Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Story - Lyric Theatre

Well this probably means that Hadestown transfer is out the window.

More here and distinguishing this from One Love and an even earlier iteration.  NYTimes Article  I'm not sure what to make of the claim that this is not a jukebox musical, unless they are distinguishing jukebox musical (e.g. Mamma Mia, &Juliet) from a biomusical (Tina, Beautiful, Jersey Boys)

I hope we're not going to be waiting in vain.

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/get-up-stand-up-bob-marley-musical-west-end_52916.html 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

Are there any online rumblings about Lee Hall writing the story of someone who, for many, is an icon? Maybe nobody has noticed...yet. At least the production has the involvement of the Marley family.

Matinees on both Saturday and Sunday, and a slightly earlier evening performance on Sunday night, which I think we are going to see more.

Is anyone watching or going to watch this show. I’ve booked for the 5th of June. So excited. Haven’t seen Arinze Kene in shows does anyone know what he is like? I also wonder if we will have 2 people playing him like how Tina the role is shared.

Pushed back to October, Six extends to August.

Not too sure what to make of this one.

I did manage to get a late Rush ticket, tempted by the promise of front row Stalls. Unfortunately, I arrived at the theatre to find TodayTix had sold the seat several times over (again!) and was moved to side mid-Stalls, amongst a very interesting group of people.

It may have been a blessing in disguise, as there is a pre-show with a DJ/comedian in a booth who interacts with a lot of people at the front of the theatre. I think I must have a different sense of humour, so I am quite happy not to have been chosen to participate. They also take the unusual approach of introducing the cast members by (actor) name at the start.

The show itself is jukebox style, with a largely static set and actors representing Bob Marley at different ages. The songs are integrated well. You can really feel the speaker vibrations. A strong cast. It does feel like a high level overview of a man with a remarkable story. There is a difficult balance to strike between telling the story of a personally flawed individual, a political movement and maintaining a party atmosphere.

As I say, the audience was interesting. Lots of heckling, attempts at singing along, probably a record number of mobile phone beeps. Laughing at moments I just couldn't work out why they were funny (e.g. waving a gun around and threatening to shoot). An aside, one of my theatre hates are gunshots. There are lots in this production, but they are quiet recorded effects and should not cause any distress.

Most of the people around me were associated with the show in some form or another. I saw the producers nearer the front. A lot of people were moving between seats and sharing conversations and some were clearly famous (based on the reaction of other audience members), but I couldn't easily place them. I presume a group near me were relatives of Bob Marley but seeing this in finished form for the first time. Very mixed reactions as this is clearly a personal issue but I think there was general approval.

We had a show stop about an hour in, which people treated like a first interval. As with all the ongoing conversations throughout the show, I heard probably more than I should have done as an audience member which I won't disclose, but the lead role is a demanding one. Once people returned to their seats, we had a real interval a few minutes later (finish time was 10:30pm, which I suspect will become 10:15pm).

I must say, about 30 minutes in I thought I would never see want to see this again. By the end, I decided I would see this again, partly because I just didn't have the best experience to tke it all in (largely due to the unique atmosphere of people surrounding me but I do thank the theatre for still finding me a seat despite the TodayTix mess up), but also because I feel the show improved a lot as it went on. I do think this will be a hit.

It's worth seeing.

Yes, there is a story to it. Like most of this type of musical, there were people there who just wanted the hits and to sing along, but they're performed differently.

My memory isn't good enough for a song list, but all the well-known songs were there (plus a few I didn't immediately recognise, but not many).

Saw this on Sunday - programme says 2 hours 15 minutes, but it's closer to 2 hours 40 minutes based on Sunday. I thought this was OK, but not amazing. The cast did a great job, and we had the alternate Bob (Michael Duke) who did a great job as Bob. The songs were good, No Woman No Cry and One Love being my favourites. The story felt rushed to me, and there were parts of the story that seemed to be skipped over or rushed, as there were several moments where I was left confused by what was happening because the previous scene showed Bob in a completely different light - I'm thinking of the scenes with Bob and Rita/Cindi. I'm not sure I would see it again, but it was OK.

Yes to Rush tickets for this. Picked up end of row B in stalls yesterday, so pretty decent seats available.