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Post by nash16 on Mar 27, 2024 1:13:28 GMT
I don’t know why you pseudo critics were being so negative. I saw the show on Monday and thought it was great. I, along with 95% of the audience stood up and cheered at the end. Great singing, good music and a very enjoyable show. I would certainly recommend it if it comes back to the west end. Methinks the new member (who has only made two posts, both re this show) doth protest too much… Lovely to have someone involved talking about it though.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 27, 2024 0:25:46 GMT
4* in the Daily Fail.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 27, 2024 0:15:27 GMT
A-threestar in The Guardian has given it an uncharacteristic 4* AND cleared up the meaning of the red curtain for us all:
“a central sheer red curtain that captures the razzle of the theatre but also implicates our culture of celebrity voyeurism.”
Everyone get that?
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Post by nash16 on Mar 27, 2024 0:06:05 GMT
Not All That Dazzles giving it ⭐️
😱
Is this a first?
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Post by nash16 on Mar 26, 2024 23:58:22 GMT
2 minutes to go.
Good luck everyone.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 26, 2024 18:29:01 GMT
My point is that it *may* have been done before but the general/casual theatre goer will not realise that and assume they are copying. That was certainly my thought when I watched it, before reading some of the background information on this thread. Absolutely. It'll be the perception of copying Sunset that'll be the killer, especially in the way it's done. In Sunset, Tom Francis managed to navigate the entire backstage area, stairs, other cast members, complicated visual jokes, cues and all, and hoof it around the outside of the building whilst singing the title number flawlessly. Here, Sheridan does a meandering drunk impression on the pavement that goes on way too long whilst a cast member improvises variations on a barked leave-her-she-has-to-do-it-herself line over and over. It looks like they copied the idea and did it badly. Reviewers, like the play goers on here, will have seen camera work countless times before in other’s productions, as previous posters have mentioned. It’s only really musical theatre attendees whose minds were blown by SB. The rest of us have seen it for years.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 26, 2024 18:23:28 GMT
Well, in for the final preview.
As other posters have mentioned, it is, as with many a musical flop before it, the book that is to blame here.
The performances are great, considering the mind bending, indecipherable to follow, or care, scipt they’re working with.
The film chats Myrtle’s descent in a much clearer fashion, for all its faults. But here you get conflicting accounts, from Myrtle, and those around her, as to the state of her mind. Is she breaking down? Or is she okay?
And because of the failure of the script to chart this clear descent, the audience are both baffled and disconnect. We had leavers at the interval, and two in the second half.
There seems to be a lot of unecessary “worry” about Sheridan. Why did she choose this when her “audiences” would want her to do something more popular/less challenging? Well because she’s a damn good actress who wants to push her boundaries. She won’t have walked into a stage version of Opening Night thinking the outcome would be simple or “nice” for the audience.
It won’t close early because the producers, despite the impending bad reviews which we all know are coming, won’t want the extra egg on their faces. People will return their tickets, but the majority won’t.
The actress playing the young fan was excellent and actually bought a level of drama to the proceedings which is lacking in almost every other scene.
If Time Out guy is getting giddy on Twitter re the show, it probably means he’ll love the daring.
I would rather the daring and a flop, than no daring at all. Which is where I’m conflicted here. They’ve offered up the punters something not often seen in the West End, which is a great thing.
Unfortunately, they’ve killed the whole event and potential to open new doors to musical going audiences with an interesting story terribly, terribly told.
