Anything Goes - Barbican / U.K.Tour

Why should he care?
It doesn’t affect The Music Man at all.

Is the tour still happening? I thought it was cancelled when the show was pushed back, I know Southampton was at least

That’s what I thought

This foot injury is totally unexpected 🙄 Joe Public will book on the back of Wilmott and Lindsey, and possibly Kendall. MT board members more interested in the person doing the heavy lifting. The production got the initial burst of publicity it needed and now it can exist without the negative publicity of the inevitable missed shows.

Legroom in stalls is TIGHT. Especially the middle section which is where premium seats are!

I’d advise dress circle / upwards.

Oh that's a wee bit of a shame as I've always liked her but I booked to see a show not a person.

However BOOM as I'm very looking forward to seeing the shows star.

I don’t think she had an alternate in New York

Judi Dench's achilles injury was very real. My sister worked on the show and was in the room and heard the pop followed by the scream when Dench's Achilles tendon ruptured. It was during rehearsals (I think about three weeks into a six week rehearsal period) for the Gumbie cat number, as at the time she was playing both Jennyanydots and Grizabella. Dench was taken to hospital where she had an op and her ankle was put in a cast. It was decided to delay the opening by a fortnight (a rare occurrence in those days) and to split the role - with Myra Sands, who was understudying, taking the dancing role of Jennyanydots and Dench just playing Grizabella. By the time Dench returned, they were in the New London, and she rehearsed the part whilst wearing a surgical boot and using crutches. A couple of days in whilst hobbling across one of the moving platform walkways - her crutches went one way, she went the other and landed up in the stalls seats. She was told that she had to have complete rest - so there were some frantic phone calls and the hurried press announcement that Elaine Paige would take over. She arrived during the very late rehearsal stages and after about 10 previews, which was the norm in those days, the show opened. I remember being told how frantic it all was - on top of the fact they were rehearsing a show about singing and dancing cats with lyrics by a dead American poet!

As fas as Memory goes, there was a melody and a title long before rehearsals began, in fact in a rather bizarre move there had been an instrumental version released as a single earlier in the year. However the lyrics came much later - and, if I recall correctly, only the four lines at the end of act one were completed whilst Dench was still part of the show. It had been intended to be a more brechtian earthy/shouty number, but Paige's arrival meant that it gained that musical theatre pure belt ending. I know that during the last few rehearsals and for most of the previews whilst most of the rest of the show was fixed there were different lyrics to Memory every day - sometimes only put in a couple of hours before the performance. Elaine Paige's vocal version of Memory was rush released a month after the show opened.

Sorry to hijack the thread - and now back to Anything Goes.

There is no chance they will bring Megan back for a week only. From Baz's article it sounds as if she needs surgery so won't be dancing any time soon.

I want to book a ticket but specifically for Sutton tbh, do we think it’s likely she’ll be performing on Friday’s?

Behave yourself Mr B 😆