Eugenius - Palladium / The Other Palace / Turbine

Very excited that this is coming back, but was hoping this would finally get its west end debut. The Turbine Theatre seems very small for this, TOP felt like a more suitable size stage.

Previews start in March

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/eugenius-musical-to-return-to-london_58133.html

Will be House/production seats.

Surely this will be more scaled-down at the Turbine than it was at TOP, it's a much smaller space? Seems odd for a show to get smaller rather than grow.

Any rumblings of the cast for this yet? Seems a bit odd that it opens next weekend and nothing has been announced...

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/eugenius-return-cast-2023_58492.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=8mar2023

Two piece band?

Considering they were only auditioning two weeks ago, I have slight concerns about how “ready” this show will be for its first night. 😳

Had tickets for first preview on Friday... Just had a text to say it's postponed and first preview will now be on Sat at 3pm.

This suffers a great deal from the reduction in production value. The stage is small, the set is pretty much non-existent, and the actors moving around what few items there are is just clunky and awkward. The songs are still incredibly catchy. They've tried to address the fact that their female characters have been god awful (Lex is now a woman) but Janie (Janey?) still exists solely to prop up Eugene and has no story or motivation of her own, so it still doesn't do great there. Some of the new staging feels very cheap - using little card board cut outs to tell Tough Man's origin story instead of actors, for example. There were a few tech problems but I think it was their second preview so they can't really be judged for that at this stage, although credit must go to the Hector actor for dealing very well with a show stop and keeping the audience laughing. All in all it's still got the same problems it had before, but the lower budget has added more, too. Shame it never got its West End transfer. It is actually a very catchy show that I rather like.

Curious to know who the understudy was, as I couldn't tell!

Saw this yesterday afternoon and I'd say a few positive changes to TOP production and a few negative.

My main criticism is I'm not convinced it's the best show to make more 'intimate'. I first saw Heather's at the Haymarket and didn't enjoy it. I then saw it at TOP and much, much preferred it there, in the smaller venue.

Eugenius, on the other hand, has a soundtrack that I feel like really needs the volume and buzz from a bigger audience, and perhaps bigger cast.

I did feel like Act 1 was great, and the beginning of act 2 dragged a bit, with some scenes that went on to long without songs or really much happening, so hopefully that can be tightened up a bit.

The cast were all absolutely brilliant, two to call out would be Rhys Taylor as Theo and Elliott Evans as Eugene.

Although the set is obviously much smaller and scaled back to TOP, I actually really liked the staging at the Turbine, and think it was almost better. I just remember a lot of stairs and levels at the other palace, and I think this new setup works better. They use a backwall of multimedia screens and I thought it was so well done, really in-keeping with the comic book theme and could be quite versatile.

Overall I enjoyed the show, but I do think it's lost the buzz it had in its previous incarnation - But bearing in mind I effectively saw the first preview it obviously still has plenty of time to find it's feet, but I just feel with a smaller venue and cast, it's always going to seem a bit less.

I'm sure I will make another trip back during the run to see it again, an up-beat show with a great cast.

Yes for the most part, although I'm not totally sure that the act 2 opening number wasn't new? It wasn't the best sound quality so it may just have felt new because it sounded different, but I don't remember SHL getting that much to do before.