I wish them luck tonight. Even though they must have no doubt what they’re in for.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 18, 2024 18:26:07 GMT
Is this planned for the West End? Small ATG venue UK tour then ATG venue in West End, reviews pending.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 16, 2024 19:25:12 GMT
Juliet has now been cast, but guessing they'll want a poster with them both on a) to announce her, and b) to replace the god awful one they announced Tom with. Is it Timothée Chalamet? It....is Timothée. BUT he's only contracted on bingo nights.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 16, 2024 19:08:11 GMT
Any idea if this is going to Broadway? If would have to wait until next Winter/Spring now as they'll only go over with it to get Tony Awards, and that'll be the window they'll need to get noms/win.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 12, 2024 18:50:01 GMT
Do we think this will extend? Or is something else lined up for The Pinter? Sales haven't been great since the reviews, so very doubtful it will extend. It may even come off early.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 9, 2024 18:53:14 GMT
Juliet has now been cast, but guessing they'll want a poster with them both on a) to announce her, and b) to replace the god awful one they announced Tom with.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 8, 2024 11:27:03 GMT
I blame the eternal revolve she had to deal with in this. If you do miss it, you’re not missing a great play.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 6, 2024 0:44:45 GMT
I saw this last night. I was quite surprised that there were a fair few empty seats, considering how hard it could be to get tickets for Jez Butterworth's last couple of plays. While watching this I quite enjoyed it. It never dragged, the acting was uniformly great, the script was quite sprightly and witty. But there were a number of things nagging at me about it, and afterwards, when I had time to think on it, I actually came to the conclusion that it was a fairly lazy piece of writing for such an esteemed and experienced writer. I will concede that it turns like a well oiled machine but, a few themes and plot points aside, it could have been written any time in the last 100 plus years. It was a solid, archetypal domestic drama, but there was absolutely nothing new or clever about it. I felt like I had seen it all before. There was certainly nothing for me to puzzle out afterwards, nothing I could not have predicted, and nothing daring in terms of structure, language or approach to making theatre. I thought that the Blackpool setting was woefully underused, as was the stiffing 1976 summer. I never felt the heat. I never felt like I was in 1970s or 1950s Blackpool. There were some perfunctory mentions, but no real sense of lethargy, decay, exhaustion. I was so looking forward to being enveloped in the atmosphere of time and place but it never happened. There were way too many characters. Cut the nurse. Cut most of the men. They're not needed. They can be referenced, but there's no reason to spend time with any of them. What did any of them add? Moreover, certain key plot points felt like they stretched credulity for something aiming to be naturalistic. {Spoiler - click to view} First up - Joan's baby. What?!? There was a baby in the porch through all those act 3 arguments and it never cried, never made a sound... And Joan has flown over from America and made her way to Blackpool with a six-month old and a random suitcase with a few baby clothes and a bottle and two toys? Even if we are to infer from the Act 3 opening scene that she arrived earlier and has been waiting in Blackpool, trying to get the courage to return home, this whole situation is clunky and very badly handled. Secondly, are we really supposed to believe (or, at least, infer) that the mother had four daughters out of wedlock in the 1940s? One, or even two, is perfectly plausible, but four?!? That would have been a huge scandal, and the daughters would inevitably have known about it, unless they were born in anther town far away. Thirdly, what is the deal with Joan's career? Did the agent guy feel so guilty that he'd got her pregnant, that he paid for her to fly to America, set her up with a new home and arranged for her to make an LP? That seems very unlikely to me, I thought the four youthful daughters were acted and sung brilliantly but, aside from Joan, badly differentiated in the writing and almost without character. Personally, I would also have liked to see the past and present intermingle, and the big reveal, such as it is, implied much more subtly. It's unlikely it would shock audiences now, with what we now know about the world, but it could still have packed a punch, which I felt it definitely didn't. I know I'm in a minority, but to me this was a fairly enjoyable play but one that tackled well-worn material as though it thought it was being radical and new, and which had too many clunky elements for me to truly rate as more than two stars. I think you thought these things precisely because it is a dull and lazy play. Was it on here someone said Butterworth handed it to Mendes only half written. This makes sense of the non sensical line up of “plot” we get later on in the play. To us it felt like Laura Donnelly wanted to showcase her Northern and her American accents, maybe for tv and film work, and Jez said “Give me a few minutes” It’s such a plain piece. And you’re right: the nurse and all the men could be gone and it wouldn’t affect anything. And ZERO heat felt, or any notion of the heatwave. No effort at atmosphere. Those empty seats are for a reason and that is that word of mouth will be spreading, and not positively. You can always tell when a show is doing badly when they rebrand their marketing to make it look like a film, rather than a stage show. They’ve still got months and months to run as well.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 5, 2024 12:32:55 GMT
Yes, the shock of the “new” use of cameras and onstage filming seemed to surprise only the non-play goers in the Sunset thread.
Whereas the play people have been enjoying/not enjoying it for years.
Lloyd rehashed things from years earlier (and mainly from European directors: like Icke with his magpie-ing).
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Post by nash16 on Mar 1, 2024 21:03:01 GMT
Is there a code for the 50% discount? It would be hard to eradicate memories of Fiona Shaw and that set at the NT years ago...... PWC50 is the code. Not loads of seats left, but guessing they want those preview full.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 27, 2024 13:55:47 GMT
Not the slips being £20 when DEH had them at £7.50 Sadly DEH was celebrity-wage free. They’ve got to stump up for Kit and Denzel’s daughter’s fees. And pay for the American actors apartments. (It is just greed though. Especially not to have them low in Previews)
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Post by nash16 on Feb 25, 2024 23:22:42 GMT
For his - and everyone else's - safety, I genuinely hope that Tom doesn't do stage door for this. I suspect he'll try in the beginning though. The producers will want him to do stage door for at least the first few previews. Then it will stop. I don’t think the audiences for this will be disrespectful at all. I’ve found younger audiences attending star-led shows to be almost silent with respect. Until the curtain call. Contrast that with the middle-aged nightmares at Plaza Suite and the way they’ve been behaving.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 25, 2024 22:29:39 GMT
We really weren’t taken with this last night.
A play supposedly drawing us in because it’s about the NHS, but instead we got a patronising sub-par period romance instead.
