494 posts
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Post by ellie1981 on Jan 3, 2018 21:10:51 GMT
The show that didn't live up to the hype for me was Dreamgirls. Apart from 3 or 4 decent songs the rest of the music was unmemorable and just a lot of flashing lights with ear bursting noise coming from the speakers. Amber Riley.... mehhhhh. .... I was actually prepared for that with Dreamgirls because I loathed the movie. The stage show exceeded my expectations because despite the fact that a few of the really weak songs remained, there were other aspects that were done so much better (e.g. everything involving the Jimmy character). |
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2,389 posts
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Post by peggs on Jan 3, 2018 21:18:12 GMT
I tend to feel happier going to something that has mixed reviews especially on here as i'm expecting less, quite often when everyone has raved over something it just can't live up to it all. I was worried harry potter wouldn't live up to it's hype and it did but I had deliberately avoided hearing anything much about it. I wasn't wowed by The Glass Menagerie having gone after mass praise on her but I think I probably picked the wrong seat, the floor of the production certainly was not as amazing as i'd imagined. It's a while back but was disappointed by the Barbican last Hamlet. If that was Cumberbatch, I think plenty of people were disappointed by it. Also Glenda's Lear. That's the one. Yes I suppose I meant more the build up hype rather than reviews though I did work with someone at the time who would not stop going on about how marvellous it was or rather BC was as she said everyone else was bad (I rather thought this due to her determination to think him brilliant having seen him on tv). |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 21:27:45 GMT
I wouldn't exactly say 42nd Street didn't live up to the hype, because I saw it early in previews before there was much hype, but I came out of it thinking "Great production of a so-so show" & then found almost everyone but me raving about it on the board. It makes me feel guilty for not loving it like may people do but, having revisited twice, I still feel it lacks the depth of characters for me to really love it. I went back again too, having seen it earlier in the run, thinking it may have improved but it hadn’t changed. Plus part of the set fell off. I was at least glad that one of the most irritating performers fell over when he bounded onstage at the start of a number and had to be replaced. Small mercies and all that... |
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4,153 posts
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Post by kathryn on Jan 3, 2018 22:14:41 GMT
If that was Cumberbatch, I think plenty of people were disappointed by it. Also Glenda's Lear. That's the one. Yes I suppose I meant more the build up hype rather than reviews though I did work with someone at the time who would not stop going on about how marvellous it was or rather BC was as she said everyone else was bad (I rather thought this due to her determination to think him brilliant having seen him on tv). I did think he was the best thing about it, to be fair, but he’s certainly not a natural Shakespearean, so I wouldn’t call it high praise. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 22:19:10 GMT
Love how we are all so different in what surprised and disspaointed us - I am personally in the camp that was so very underwhelmed by Follies and incredibly overwhelmed by 42nd St and Young Frankenstein. Follies for me was more about the disappointing score, book and story - I felt like compared with, say, WSS, it certainly isn’t his best work. Young Frankenstein isnt high art - but it doesn’t claim to be. It’s fun, saucy and really well executed. Loved it because it didn’t proport itself to be anything more than it was and everyone had a lot of fun, audience and cast. I wonder if Follies is dated and if it had more impact when it was first produced because the histories it depicts weren't as far away as they are no, so that some of us have no reference points to them. That said, I absolutely loved it. I sat entranced all the way through. I don't usually watch musicals and only saw Follies because it was at the National. I suspect that those of you who see a lot of musicals were more disappointed than people like me. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 22:23:21 GMT
For me it's plays that I have found overrated. I have seen them because they have really great reviews but I just don't like them and this has happened with The Flick,The Glass Menagerie and Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. I just found all of these really boring and did not get why they were so rated and Virginia Woolf just felt it very dated and stale. Also recently I thought Girl from the North Country was a bit bland as well as the story was just not great and it didn't really go anywhere and I didn't really like the portable of dementia , yes the music wasn't great but I like a show with a good story and I did want to love it but just did not. All these shows I wanted to like but just didn't . The Flick! I felt exactly the same. And the worst thing was that the very things I didn't like - the extremely long pauses, for example - were the very things that supposedly made it innovative theatre and which everybody else loved. |
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1,936 posts
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Post by wickedgrin on Jan 3, 2018 22:23:52 GMT
Theatre hype is nothing compared to the hype films get. Films have a HUGE marketing budget and barely a week goes by without the stars on all the chat shows plugging their latest release. Lots of positive press articles pandering to the advertising power of the studios. All geared to make you feel that you live in a cave if you have not seen this weeks release. Rarely does a film match the hype.
