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Post by Nelly on May 20, 2016 11:16:36 GMT
Disappointed to hear that Rachel is returning, but I'm incredibly happy that Alice Fearn is the new s/b Elphaba. Seems I'll have to continue to book my London trips according to the main Elphaba's vacation schedule. I missed this! Fantastic news. She's marvelous!
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Post by Nelly on May 20, 2016 11:10:51 GMT
Gosh, I get it's the 10th year and all but am I the only one bored by the constant recycling of cast around the world? It's great to see someone you love back on stage in the same role, but it's just so uninspiring.
Anita Dobson though! YAY!
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Post by Nelly on Apr 7, 2016 11:07:45 GMT
Well this is....interesting. Made in Dagenham being revived with an actor-musician production! At the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch between 16th August and 17th September and at the New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich from 21st September to 15th October 2016. Loved the show at The Adelphi. Also do love the New Wolsey as a space. www.westendframe.com/2016/04/everybody-out-made-in-dagenham-to-be.html
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Post by Nelly on Apr 7, 2016 9:51:16 GMT
Booked for this as I'm a big Jesse Eisenberg fan. Back row as that was the most reasonable price wise and didn't mind it when I saw The Maids! Wonder how it'll sell.
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Post by Nelly on Apr 4, 2016 9:11:55 GMT
It says 'rumoured' on that link?
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Post by Nelly on Apr 1, 2016 11:02:17 GMT
I listened to the cast recording on my way to work this morning. Fantastic quality and lovely to have. I've only seen the show once and had both Callum as Lola and Paul as Charlie, have to say that I definitely prefer Callum's voice to Matt in the role. Split on Killian on the cast rec, I've heard him sound better. Lovely to have a London cast recording though, great show!
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Post by Nelly on Mar 10, 2016 10:10:31 GMT
As predicted, Carrie Hope Fletcher will be Truly Scrumptious in the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang tour between 4th May and 2nd October.
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Post by Nelly on Mar 10, 2016 9:53:41 GMT
Mamma Mia.
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Post by Nelly on Mar 10, 2016 9:20:07 GMT
I do not get the hate for Wicked - it has to be directed toward the show's mega success rather than the show itself which is highly original in its score - Stephen Schwartz's best by far - and has one of the best books ever in a musical. In your opinion. The score or book might not be to peoples taste. It doesn't have to be agenda driven!
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Post by Nelly on Mar 9, 2016 17:04:30 GMT
By contrast I didn't enjoy the London legally blonde recording and I don't think all the cast gave their best performances on it I don't actually think it's the cast on that one. The quality of the recording is super shoddy. Volume levels all over the place. Sounds tinny at many points. Really bad. I'm a big,big fan of live recordings. Billy Elliot is my least favourite studio cast recording as for some unknown reason they decided to add loads of extra backing vocals that never were or have been in the show. I could go on but that's for another thread.
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Post by Nelly on Mar 9, 2016 9:48:51 GMT
If/When you're next at the Dominion, look up at the top back, facing away from the stage when standing at the front of the stalls or dress circle and you'll see the front of what used to be the grand circle at the theatre. Now turned into offices and corporate spaces. Very interesting factoid! Do you happen to know roughly what the capacity was when the grand circle was in use? 2,835! There's lots of hidden stairwells all over the theatre (mainly backstage) that aren't in use anymore and when going up to the dress circle, the stairs for the grand circle are still there obviously.
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Post by Nelly on Mar 8, 2016 13:53:55 GMT
Debbie Kurup as Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act. She was phenomenal. I LOVED Patina Miller but sometimes thought she phoned it in.
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Post by Nelly on Mar 7, 2016 10:38:34 GMT
If/When you're next at the Dominion, look up at the top back, facing away from the stage when standing at the front of the stalls or dress circle and you'll see the front of what used to be the grand circle at the theatre. Now turned into offices and corporate spaces.
