Next to Normal - Donmar / Wyndham’s

My email said £45 as well but when I clicked through to check availability it included the £25 seats.

I was also there, and I though it was funny how the swap added extra meaning when Diana asks “And who are you?” the first time she sees the new actress playing Natalie in the second act.

Was also there tonight. First time this kind of thing happened to me during a show, glad Lizzy was there to save the second half!

So I saw this in Donmar last year for the Olivier panel, which meant I was not allowed to talk about it at the time. Suffice it to say that I thought it was excellent, a clear highlight of the year and I voted for it pretty heavily in the panel meetings and then in my Olivier votes itself. I think it a shame that Sunset came out in the same year, I don't disagree that it deserved strong contention for a plethora of awards but I do think the buzz and backing it had eclipsed well.. almost everything else.


There is NOTHING about this in Next To Normal's trigger warnings, not even a hint. Yet the start of act two opens with a pretty significant piece and a couple of songs about this. So when it hits the moment where they go through photo books - my partner was in bits. We have done that, literally done that for an extended period in hospital hearing the *exact* same advice the doc gives Dan in this. Centre of the second row at the Donmar, she was so far from okay, I started to look to see which way we could get out easiest but she wanted to stay and so we did.

Now certainly, these circumstances are thankfully not that common BUT memory loss itself gets a two song focus here so I really really feel like this wasn't given due consideration, it is more than a throwaway moment, it is a key plot point with what certainly appears to me to be research doing into the real thing, so a big markdown to the producers, the Donmar and now Wyndhams for not including this.



A couple of thoughts. Some slight bits are improved in Wyndham's. The lighting and stage space allows Gabe to be more obvious moving around in the boxes upstairs, his silhouette more prominent than I recall.

One thing that really struck me is that I think Jamie Parker has different direction than the rest of the cast. He's the only one that looks and talks out to the audience and up into the circles. No-one else seems to address the audience, all of their lines are to each other and facing each other, lots of eye contact with each other. I noticed it early on and I thought it might be because some of Dan's first lines are fourth wall breaking, he tells us he has no idea what is going on, even while hugging Diana, he is gesturing at and talking to the audience. Gabe talks to, and intense eye contact with several of the front row, during one of his big numbers but other than that, it feels like the direction/focus is not on playing for an audience but on play with the character/cast in front of you except for Dan.

I think Jack Ofrecio has really quite beautifully grown into the role of Henry, particularly towards the end of the second half, he's giving just as much as anyone else on stage and last night he was also dealing with a cast change at the interval! Very impressed by him.

Front row, the stage is slightly high. I could not see sandwiches being made on the floor or the blood spreading. I wonder if this is staged a little differently from the Donmar, there was an audible gasp there but here not so much. Perhaps just the nature of the size of place. I strangely found it slightly more intimate than Donmar, I think the front row and slightly higher stage made it feel like that. With Wolfe clearly picking out people in the front row when running around with the mic, Levy sat on the stage legs dangling down and more than once just standing toes over the edge of the stage.

On Eleanor Worthington-Cox, without I hope straying too much into speculation, in hindsight something had looked wrong during her final scene in the first act and as soon as they made the announcement it made sense. I thought Lizzy Parker smashed it especially for coming on half way through. Audience very receptive at the end and she got a big hug from Cassie Levy.

I still think it is excellent, a superb cast and if I get one of those rebooker emails a few of you have reported, there is every chance I'll make a third visit before it closes.

TodayTix has an offer for this at the moment. I think the prices are the same as the ones sent through by DMT in the recent email. However, if you're a TodayTix Gold member, you should also get the additional 10% off, so might be worth booking through TodayTix in that case (and you can also pay the extra £1 for ticket cancellation).

This happened in the first US Tour when Alice Ripley was replaced by her understudy Pearl Sun for Act Two. Reportedly, audience bemusement at lines about how ECT "changes" people.

My weird taste manifested itself yesterday, when I saw this last night following an afternoon at Mean Girls. I didn’t know much about the show, went primarily because I knew it had been well received on here. I was a bit sceptical about mental health as a topic for a musical, but I shouldn’t have been. What a hell of a show. Caissie Levy was wonderful as the lead, but Jack Wolfe was extraordinary. Only negative was I did feel like act two didn’t quite live up to act one. I got for row G of the stalls, in theory just off to the side of the best seats, but still couldn’t see the stage floor properly. Could see the sandwich making, but didn’t realise there was blood until Jamie Parker was cleaning it up with towels.

And Parker is back on as Natalie on 8 August
x.com/westendcovers/status/1821531786024812822?s=46&t=c8AYn9o3ZHkn-imSWQVGxA

I saw a tweet mentioning a q&a after todays matinée, did someone happen to be present for that ? was anything interesting/fun said ?

Any news about the Broadway transfer?

I'd interpret Caissie Levy's instagram story yesterday as suggesting that one isn't in the works unfortunately.

I wish that they would at least release the songs that they recorded for the promotional videos as a 'highlights' album.

It looks like they're (thankfully) changing tack with the promotional art, it's still on the official website but seems to be changing elsewhere (social media, TodayTix etc).