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2,389 posts
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Post by peggs on Jan 3, 2018 22:28:12 GMT
Theatre hype is nothing compared to the hype films get. Films have a HUGE marketing budget and barely a week goes by without the stars on all the chat shows plugging their latest release. Lots of positive press articles pandering to the advertising power of the studios. All geared to make you feel that you live in a cave if you have not seen this weeks release. Rarely does a film match the hype. True, I finally watched the Revenant the other night, couldn't see what the fuss was over. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2018 22:31:55 GMT
For me An Octoroon didn’t live up to the hype and neither did Grimly Handsome. I wondered if the fact that both shows were big hits before they got to London skewed opinions about them. Both shows also made me wonder if Theatre audiences are so deprived of “spectacle” that when they get it it blows their minds. And I wondered (in the case of Grimly Handsome) if when people don’t understand something they think must be clever they say how wonderful it is because they don’t want to look stupid. In the case of An Octoroon the lead actor was amazing and did indeed exceed the hype. I quite enjoyed both shows but overall they did not live up to the hype for me. The shows that for me were were lovely discoveries were Jam at the Finborough and Assata Taught Me at The Gate. I love to see the work of first time writers. Even though it is often flawed it can have an emotional intensity and rawness before the writer develops more “sophisticated” techniques. I think they both got OK reviews which were fair, I suppose. For me Ferryman was a bit like being a middle aged woman who is completely bowled over by a man a third her age who professes to be in love with her. I saw it twice. The first time I thought it lived up to the hype. The second time I was immune to its attempts to charm me with its theatrical tricks and realised I had been somewhat hoodwinked the first time. What was difficult about Grimly Handsome? Three scenes, one with men preying on a young woman, one about detectives and their immediate circle on what appeared to be the same case and a coda of animals, making the analogy clear as to the nature of the previous. If anything I was disappointed it was so clear, I’d been led to believe it was going to be ‘Lynchian’, someone whose surrealist and dream imagery is far more of a challenge. It was fine for what it was, I suppose. I didn't find it difficult at all and - like you - was expecting something more challenging |
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5,138 posts
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Post by TallPaul on Jan 4, 2018 13:52:42 GMT
Bette?! Where did you see her? I am a big BM fan. How did I miss this?! Hello, Dolly! Why are you calling Cleopatra Dolly? My two biggest disappointments of 2017 were An American in Paris, with all those 5* reviews, and the tour of Rent. Sorry, @emicardiff! |
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1,089 posts
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 4, 2018 15:10:28 GMT
I wouldn't exactly say 42nd Street didn't live up to the hype, because I saw it early in previews before there was much hype, but I came out of it thinking "Great production of a so-so show" & then found almost everyone but me raving about it on the board. It makes me feel guilty for not loving it like may people do but, having revisited twice, I still feel it lacks the depth of characters for me to really love it. I went back again too, having seen it earlier in the run, thinking it may have improved but it hadn’t changed. Plus part of the set fell off. I was at least glad that one of the most irritating performers fell over when he bounded onstage at the start of a number and had to be replaced. Small mercies and all that... I can't speak for the rest of the members who have fallen in love with '42nd Street', but for me personally it brings to life in a thrilling way a batch of vibrant American songs from the 1930s that I have known and loved for almost my entire life of eighty years. The orchestrations are superb, the playing of the orchestra exciting and the singing and dancing sublime. I have also been a fan of musical theatre for seventy of those eighty years, starting with 'Annie Get Your Gun' in Sydney in 1947 and for me the clue in the name is 'musical'. In '42nd Street' there is enough of a story to form a framework for all the brilliant songs and the amount of joy and pleasure I get out of each viewing of this splendid production more than justifies my devotion to the show. I appreciate that everybody has a different expectation of what they go to see at a theatre but for me '42nd Street' is the complete embodiment of everything I love in a musical and ticks all the boxes, rings all the bells and gets six stars out of five! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2018 15:29:50 GMT
