly though.

Also, I would've liked a souvenir brochure and am quite surprised there wasn't one considering the TT fans seem to buy anything.