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Post by horton on Mar 18, 2022 12:34:09 GMT
But Michael Crawford was the original star until... creative differences.
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Post by horton on Mar 18, 2022 12:33:13 GMT
Joanna Riding was a revelation in this, and I’m not just talking about her abs. I feel the show was massively underrated but sadly opening it at Drury Lane sunk it. It just wasn’t a big enough show to fill that theatre. It was a much tighter show at the Prince of Wales but sadly as they rushed it in there, it looked cheap as chips. I remember there was a rumour at the time (probably apocryphal!) that it was penciled in for the Prince Edward but the 'filler show' that took the theatre in 1999 did slightly better than expected and so Witches moved to Drury Lane! I believe this was true.
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Post by horton on Mar 10, 2022 9:07:13 GMT
Maybe they saw that it was lesser/ late Lloyd Webber?
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Post by horton on Mar 8, 2022 18:24:21 GMT
Bad Cinderella.
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Post by horton on Mar 4, 2022 16:40:29 GMT
I think it means she had to sing louder to hear herself because he was bellowing in her lughole.
Still a silly claim.
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Post by horton on Jan 28, 2022 8:51:43 GMT
Well-handled, sir!
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Post by horton on Jan 16, 2022 8:07:05 GMT
I think the best version is somewhere between the two productions, with a better integrated sub-plot. Some of the new musical arrangements on Broadway were thrilling.
And of course, the score still stands as arguably the best British score of this century!
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Post by horton on Jan 16, 2022 8:02:23 GMT
I hope that the role he craved his whole megalomaniac life is now causing him exquisite pain and misery.
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Post by horton on Jan 2, 2022 11:28:26 GMT
I don't think the humour has aged well- the sexualized schoolgirls would not be viewed kindly now (if they were back then).
The biggest shame is that Hereward Kaye stopped composing for theatre. Robert Longden had a series of ideas for other shows (I dimly remember Brideshead Revisited possibly being one). Cameron switched his attention to Stiles & Drewe so that was that.
Deck Dance, Forbidden Seas and the Finale (with its numerous lyric changes "Hey girl, hey boy the world's not a toy, save the whale it's our future" being one of the worst) are all great show tunes.
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Post by horton on Dec 31, 2021 15:52:03 GMT
But Ed bankrolled the show..
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Post by horton on Dec 31, 2021 12:34:44 GMT
Maybe Great Comet could follow?
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Post by horton on Dec 31, 2021 12:32:22 GMT
Moby Dick could take up a whole programme all by itself...
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Post by horton on Dec 29, 2021 8:03:14 GMT
I really hope that George Stiles is ok. He looked a bit unwell during the interviews? He's fine.
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Post by horton on Dec 22, 2021 7:57:37 GMT
I know this is very cynical of me, but I wonder if it will actually reopen. And if so, reworked and/or with the same cast. This is clearly a covid decision, but ALW seems to be unhappy with the show, so may want to use this time to change something. But this is very sad for the cast, crew, and industry as a whole. I was wondering what leads you to think that ALW is unhappy with the show? Is it something he said? In his "service industry" outburst, he said he was unhappy with the cast, which is part of the show. So yes, he has said he is unhappy. He has also referred to re-writes. The show went back into rehearsal (not clean-ups). so clearly he isn't happy with something.
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Post by horton on Dec 21, 2021 10:27:57 GMT
No insurance anywhere for anyone. The landlords and the conglomerates are fine-they can ride the storm-those owned by banks like Sonia F will be fine. Those clever ones with big hits earning millions like Six will also be fine-its the other independents that will be having terrible pain. Friend. Pugh. Lloyd. Etc. All the subsidised houses will be OK..not great-we are talking mass redundancies and cutbacks. It’s lockdown by stealth with no recovery fund and no furlough. 30-40% of those with transferable skills have left or are looking to leave. West End is dead. Half or more than half are closed tonight. Of course a huge number of fit healthy negative testing actors are having to isolate as they have chose not to be vaccinated. Which means the shows cant go on if there are too many of them in the company/crew. Landlords will give Indepedent producers a big break-its all coming-they have to…remember all of them are owned by Billionaires…Max W at Nimax is worth more than ALW and CM combined so dont believe the ‘poor me’ from certain places….its the workers and the crews and the freelancers that will lose and leave and the half dozen independent producers still left in the west end will have to take enormous debts to get through the next 2 months. The inequality in the business has never been so obvious. Please buy tickets for January-February. If you can. Support the independents where you can. It’s awful. I can confirm this, too. Bookings have dropped off a cliff the past 2 weeks. A lockdown would be easier. After 35 years in the business, I've had enough.
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Post by horton on Nov 27, 2021 12:04:12 GMT
Experiencing a genuine sense of loss: but what gifts he gave us. Sorry-grateful, I guess.
