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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 7, 2019 22:33:12 GMT
Only 50 in the queue now!!!
Edited to add that I have not booked, £127.50 or £97.50 too rich for me for decent stalls or dress circle seats.
Far more availability for the JOJ performances. AB performances very heavily sold! I would say if you want to go you do need to book ahead for this.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 7, 2019 13:40:19 GMT
18475 in the queue! I have a life to be getting on with......like posting on here!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 7, 2019 12:25:15 GMT
Isn't technology wonderful! One day someone will turn off the internet and we will all be f*****!
If I go I will book for JOJ anyway - so I don't anticipate it selling out that quick!!
Edited to add that I have just tried the Delfont Mack website which is working now but I was 4813 in the queue!!! I haven't booked!!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 7, 2019 11:47:19 GMT
Mmmm….JOJ has certainly got the "alternate" shows - Monday and Thursday evening and Wednesday matinees! I am surprised he is doing it! It has to be the money.
Strange really in that as @emicardiff says in an earlier post Cam Mack was the first producer to fight against paying stars big money to star in musicals and making the show the star thereby reducing the cost of the cast payroll. He is currently doing this in the current production of Les Mis employing a young "cheaper" cast.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 7, 2019 11:31:30 GMT
I staged door a few times when I was younger (many years ago!) and the cast I met were lovely, but I haven't done it since.
I have a few actors who are personal friends - some of them genuinely enjoy the attention and others don't. Some are quite shy in person.
If I bump into actors accidentally (in the street, train station platform etc.) rather than stare awkwardly I will always grin and say "hi, I enjoy your work" or "I enjoyed your performance in such and such". I have found that they seem delighted to be acknowledged in this way and either just say "thanks so much" and I move on or they engage me in further conversation. However, I always try and end the encounter first and let them get on with their day. I have to say they have always been delightful.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 7, 2019 7:58:43 GMT
AB should go to the Gielgud Theatre and ask Patti LuPone to give him a masterclass in acting through song and how to knock it out of the park 8 shows a week.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 6, 2019 22:38:47 GMT
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 6, 2019 9:21:38 GMT
I did like Fred Haig's bike though. That was nice. I trust this is not a synonym @ryan
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 6, 2019 0:37:58 GMT
I have seen people wearing them a number of times, I think they've all been Asian for some reason. It must be an allergy thing or something contagious they could pass on? I've seen people wear them in the street - especially in London but never inside a theatre. He wasn't Asian. If he had something contagious he spread it during Act Two when he did not wear the mask! Really bizarre. Had I been sat next to him I would have asked him.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 23:55:38 GMT
Not really bad behaviour but more bizarre behaviour which in all my years of theatre going I have never seen before!
At Company on Monday evening a young man sat in the row in front of me in the stalls wearing a white surgical mask over his nose and mouth! He had a drink with him! Not sure how he managed to drink it as I thought it was impolite to stare. He looked utterly ridiculous but being open minded and considerate (??) I thought perhaps he had a severe allergy and had to wear the mask for medical reasons.
However, during the interval (still seated) he removed the mask and proceeded to watch Act 2 without it!! Perhaps the second act was not as allergic as the first! Totally bizarre!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 23:41:23 GMT
Long running shows are like machines, and unlike the computerised lighting and sets humans are not machines. However, the theatre is full with an audience that is expecting a top class show for their money and so the show must go on.....
It must be difficult at times to ensure this with cast illness etc. and all eventualities have to be thought through and addressed! Mel is presumably out on Friday with her Eurovision commitment in Salford - so it appears it is understudy central this week at Company!
Two Bobbies for the price of one though - you can't complain!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 22:02:20 GMT
I think this is the remarkable thing about the show Company - especially with the gender switch that is raises all these issues that are simply not talked about.
I am happily single and have been most of my life and there was (and still is) huge social pressure to be with someone ("want SOMETHING") not necessarily married but have " a partner". Advertising is still full of model happy family units and heaven help us Valentines Day is round the corner with M&S flogging their hideous Valentine meals for 2!! Pressure is everywhere to conform. If you are in a settled relationship you probably don't notice!
What I love about the show is the cynical nature expressed about relationships. Happily divorced, married 3 or 4 times etc!!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 20:42:00 GMT
We can all just meet in the pub across the street. Reserve the window seats. Sit with our drinks and watch the carnage unfold. Yes the Rupert Street Bar is right opposite the stage door of the Gielgud Theatre! We can have a very gay evening in there watching the stage door spectacle!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 20:33:08 GMT
Surely with this hiatus it cannot be classed as a continuous production!
The ticket sales for the Queens has picked up - very busy now! I thought I might go to see the original brilliant staging for one last time but it seems a lot of other people have had the same idea!!
