School of Rock - Gillian Lynne / UK Tour

Alex is Alternate I think (certainly according to his Twitter Bio).
When I saw the show in Woking there was no cast board or way of finding out seemingly so I had to try and identify from the photos but I saw Alex too!

Cancelled half an hour in tonight due to microphone problems which they couldn't fix.

Why have I never bothered with this before? Its a right old hoot isn’t it? Only at the interval but its not only a great score but it’s really (corny but) funny. The kids are great, the guy playing Dewey (we have Alex Tompkins…awesome) is great and to whack the fantastic Rebecca Locke in the middle of it all doing full out legit Soprano stuff is just legendary. Might have to come again before Saturday.

Edit: can’t come again. Its pretty much sold out! Did this really leave town because it had run its course?

Saw this Tuesday and it really is a great show and wonderfully played loud as a rock show should be.
Will post more later but worth noting this was a slow burn on the bookings. I only picked up my seat a few weeks back and there was choice of around half the stalls seats at the time
On the night it was full and as Danb mentions it's pretty solid booked for the rest of the week.
Next week it's playing Cardiff which is different as they normally program at least short gap between shows playing both sites.

The programme had advert saying the UK amateurs rights were available for 2023 so doesn't look like they will run tour into next year so try to catch this one if you can.

Jake Sharp played Dewey at the hippodrome opening night Tuesday and totally won over the audience.
The man does not have an actor's vanity bone in his body and full on played Dewey the Slob with a capital S . He does have a powerful booming voice to match the powerhouse performance.
The whole cast are great and the show pretty much looked as per the London version.
The children actors really drive the show and had forgotten how much they have to take on and all were top of the game.no cast board and with several similar looking actors in both the adult and children cast it's a bit of a guessing game unless you catch the names at the bows but did catch the name of Daisy Hanna playing bass player Katie and she was superb,
happy to send her self up and always full on in a scene even if on the background. Joseph Shepherd as Zack the rocking guitarist was the only other name I caught but all the children were the Equal of the adults.
Fun night and nice to be in a regional theatre audience where most while they may know the film were seeing and hearing the musical for the first time. You get so many touring regular shows or the musicals from the well known movie doing the rounds that's it's it's been a while since been at the hippodrome and sensed the excitement of a crowd discovering a musical.
Highly recommended, as per London Dewey does say at the finale you can take pictures or video but strangely it seemed less people did with official permission than at a normal show where camera pop up.
Merchandise t-shirts, CDs, teddy, guitar picks, and was doing a steady trade.

Poor ticket sales. Many 2 week stints were cut down to 1.

I went to the second Wednesday showing in Dublin, the place was maybe 1/8th full.

It's happening to all shows, the last proper sold out show I went to was Chicago in early April and I've been to more than half a dozen since. Every other show that I've been to at the Bord Gáis since then I've been moved down from my €20 Upper Circle Seats to €60 Stalls.

It's not a good time to be a producer.

I'm sorry to report that it all ended on a bit of a downer. One of the Paul Mathew's drivers was given a parking ticket...as he slept in his cab. Sheffield Council is pure evil.

Instead of parking on the road, which is permitted, he should have parked directly outside the Lyceum Theatre, where parking is forbidden.

Never do the right thing when officialdom is involved!

Occupational hazard for a Mathew's driver. Some theatres like Cambridge Arts have no proper loading area so they have to park and take the ticket. Mathew's can afford it, I wouldn't worry. 

I understand it was hemorrhaging money from the start of the tour so it would be brave for it to go out again... 

I’d guess that’s just rocking the boat.





I’ll get my coat.