Zorro - Cadogan Hall Concert

There's already been discussion about it on the Travelling to Theatres (and back) by Public Transportnthread. It's jolly inconvenient.

Yesterday they finally announced who would be playing Garcia, Jo Parsons. I'm afraid I've never heard of him.

I wouldn't mind walking usually - I often walk from Kings Cross/Liverpool Street into the West End to save on the tube fare - but I'd really like to go a Sunday matinee at Sadler's Wells which isn't scheduled to end until 5.50pm so getting to Cadogan Hall for 6.30pm is an issue.

I booked this solely because I was absolutely blown away by Ricardo Afonso's Judas - needless to say I was delighted when they announced Robert Tripolino as well.

I went into it blind, having never listened to the cast recording before, and I had such a good time. A great energy at Cadogan Hall, and such a feel-good show. I was sad we missed out on any fencing duels, but Ricardo Afonso's gorgeous "Senor" in the second act more than made up for it. Obviously I have no idea how Ramon is usually played, but I was very entertained by Robert Tripolino's slightly psychopathic take on him, and I was wowed by Lesli Margherita's charisma and energy. And the obvious love she and Emma Williams had for each other in the song they had together was beautiful to watch.

I'm glad I went with this instead of The Pirate Queen, it was such an entertaining evening (even though now I'm sad all over again we never got a cast recording of last year's JCS cast).

Sorry, I failed to get round to coming back to this yesterday evening. I had a Bolshoi Swan Lake livestream to watch!



I got the impression from overhearing comments on the night that most of the audience were there to see various cast members rather than because they'd seen the WE production, which slightly surprised me as I thought there'd be more former fans like myself there.


I'm not sure it's possibly to play Ramon other than somewhat psychopathic! Though I thought Tripolino was a bit more creepy-psychopathic whereas Adam Levy, who played the role in the WE, was a bit more angry-psychopathic. How much of that is down to re-writes & how much down to individual interpretation is difficult to say.

That gets me onto the subject of re-writes. There have been a lot since the WE. The biggest difference is that Diego & Ramon are now brothers, whereas in the WE version Ramon was only Diego's foster brother & therefore had no right to usurp the position of Alcalde. This change came in for the Paris production at the end of 2009, which I went & saw (& leaned the lesson that going to see a different producction of a show you adored a few months later is a bad idea!). Given my knowledge of French is only so-so I'm glad to get confirmation 10 years later that I did correctly understand that re-write! Personally I'm not very keen on it (although it did make the Confession scene funnier with the My Father/My Son mix-ups!) & it came across as pretty unfair that Don Alejandro decided to basically disinherit his older son in favour of his younger son. That relationship change had a lot of knock-on ramifications throughout, right up to the end where Luisa now has to kill Ramon because Diego can't kill his brother. There were no children in the WE production and, as someone who is not generally a fan of children on stage (or off) I did not think their inclusion was a good thing. It was no wonder Diego didn't recognise Luisa when she arrived in Spain given she went from a black-haired, Hispanic-looking little girl to blonde, English-rose Emma Williams! Other significant changes involve some of the songs. There's no song list in the programme so I don't know what the names are but Diego & Luisa's first duet is new (since the WE, I think it may have been in the Paris production), Ramon's short number in Spanish is new, & Diego's 11 o'clock number "Senor" is new (those both since Paris) & replaces a reprise of "Hope" that was at that point. I think some of the incidental music has changed too but would have to listen to the original to confirm.

Therefore while part of me was thrilled to finally get to see one of my favourite shows again, I was also very sad that the show I loved so much & saw 22 times in 2008-9 no longer exists. In the interval I briefly spoke to the producer, who was manning the programme stand, & he said that this is the only version that is licensed now. There were moments during the performances when I had such strong flashbacks to the WE production & missed it so badly. I cried through 5 of the songs, due to the mixture of emotions I was feeling. If I could have one trip in a time machine right now I might well choose to go back to 2009 so I could see the WE production one last time. Perhaps if there was a fully-staged production of this new verion & I could see it a number of times & get used to it then I'd grow to like the changes (although probably not the children!).

It was a pity that there wasn't the room (or, probably, time or budget) for a staging, as a lot is lost from not having the dancing or sword fighting. There were some parts where I think I would have been confused if I hadn't know what was supposed to be happening. I know there's probably no better way around it but having to do the two deaths by the actors just walking offstage doesn't give them much impact. Also Garcia's reference in Act 2 to "the sign of the G" I can't imagine made much sense if you didn't know that in the staged version Act I ends with Zorro slashing the letter Z into Ramon's bare chest.


I'd probably better stop now, as I doubt anyone will even get this far, but at least if I die of coronavirus I got to see Zorro one last time first!