The prices have been hiked up too - premium seats front stalls £177 £127 £109 on a Friday evening! Goodness knows what the prices will be for Alfie Boe and Michael Ball!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 19:02:36 GMT
I am revisiting this a week on Friday at a preview. There are seats at all prices and I find with the NT that busy or sold out performances often have returns on their website and so it is always worth checking regularly.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 12:35:17 GMT
Is the reason because Jennifer is one of the Bobbies in 'Tick Tock' on a normal night so if she's playing the real Bobbie they don't have enough to go around to stage it properly? Yes, this may be true - there were two other understudies on last night as well. Plus the wigs have got to be an issue. I assume they only have red wigs to replicate Rosalie and did not have black wigs to cover Jennifer. Wearing the red wigs would have made no sense last night - the audience would not have known what was going on!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 9:37:25 GMT
I think it shows a very naive view of the world today, and someone who doesn't know many current 35 year olds to say that we should be financially and career-wise sorted. Oh and have 'lucrative' jobs. Sure some are. But the current crop of 35 year olds were heavily screwed by the 2008 financial crisis (article with some solid research on that here: link and also we're being even more screwed by Brexit. So tell that lucrative career stuff to those 35 year olds who have never been given a permanent contract, who are stuck in zero hours contracts, or are just being laid off right and left (or know their company is moving to South America in 2 years). As to the relationship stuff, I'll let the young 'uns have that, at 25 it seems a long way to 40, and that seems old. And some people do very much need a 'partner' in life, and as long as they aren't judging those of us who don't (want or have) then that's cool. But I was thinking this morning, while I warbled along to Marry Me A Little, I have a (business related) meeting this evening with someone who I know looks down on me because I'm single. To them, I'm this gross little troll like thing because I'm single and not constantly talking about a need to find a man...and isn't that sad, how women behave to each other. I've quoted the above comment from @emicardiff just to double like it! This is why the gender switch in Company works so well. It will become the definitive version of Company in the future I am certain.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 1:17:11 GMT
Anyone know why Rosie was off? Ill? a personal day? According to an usher she did not feel well this afternoon. It was only Jennifers second show.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 0:57:56 GMT
You would not have known it was missing if you hadn't seen the show before. It was odd it was missing - it was brilliantly staged, so I did miss it tonight. I doubt too if it is a blocking issue - Side by Side is similarly complicated with all the tables and chairs. I would have thought her understudy would have covered the track. Odd!
Jennifer Saayeng did very well as Bobbie. She received huge applause for Being Alive and at the curtain call! Patti said well done to her at the bows. It is clearly difficult for an understudy in that they have to play the part as directed, and I felt she was holding back vocally during her numbers. I liked her, she seemed to have more personality than RC. Her astonishment at people appearing in her apartment during Barcelona was very funny!
My only negative tonight was (the adorable) JB. His portrayal of Jamie has got very broad and manic since I saw the show in preview. It needs reining in a little I thought. His hysteria resulted in the lyrics getting swallowed and some of the dialogue was inaudible. Not the best execution of Not Getting Married tonight! I have to say though, the scene got HUGE laughs and he got massive exit applause.
Richard Fleeshman gives the cutest performance - identical to the earlier viewing and his body is a thing of wonder. I did get very distracted - does he provide his own blue underwear or is it part of the costume department?
Patti, however, was the star tonight - simply knocking it out of the park 8 shows a week! The 8 minutes or so of the Ladies Who Lunch sequence is a masterclass, but all her one liners throughout the show landed with huge laughs!
It is such a classy, slick show.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 5, 2019 0:52:48 GMT
Oh the songs are TERRIBLE! It takes 3 or 4 people to write this s***! Clearly no songwriter of any distinction wants to be associated with Eurovision! Why do we even bother?
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Company
Feb 4, 2019 22:46:46 GMT
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 4, 2019 22:46:46 GMT
No Tick Tock!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 4, 2019 17:58:47 GMT
I'm there tonight. Will be interesting to see someone else in the lead. My second visit.
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 3, 2019 11:47:50 GMT
No, I was there on Friday evening!
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 3, 2019 11:34:55 GMT
It will be an in house production.
I hope it will be better than their last production of the show. It was directed by John Doyle and it was his classic "stripped back" approach. They abandoned the classic opening of Aunt Eller alone on stage listening to Curly (off stage) beginning to sing "Oh what a beautiful morning" - (which broke the mould of musicals at the time which always started with a big chorus number) to the ensemble coming on and throwing apples all over the stage which then had to be subsequently picked up so no-one tripped on one! The dream ballet was a Freudian nightmare! It was decidedly lack lustre and did not transfer.
Michael Xavier played Curly. Craige Els played Judd and Natalie Casey played Ado Annie
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Post by wickedgrin on Feb 3, 2019 11:23:16 GMT
Anyway, yes, with Jamie replacing Amy in this version Bobbie in a moment of I guess quiet/sad reflection just says 'let's get married' basically to 'get out of this' all the expectation etc of getting married the pressure to make it perfect that Jamie feels, the pressure to find some-body Bobbie feels etc. This is why it works so well in this version. In the old version it is taken that the marriage would be conventional as a last resort, but here with Jamie being gay it is about a "deal" just for friendship and companionship to get everyone off their backs. As a singleton many years ago I had this exact discussion with a friend (doesn't everyone??) although it never actually happened!
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