Jesus Christ Superstar - Regents Park Open Air / Barbican

I sat in this same seat earlier this week. A bit tight on the bum - slightly narrower than normal stalls seat, but I'm on the stocky side. View wise its nigh on perfect, though the sound balance is slightly out due to speakers which are hung 1m to your right. Small safety bar obscures view but nothing too annoying. Perfect view of crucifixion and all of Judas' best bits plus faces the last supper tableau. Very very good value for money with 20% Barb member discount. Nobody sat to my left; if you get somebody it might be a bit of a squeeze. Bog all legroom and watch the narrow steps on the way down if you're in heels. I wasn't. 😁

Can this show get any better? Saw it tonight, D6 stalls. Stunning and brilliant, though the band seemed a little reined in tonight and I missed some of Tom Deering's piano embellishments, which really must be reinstated asap. This whole cast is on fire, not a weak link, and the diction/amplification issues from previews seem to be sorted. Matt Cardle, already strong, was exceptional this evening.

Was in tonight ... saw it ... heard it ... loved it ... end of ... I need to rebook

I was utterly blown away by this. Second time seeing it already and I don’t think there is a weak link at all. I love the concert vibe and the nods to the film how they all turn up at the start to put it all together and then how they similarly leave Jesus after it all. Was really interesting talking to some of the cast about the idea & changes from the park. How they had the band & mics in rehearsals so they integrated with the music better and how they were attempting to put the concept album on stage first and foremost, a group of players / musicians coming together to do a big gig (again like the film) and then the story just comes out of it naturally via the music. I think that really pays off. Also it was said they spent a lot of time discussing Kayne West and the impact of his Sunday sermons he is doing online (I’ve been checking them out now) and how this story would play out now, what is it that gathers a large group of followers around one musician. Very interesting.

I like in this version too they’ve changed the priests concept too so apparently they wanted to move away from the sinister foreboding panicked version to a cooler ‘we are doing the right thing, Jesus is inciting riots and needs to be stopped for the good of the nation’ so it’s a more cooler power and control than before. Also that if the main company are a bunch of musicians jamming they embody the commercial unmoving boy band, often disconnected from the action on their ‘pedestal’. I can totally see that and I prefer it to the sinister version, makes those scenes much more enjoyable. They were all really strong.

Matt Cardle really surprised me, he’s really good and a great actor, I was so moved by him pleading to help Jesus. Sallay who plays Mary has a really interesting tone, I see how it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I love the indie / jazz slant she gives it. Robert playing Jesus is fantastic and one of my fave Gethsemane’s.

For me however Ricardo Afonso just steals the show. Superhuman vocals, I don’t think I’ve witnessed that compares. I wanted to stand up after Superstar and scream like I was at a rock concert!

The whole thing was just astonishingly good. Having heard those snippets I really want to go the Q&A coming up now.

Oh and I agree high numbered seats are much better to see the action on the large cross.

Stop posting all these good reviews, I cant afford to go, but every post gets me one step closer to getting the credit card out.... cry.

I heard him! You don't hear much bravo these days.

What are the gallery seats like? It looked incredibly high up.

Yeah, I got a nosebleed.... they're high but less so than it seems and well worth the money. I think I'd always come down a level but it's still a bargain in my opinion, plus the sound ROCKS up there! I'll undoubtedly grab a couple more views in the gods, content that I've got a ticket for the (current) last performance in London.

I'm a geek. I'm back in the gallery tomorrow night so will report back. The weird jazz/tremelo effect for "oh so this is JC, I am really quite surprised, you look so small..." sounded awesome in the gods.

I don't think people who haven't seen/heard this version get it until they go along. It is a masterpiece and IMHO definitive.

I agree. I find this show fascinating because it tells a story many people know, but actually it could be about anybody. The way society builds up its heroes, puts them on a pedestal, only to turn on them. The sole dancer on the cross at the beginning doing the vivid physical theatre carries the theme throughout, being the exaggeration of the fervourous movement elsewhere on stage. When sat in AA14 in the dress circle, the cast moved in a wave towards Judas, and consequently me. The facial expressions and mania that seemed to inhabit them was striking, and felt unique. I'm sure only (perhaps) 20 people per show can experience that close-up sensation as it happens very far downstage right. The cast move around like the swirls of birds that seem to fly en masse so fluidly in the sky (if that analogy makes sense). For me, the end always provokes the same question: what was it all for, was it all worth it, and whose turn is it next? The show feels less of a theological representation and more of a societal snapshot. We reap what we sow, all that glisters is not gold, yet we still paint our heroes as demi-gods deserved of their status. Meanwhile, the aspirational glitterati form an orderly queue to try their luck at the fame game and hope that the sweat, tears and blood will not be theirs in future.

It's quite profound for a Lloyd Webber show, in my view.

Serial Shusher is after a ticket.