I went back again too, having seen it earlier in the run, thinking it may have improved but it hadn’t changed. Plus part of the set fell off. I was at least glad that one of the most irritating performers fell over when he bounded onstage at the start of a number and had to be replaced. Small mercies and all that... I can't speak for the rest of the members who have fallen in love with '42nd Street', but for me personally it brings to life in a thrilling way a batch of vibrant American songs from the 1930s that I have known and loved for almost my entire life of eighty years. The orchestrations are superb, the playing of the orchestra exciting and the singing and dancing sublime. I have also been a fan of musical theatre for seventy of those eighty years, starting with 'Annie Get Your Gun' in Sydney in 1947 and for me the clue in the name is 'musical'. In '42nd Street' there is enough of a story to form a framework for all the brilliant songs and the amount of joy and pleasure I get out of each viewing of this splendid production more than justifies my devotion to the show. I appreciate that everybody has a different expectation of what they go to see at a theatre but for me '42nd Street' is the complete embodiment of everything I love in a musical and ticks all the boxes, rings all the bells and gets six stars out of five! As a musical I agree, but it’s the production that I dislike and it’s the one thing you don’t mention that overrides everything else, for me, which is the acting. Watch the original film and you have the actors invested in the material and the performance style is organic. Brisk, light, no nonsense. The acting here wants that effect but the performers don’t live the style and act as if commenting on how old fashioned the style is. As such there is no truth in the performances and it appears as parody, all surface. It doesn't have to be and, as I recall, wasn’t the case in its initial production. You would be shocked if a play from the same era was treated the same and, as far as I'm concerned, a musical shouldn’t be any different. A show like Follies, however, gets the acting absolutely right. |
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 4, 2018 15:52:55 GMT
A show like Follies, however, gets the acting absolutely right. Cardinal Pirelli, you and I have already exchanged similar opinions on '42nd Street' elsewhere and I hear what you are saying and accept your view. I cannot however agree with what you have just said about 'Follies' if you are talking about the current production at the NT. At the preview that I saw, I thought that the large space of the Olivier stage encouraged some of the performers to over-perform their numbers, presumably as encouraged by the director, Dominic Cooke. This is a musical and those numbers are songs and should therefore be sung. Listen to Barbara Cook and Julia Mackenzie singing 'Losing my mind', Eartha Kitt singing 'I'm still here' and so on. Honestly, I thought Imelda Staunton as Sally was auditioning for Lady Macbeth in 'Losing my mind'. The same was true of some of the other songs like Janie Dee's 'Could I leave you' and Di Botcher’s ‘Broadway Baby’. For me, the perfect realisation of 'Follies' was the semi-staged one-off gala at the Palladium on 5 February 2007. The cast was led by Liz Robertson, Maria Friedman, Tim Flavin and Philip Quast as the two central couples and we had Imelda Staunton singing ‘Broadway Baby’ and Kim Criswell singing ‘I’m still here’ – and it was all superb. Perhaps I should add that I saw the original London production and also the recent Albert Hall performance and I am familiar with the original Broadway cast album and the famous New York concert. Maybe I have misunderstood and you are talking about the acting of the characters in the dialogue sections outside of the songs, but I am not sure one can separate the two in 'Follies'. Anyway, perhaps we should just agree to disagree and enjoy or not enjoy the various productions of the musicals that we see! |
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 4, 2018 16:53:27 GMT
I have also been a fan of musical theatre for seventy of those eighty years, starting with 'Annie Get Your Gun' in Sydney in 1947 and for me the clue in the name is 'musical'. In '42nd Street' there is enough of a story to form a framework for all the brilliant songs and the amount of joy and pleasure I get out of each viewing of this splendid production more than justifies my devotion to the show. I appreciate that everybody has a different expectation of what they go to see at a theatre but for me '42nd Street' is the complete embodiment of everything I love in a musical and ticks all the boxes, rings all the bells and gets six stars out of five! That's why, as I said, I feel guilty that 42nd Street doesn't quite do it for me like it does for others. Unlike @cardinalpirelli it's not this production I have a problem with, it's the piece itself. I want fewer big-but-irrelevant production numbers from Pretty Lady & more songs, or dialogue scenes, that give depth to the characters & make me care about them. The only time it seems that a song is actually going to do this, when Dorothy Brock kicks out Pat Denning & starts singing I Only Have Eyes For You, it then segues into it being yet another Pretty Lady production number so did she even mean what she was singing or was she just practicing for the show? |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2018 17:28:26 GMT
