Disney’s Aida - West End 2024 Rumour

Of course for Sheridan…I’d blocked it out 🥴

dan28 Because the show is in Dutch, Do they have have english subs?

I'd love to go and see it, but wouldnt have a clue what they were saying without a translation.

They don't have English subs, but perhaps if you can't understand what they are saying it makes the show a little less bad. Any bad joke, butchered lyric, ruined story line will be hidden a bit more. But I would really save my money for something else.

I hope that is true and that they do the wise thing and scrap the revised production and return to the relatively good Broadway version. It could use some minor tweaks but this new version, as described here, that opened last year sounds like the show is now unrecognizable from the Broadway hit.  

The godawful video they did behind "My Strongest Suit" told us all we needed to know.

I had high hopes for Schele Williams as a director but after MANDELA....I am very, very skeptical. 

Yeah, I saw the Broadway production right at the start and again near the end. I still remember it as one of the most powerful musicals I’ve seen. What exactly was wrong with it?

Hmmm…she’d be fine.

It won Tony Awards!

I saw the Dutch revival, there was some things I really enjoyed like how songs were rearranged (especially The Gods Love Nubia) and Radames being made less of an arsehole but cuts/changes to the book took out most of the jokes and the character development of the two female leads. Plus they cut the first 2 songs so the first 10 minutes or so feel a bit flat.

Having seen this and Mandela it’s clear Schele Williams has a few directing quirks, namely a handful of dancers doing contemporary movement to no music, and one single ensemble member wail/singing when something sad happens. I see what she was going for but it just looked goofy.

Those were my main quibbles too, it took a long time to get going without the upbeat "Fortune favours the brave" at the beginning and I dearly missed the beginning and end with Amneris coming alive to sing "Every story is a love story" and at the end melt back into a statue.

The thing I absolutely did not understand is why they eliminated every reference to Aida being a slave - I understand slavery is a touchy issue in the USA, but there's no way around that Aida was one and in fact that despite being enslaved she was strong, proud and unbowed made her such a compelling figure both for the audience and for Radames who fell hook, line and sinker for her. Instead they seemed hellbent on showcasing her and her mom as some tough-ass warrior princesses - at least in my opinion it was a completely misguided attempt to create stronger female characters in a show that had compelling strong female characters to begin with.

I also wasn't a fan of the new orchestrations - so much of "Aida" is great, just because it's all-out gorgeous power ballads drowning you in sound and the cast was barely given a chance to shine.

Finally, the original version had a minimalistic concept but still put money on display, as in "My Strongest Suit" - this new version just looked cheap throughout.

I dare say the issues were with the nominating committee and their biases, not the show. CONTACT was an interesting dance piece but not in any way a 'musical' and the other nominees were duds.

It may not have been GYPSY, but when a successful show wins best score but gets no nod for top prize in a truly craptastic season? I smell a rat.

History repeated itself in 2014 when Jason Robert Brown's score for BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY won best score but was denied a nomination in another lacklustre season. 

It doesn't add up.