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Post by Nelly on Mar 4, 2016 16:20:06 GMT
Did I read somewhere that Poppins was going back into London at the end of the tour or have I imagined that? I think it was more people debating/wishing/gossiping that it could go into the Victoria Palace (now Delfont owned) after the refurb. I'd love to see it back in town, I'm seeing it on tour end of next month!
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Post by Nelly on Mar 1, 2016 12:20:46 GMT
Tickets for the final performance on sale today @ 2pm. Proceeds going to a charity in Easington. Details here: t.co/EYn0getRgr
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Post by Nelly on Feb 19, 2016 9:54:40 GMT
If you pre-ordered from Amazon, they'll always charge you the lowest price it's been before release date. I also suspect this topic will be glued to the cast recording topic in a bit! By the looks of things it just means they've now sold out of the copies they had coming in? Have you not had any dispatch confirmation emails?
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Post by Nelly on Feb 18, 2016 12:44:08 GMT
My own opinion was that everything bar the live orchestra was a let down or missed opportunity which means that overall it wasn't an enjoyable night out. It had nothing to do with me being expecting a dramatic musical theatre piece, from a production value point of view, I thought it sucked! This is the point I'm trying to make, it's all the other elements other than the music which I thought let it down as a whole. They've decided to stage it like this so just saying 'It's a music gig' over and over again doesn't change that in it's current incarnation, it's actually more than just that. This review seems to agree with me haha! www.westendframe.com/2016/02/review-war-of-worlds-at-dominion-theatre.html While this one, by a critic of some experience, strongly disagrees with you! theatrecat.com/2016/02/17/war-of-the-worlds-dominion-w1/These things are subjective of course, and we've all got our own views. I just think you've got to try and judge something on it's own terms, for what it is. Comparing this to other West End musicals as if it wasn't a musical performance first and foremost misses the point quite a bit, I'd say. Haha I'm aware I was being facetious! Yes, this is what I love about theatre (and arts) in general is that it can totally split opinions and different people can get different things out of it. Hey, that's exactly why we're all still here on this new board! It is quite amazing how it's split so many critics though!
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Post by Nelly on Feb 18, 2016 12:03:29 GMT
It's a music gig, a live performance of a famous bestselling album (still one of the biggest selling albums ever in the UK), conducted by the original artist live on stage.
Plenty of people regularly pay a similar amount to see their favourite band on stage, with none of the extra drama and performance aspects this has
. . . their failure in my view is them not making clear enough what exactly the show is.
I agree. Here's a similar example. Kate Bush's "Before the Dawn" at Hammersmith Apollo was advertised as a music gig. The added theatrical bells and whistles, with a storyline progressing the songs from one to the next, resulted in music reviewers giving 5 stars across the board. God forbid if that show had played to theatrical critics at the Dominion, who would have evaluated the story as underproduced thin gruel, with a helicopter effect that had been done 30 years earlier to greater effect by Miss Saigon, or whatnot. And Bush didn't even stump up for an onscreen superstar, Liam Neeson either, she stumped up for an onscreen Kevin Doyle, a Downton Abbey butler. Simply put, this is a music gig with the addition of some astonishing theatrical bells and whistles, not a theatrical story with added music. Expectations and familiarity are everything. My own opinion was that everything bar the live orchestra was a let down or missed opportunity which means that overall it wasn't an enjoyable night out. It had nothing to do with me being expecting a dramatic musical theatre piece, from a production value point of view, I thought it sucked! This is the point I'm trying to make, it's all the other elements other than the music which I thought let it down as a whole. They've decided to stage it like this so just saying 'It's a music gig' over and over again doesn't change that in it's current incarnation, it's actually more than just that. This review seems to agree with me haha! www.westendframe.com/2016/02/review-war-of-worlds-at-dominion-theatre.html
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Post by Nelly on Feb 18, 2016 11:10:29 GMT
The show isn't all that different to the arena tour in all honesty - slightly smaller scale, a bit more theatrics and acting on stage. The main difference, I think, is the audience. Being in a theatre means it has attracted lots of people that would have never gone to the Arena tour - people who don't know much about the show but who like shows and musicals.
