Mandela : Young Vic

Urgh today's show cancelled! I'm having no luck with the Young Vic recently. When I came down for Oklahoma it was cancelled too. Annoying as down from Nottingham!

How many shows have they cancelled now?!

I wonder at what point would be cheaper just to cancel the entire run and reschedule it for a later date?

According to an article I was reading apparently 24, roughly half the run so far!

Tonight we watched a concert version of the show. At least two covers on and Mandela was played, I believe, by Akmed Junior Khemalai (who normally plays Walter Sisulu), who was a bit nervous in the beginning but he grew more and more confident. Posi Morakinyo told us at the end that it was Akmed's first night as Mandela. He also said that Michael Luwoye has been going through a lot!

We saw a bit of dancing and a bit of movement, but most of the time the cast were seated and two or three actors were consulting the script every now and then. Some of the cast wore their costumes but most of them wore "Sunday clothes" and I'm not sure if these are the usual costumes they wear during the show.

We were informed about the version we were going to see by an usher a moment before the house lights were  dimmed. We were told that tomorrow the box office will contact us and ask whether we want to go back to the show at another date (unless someone had come specifically for the captioned performance, in which case I believe they will be refunded). I'm leaving the UK on Monday and won't be able to be back but I hope I'll be given the chance to watch the live streaming as I'd like to see the staging.

On the whole I enjoyed the show, and I appreciated the effort of all the performers, given the peculiar circumstances. Certainly the book is not very good but I can't say the score is really memorable either. I would say that I enjoyed more the songs that were sung in an African language--although I could not understand the lyrics (and the captions did not offer a translation).

It seems that 15 or 20 people left during the interval. Also, it seemed strange to me that three of four actors rushed out of the stage after the first bows and did not stay to listen to what Posi Morakinyo had to say.

Was told by the Box office that it will be a full production version from today

Matinee tomorrow for me! Fingers crossed indeed

It was still the concert version of the show tonight with the understudy for Mandela.

Told we’d be contacted on Monday about tickets to an alternative date.

Full production today!

Also I was lucky enough to see an early preview of this as well as a concert version and I really love this production! It wasn’t what I was expecting but I think it was better for it.

I really enjoyed its focus on Mandela’s family and what was happening for them during his time in prison, rather than it being a wider look at Mandela’s political career following his release from prison. It felt like the choice to focus on some of the people at the centre of things and those who were keeping the movement alive during his incarceration and the toll it took on their personal relationships gave the show a heart and a emotional core that really connected with me.

The performances from the cast were really strong and especially in the concert performance the way they blended as an ensemble in the a capella and close harmony moments was 🙌🏾 generally I think the music functions really well to tell the story (also the band are so tight!). I agree that on first listening you might not leave singing the tunes but I thought the way it transitions between languages and styles and fuses both contemporary and traditional South African vibes with a more western musical theatre sound is really cool. Also (again noticed this more on a second watch) the way they use reprises is really clever - particularly to show how Winnie and Nelson’s political agendas diverge over the course of the show.

Production-wise there’s more automation and a much bigger cast than most young vic productions (around 20 or so people I think) and the choreo feels rooted in story and there’s a groundedness and a joy to it that really spoke to me. I dunno but this show just really got me in my feels, I felt suspense and anger and sadness and hope and have since looked up more about what was happening at the time. It’s definitely one I’ll try to see again before it closes - especially now it’s up and running again!

Noooooooooooo. How frustrating for everyone.