Spies Are Forever - Gillian Lynne

The evening performance has sold very well but the matinee now just 24 hours away and still no discounts AFAIK. Will be very last minute if done at all - maybe it's for the promoter to decide ?

A price reduction now would make it tight to get to the Gillian Lynne in time for the matinee from where I live in Kent so I've decided to give Spies Are Forever a miss.

I've read the plot synopsis on Wiki and it doesn't particularly interest me plus the whole show seems to be on You Tube. I'll start watching it at exactly 2.30 and just travel later for my booked show this evening.

Hope you and everyone else there has a great time !

I assumed it was a concert of Bond themes. Looked at the YouTube… oh dear.

I respectfully disagree with capybara, as I had a great time at the matinee. It did remind me very much of "The Naked Gun" movies in terms of its bright zany comic insincerity, and like the "Police Cops" musical, it packs in and makes fun of all the clichés of its genre, though there were no needed sight gags as the book here was cut to the bone.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This production was all the songs, but the book was hacked to bits, with co-creator Brian Rosenthal (who ceded his main bad guy character from the original to Jak Malone) filling us in on missing bits of the book as narrator. The runtime was 1 hour, 55 minutes, including a twenty minute interval.

I haven't seen the film of this, but it's easy to follow, and it was very funny, with known West End performers joyously and impishly inhabiting most of the leads.

There was a large contingent of diehard fans of the franchise present, anticipating and appreciating, with whoops, cheers and roars, moments from the show that they loved. For them, it was apparent that Joey Richter (playing 2 characters, broadcaster Vanger Borschitt and arms dealer Sergio) was the beloved star of the show, even though I suspect he has given up some of his parts to the West End actors. I would agree with them that Richter is a top comic performer, broadly playing all his characters' attitudes to the scene-chewing comic hilt, wincing performatively as the fearful arms dealer and preening cheesily as the vain broadcaster.

The West End Performers were why I booked, and Dean John-Wilson delivered in spades as the monotonal monosyllabic macho besuited Deadliest Man on Earth (and announcing his stage entrances with the boastful exclamation, "The Deadliest Man"), who burst into passionate song but only when it was about "killing." Staring down the audience with Roger Moore eyebrows getting ever more upright, chest-puffed and Statham-esque with each glare, he was a comic highlight, and his early departure from the storyline was regrettable lol.

Also firing on all comic cylinders was Evelyn Hoskins as a Russian Spy, a Nikita/Villanelle caricature with a backstory more exaggerated than either of those. A comic highlight for her was when she and the lead American spy, Mega, loveably played with a benign, incompetent, Leslie Nielsen style, lack of awareness by Obioma Ugoala, more like his dim dumb Kristoff than his smart aware George Washington, sang a love song, during which Hoskins hilariously did her deadly breathy assassin schtick to little avail on the blank Mega.

Claire M Hall did some wonderfully silly mugging as Mega's ancient Mum, shuffling around hoping for a love-match for her son; Oliver Ormson was archly humorous as Mega's partner; Emily Ooi excelled at brightly making googoo eyes at the ultra-uninterested Mega, and pink-trousered Jak Malone delivered his standout song, "Nazi's are not so bad" with the campness of a full production of "Springtime for Hitler."

I put this squarely up there with "Police Cops the Musical" in the parody musical genre, although without the sight gags due to the eviscerated book. I laughed loudly at all the bullseye comic performances, silly songs, and was buoyed by the raucous enthusiasm of the cheering diehard cult followers of the musical. I had 3 and a half stars of fun, and would likely give it 4 stars with added sight gags and action.