Anyone going to this expecting a traditional musical and not a music concert with extras are likely to be disappointed...
That makes sense to me. I agree, it is pretty far removed from what an MT fan may expect. See this is my issue with it, I went in knowing pretty much nothing about it apart from familiar with some of the score. I felt the biggest let down was the casting of it. If it's all about the music and tacky effects then why cast people like they have in it? Apart from the Journalist on video, does anyone else need to be a 'name'?? Perhaps I'm more discerning than their target audience who probably couldn't care who was standing in front of them singing as they're happy to be having a night out in a West End theatre? Though saying all that, I thought the production values of the show were pretty shoddy. Granted I went on the first preview, but having read and spoken to others who've been since, things haven't improved that much since. So I'm still failing to see what you're meant to enjoy, if you've paid a ticket to see it and the only good thing about it is the live orchestra when realistically there's lots more to it that they've thrown at it. That's why I don't really buy the argument about it being the wrong audience. If I'm paying a significant amount of money to see something live, I want to see value for my money. On another note, there's already a few offers around for those that didn't want to pay full whack. Here's one below! www.lovetheatre.com/tickets/4579/The-War-Of-The-Worlds?gclid=CjwKEAiA9JW2BRDxtaq2ruDg22oSJACgtTxckQ36cfr2kDKc2tL5sFI4f0bMm8sdygACOyWuaMJEchoCo-zw_wcB
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Post by Nelly on Feb 17, 2016 17:45:38 GMT
Thanks all very intersting. So just to move the subject on a bit further, what about gun shots in a show, is there different levels of gun shots in loudness? Who are responsible for these? How loud is a gun shot? What's the difference in loudness between a real on stage one and one that is done via the soundboard? Maybe here a weird question to ask, but I am a fella over 6ft and petrified of some gun shots, I cover my ears in Les Mis and Phantom as I know these are coming. It really depends on how it's done. There's a few different ways this can be achieved, a gun onstage with a cap (small bit of gunpowder) in, a sound effect or a totally separate off-stage pyro explosion. Until very,very recently, Les Mis' gunshots were all fired from a pyro room above the dress circle, stage right. So that's why the sound was never the same for them. Some would miss-fire and make an odd or dull noise.
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Post by Nelly on Feb 16, 2016 9:49:13 GMT
Siubhan Harrison continues as Sarah Brown, Samantha Spiro is Miss Adelaide, Richard Kind is Nathan Detroit.
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Post by Nelly on Feb 16, 2016 9:39:11 GMT
Oliver Tompsett has been announced as Sky Masterson when it arrives at the Phoenix Theatre next month. Glad he's back in the West End.
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Post by Nelly on Feb 12, 2016 10:33:00 GMT
When is the official opening night? I'm excited to read what the critics think! Hehe
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Post by Nelly on Feb 11, 2016 16:20:28 GMT
Knowing the producer it won't go to comp city. Shame as I want to see this train wreck, sorry spaceship wreck ! They comped for the first preview (the actual first preview, not the one that was cancelled) I forget if I'm allowed to say that or not.
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Post by Nelly on Feb 11, 2016 10:56:06 GMT
Are they selling a theatre or have they just lost the contract? I know they own a lot of venues, but equally a lot of them are just on long-ish term management contracts from the local council. Not sure if it's this case or not, but I remember reading of one theatre where HQ had simply won the new contract over ATG. This is correct. Sadly the decision isn't made based on who's the best and who will put the best quality programming on, it's down to £££ and not much else. So HQ theatres will say they can run a theatre with a certain budget that ATG wouldn't be prepared to go down to as it would lower their brand standards/type of stuff they can put on.
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