A show like Follies, however, gets the acting absolutely right. Cardinal Pirelli, you and I have already exchanged similar opinions on '42nd Street' elsewhere and I hear what you are saying and accept your view. I cannot however agree with what you have just said about 'Follies' if you are talking about the current production at the NT. At the preview that I saw, I thought that the large space of the Olivier stage encouraged some of the performers to over-perform their numbers, presumably as encouraged by the director, Dominic Cooke. This is a musical and those numbers are songs and should therefore be sung. Listen to Barbara Cook and Julia Mackenzie singing 'Losing my mind', Eartha Kitt singing 'I'm still here' and so on. Honestly, I thought Imelda Staunton as Sally was auditioning for Lady Macbeth in 'Losing my mind'. The same was true of some of the other songs like Janie Dee's 'Could I leave you' and Di Botcher’s ‘Broadway Baby’. For me, the perfect realisation of 'Follies' was the semi-staged one-off gala at the Palladium on 5 February 2007. The cast was led by Liz Robertson, Maria Friedman, Tim Flavin and Philip Quast as the two central couples and we had Imelda Staunton singing ‘Broadway Baby’ and Kim Criswell singing ‘I’m still here’ – and it was all superb. Perhaps I should add that I saw the original London production and also the recent Albert Hall performance and I am familiar with the original Broadway cast album and the famous New York concert. Maybe I have misunderstood and you are talking about the acting of the characters in the dialogue sections outside of the songs, but I am not sure one can separate the two in 'Follies'. Anyway, perhaps we should just agree to disagree and enjoy or not enjoy the various productions of the musicals that we see! It’s tha acting of the dialogue in 42nd Street which is all surface on the whole but the songs, when expressing character don’t feel characterised, just sung in an forthright manner. I think your Follies and my Follies are two different shows. A concert to me is not Follies, it’s songs nicely sung with no drama. Give me an actor for a Sondheim show anyday, it’s the character, the emotion, the mood that counts not perfect singing. I should also say that I’ve taught both acting and singing in my time and I’ve always seen the skills as transferable. As such the songs were performed the best I’ve seen, such as Losing My Mind and Could I Leave You, they landed more as pieces of Drama within the show when treated as sung monologues. The main performer I responsed to the least was Quast, although that may be as much to do with the character and my issues with him. |
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 4, 2018 23:47:17 GMT
I think your Follies and my Follies are two different shows. A concert to me is not Follies, it’s songs nicely sung with no drama. Give me an actor for a Sondheim show anyday, it’s the character, the emotion, the mood that counts not perfect singing. I should also say that I’ve taught both acting and singing in my time and I’ve always seen the skills as transferable. As such the songs were performed the best I’ve seen, such as Losing My Mind and Could I Leave You, they landed more as pieces of Drama within the show when treated as sung monologues. The main performer I responsed to the least was Quast, although that may be as much to do with the character and my issues with him. Yes, I can see that we definitely have to agree to disagree. For me, Barbara Cook's performance of 'Losing my mind', even in concert, still has genuine dramatic depth and for me is preferable to the exaggerated and over-dramatic version I heard Imelda Staunton give at the preview I attended. To me, that was way over the top and made me want to tell her: 'Calm down, dear, it's only a musical!' Yes, I know I am being flippant but that's how I actually felt whereas I was totally involved and moved by everything in the whole show at that Palladium performance in 2007, which was in fact effectively fully staged and dramatised and nothing like a concert. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2018 9:06:57 GMT
I do not think Hamilton is the greatest thing ever, But its deserving of the Pulitzer I much preferred Fun Home. But geez What LMM did was a work of art. And not easy to do.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2018 9:35:10 GMT
I found 42nd Street surprisingly good. I thought it would be like Cats, all dancing and jumping around without a story to it. While admittedly, 42nd Street does not have a very elaborate plot, I was pleasantly surprised that it was interesting enough for me to really enjoy the show and not get bored (which did happen at Cats).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2018 15:42:29 GMT
For me An Octoroon didn’t live up to the hype and neither did Grimly Handsome. I saw both but where was the hype? |
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2,370 posts
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Post by theatreian on Jan 5, 2018 15:58:17 GMT
Follies for me to was a disappointment. It was a good enough production but for me did not live up to the praise given it .
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