How Keeley Hawes, who is wonderful in it if not pushing herself much with the role, doesn’t throw up with the eternally revolving stage? She deserves an Olivier nod just for that.
The use of video is unnecessary in such a tiny space, and was the source of us feeling patronised: it was only used when Davenport’s movie star was onstage, but it’s like, we get it.
I think someone mentioned above about it must have been a script idea for tv or film. It definitely feels that, and has now been shoehorned into being a play, with its plentiful, super short, scenes. The technicians even get a bow at the end which is warranted, but if you took them all away the play wouldn’t be lesser than it already is.
Tom GH and Siobhan R raid the accent and funny walk box for all their worth and succeed.
But ultimately the play is dull.
No drama.
And nothing really to chew on re the setting up of the NHS.
It felt like something the old crowd at the Orange Tree circa 2005 would have gone to see to have a nice nap to.
Having said this we had two Keeley Hawes fans who had travelled from Spain next to us who loved it and on the way out were chatting about how it was the best play they had ever seen.
Non KH obsessives, like us, might find it less enthralling though.
Such an odd choice for Longhurst to depart on.
2-3 stars.
5 stars from the KH fans though.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 23, 2024 10:30:22 GMT
Not much early buzz or feedback on this, surprisingly. Angus Wright. Black slashed boxer briefs sole attire. Nightclub scene. It’s getting hard to move past and write about the rest of the play given that all three elements listed above happen at the same time on the Young Vic stage in this. The rest of the play is 1hr 40minutes of arguing & a mix of marriages and rebound relationships that are all illogical. The sympathy of the play lies heavily, and sadly only, with one character, which makes it a play we’ve seen countless times before. Even if the initial debate is fun.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 21, 2024 0:48:10 GMT
There was an audience tonight who saw it Correct and I was in it! Just wondering what people's thoughts on it were! Are you part of the creative team? We’d love to hear YOUR thoughts.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 20, 2024 23:30:06 GMT
Saw this tonight. 100 mins bang on. Thank you for this. Going Saturday night, but was worried how late it was going to go.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 20, 2024 23:29:28 GMT
BTW if Kwame is stepping down they should do whatever it takes to replace him with Robert Icke. They definitely won’t want to do that.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 19, 2024 23:50:49 GMT
From the cast board tonight it looks like Dónal Finn is off again. Are the tote bags back? Dónal was replaced with a tote bag tonight, but they refused to sell the bag in the foyer afterwards.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 19, 2024 11:37:19 GMT
If his cray fans sniff out this thread, you’ll definitely be hearing from that element a LOT on here… Not sure when referring to any group of people as crazy just because they have a differing opinion to others was acceptable? Maybe try saying those that agree with my opinion might show up and support that theory, rather than referring to me or anyone else as "cray"? Let's do better. No, I’m talking about the cray-zee fans. (And it’s much quicker to say it that way!)
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Post by nash16 on Feb 19, 2024 11:24:47 GMT
Tory cuts to the running time (& NHS) have not been factored in yet. (Although the full cut they gave the show on Saturday night was said to be “too severe” by some backbenchers) There haven't been any Tory cuts to the NHS. While they have been in power NHS spending in real terms, that is after inflation, is up by 20% and it is also up in real terms on a per capita basis too. It is the 5th best funded health service in the world. I think there was only a single year (under Cameron/Osborne) when NHS funding increased only by inflation rather than exceeding it. I'm sure all the various Nye Bevan plays will point out this common misapprehension about the NHS. Erm… 😂
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Post by nash16 on Feb 19, 2024 1:04:28 GMT
Exactly this. So weird that so many breezily overlook it all. But the connection to his music must outweigh the morals… Apparently the show does address it, but fleetingly. On the flip side, some of us find it weird that so many breezily invest in his guilt when he was proven innocent in a court of law and the allegations made against him were from people with ulterior motives....but that is probably another thread entirely..... If his cray fans sniff out this thread, you’ll definitely be hearing from that element a LOT on here…
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Post by nash16 on Feb 19, 2024 1:00:50 GMT
Tory cuts to the running time (& NHS) have not been factored in yet.
(Although the full cut they gave the show on Saturday night was said to be “too severe” by some backbenchers)
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Post by nash16 on Feb 18, 2024 12:28:49 GMT
Cancelled last night, so we went to see The Mirror instead.
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Post by nash16 on Feb 17, 2024 23:12:49 GMT
Zero buzz about this though eh. Yeah, I just can’t past all the issues with MJ’s personal life. Yes, the music’s good, but I’m not not interested in sitting through a biographical account of his life when all the questions remain about his involvement with minors… I know nothing was proven in his lifetime (he paid a lot of the accusers off), but still. Not for me. Exactly this. So weird that so many breezily overlook it all. But the connection to his music must outweigh the morals… Apparently the show does address it, but fleetingly.
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