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Post by horton on Nov 6, 2021 18:06:34 GMT
I think what was implied was 'when he has nothing to do with anything other than composing duties'. Just imagine if he had been allowed to proceed with his puerile concept for The Phantom of the Opera- a childish rip-off of The Rocky Horror Show. Thankfully those with stronger theatrical instincts, ie Hal Prince, saved ALW from his own awful judgement. No, the Rocky Horror Picture Show theme came before he had hit upon his idea of a high romance and before he decided to compose the music himself. It was the high romance that he pitched to Hal Prince. As for his theatrical instincts, they are in the very music he writes. Sorry nipper, you're out of your depth. You clearly have never heard the Sydmonton demo ALW's first attempt at Phantom. It was ghastly. Hal Prince was responsible for the eventual concept. That is the correct history. Love your show if you wish, but you can't re-write history.
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Post by horton on Nov 6, 2021 17:19:32 GMT
I think what was implied was 'when he has nothing to do with anything other than composing duties'.
Just imagine if he had been allowed to proceed with his puerile concept for The Phantom of the Opera- a childish rip-off of The Rocky Horror Show. Thankfully those with stronger theatrical instincts, ie Hal Prince, saved ALW from his own awful judgement.
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Post by horton on Nov 6, 2021 16:47:20 GMT
TBH - whether ALW gave them a "dressing down" or not is kind of boring at this point to me. Is he not allowed to criticize actors/actresses? Are people that fragile that they can't deal with being challenged on their performances? A few weeks ago, people were lambasting CHF for her explanation of her lackluster outdoor performance this summer as being overly defensive and making excuses. Now ALW challenging the cast is considered outrageous? To me its more outrageous that these passive-aggressive tweets were made. Suck it up. You work for ALW who yes, has his strengths and weaknesses like every one of us. Deal with it or don't audition for the show. It is never acceptable to behave in such a discourteous and disrespectful manner, whatever the circumstances. If the cast deserved criticism, that is not "outrageous" but there are proper ways to go about it. A public (ie in front of the whole company) tantrum is never excusable and "suck it up" is the kind of response that is well beyond its use-by date! It's ironic that praise is being heaped on those who have stood up against Terry Gilliam- who hasn't actually done anything to anybody in the company he was due to work with- but those who have been treated in-person with the height of unprofessionalism by ALW are advised to "deal with it". They are paid to perform, not to be punchbags.
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Post by horton on May 13, 2020 21:10:26 GMT
The Gambler and The Card
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Post by horton on May 12, 2020 21:24:46 GMT
Oh and yet another day when the planned 100,000 test target was missed. So much for plans.
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Post by horton on May 12, 2020 18:49:38 GMT
Yet again, even with weeks to formulate the "road map", the government (which, incidentally, envelopes itself in political spin to avoid criticism- so let's not talk about "playing politics in a national emergency"), has come up with a vague approach, pushing responsibility for the nation's well-being back on the individual. Compare this with the strategies in New Zealand, Germany and South Korea, for example. OK. Go ahead, tell us how the UK plan to lift lockdown is different and worse than Germany. I will warn you in advance I know a LOT about their plan. I also know the UK plan having read the 50+ page document in full. I note your decision to disregard all but one sentence of my post. As a result I shall disregard your kind warning and request for a summary of the document, which I have also read. Based on its performance to date, I shall continue to doubt this government's judgement, ability to implement the plan and to effectively communicate with the public. A further 627 deaths recorded today- contrary to the Evening Standard's claim, that does not indicate that "virus deaths continue to fall" and calls into question the reason for the change of strategy at this particular time. Germany's death toll stands at 7661 in total. The Office for National Statistics records the UK total of deaths attributed to the virus as 38,355 in the same period, with a further 1678 patients having died in hospital while Covid-positive. How's that for a comparison?
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Post by horton on May 12, 2020 12:14:13 GMT
Llanymynech golf course in Oswestry straddles the Welsh/England border so apparently due to restrictions in Wales you can only play three of the holes on the course from the English side...what a farce😂 What's so ridiculous about that? Different countries have different laws, so you'd expect to to have unusual situations at the point where the rules change. There are places on the Belgian/Dutch border where shops and cafes straddle the border and so different sides of the shop have different opening hours. There's a village on the US/Canada border where the gas station is in the US but can only be reached from Canada, so anyone wanting to fill up has to check in at the US border point (which is on a different road) before they can enter the US to buy petrol. There's a footpath in Germany that's actually part of Belgium. Picking out a special case and sneering at it because it sounds odd doesn't imply anything about the rules in force everywhere else. Special cases are always going to sound odd because they are special cases. I thought this was the UNITED Kingdom. The response from Scotland and Wales clarify the purely political nature of the change in advice. It was inevitable that the anti-lockdown movement would point to the apparent drop in death toll as evidence that lockdown was unnecessary- utterly ignoring the fact that lockdown was designed to reduce the rate of death from the virus. Sadly, even the positive figures are debatable- the O.N.S. has published data that contradicts the government's lower figures today. I suspected in mid-March that the equation this government was balancing was fear + anger vs boredom + financial pressure. And fundamentally, nothing has changed since the day it was decided lockdown was necessary. We are back to the guidance we had for 3 days prior to lockdown! Yet again, even with weeks to formulate the "road map", the government (which, incidentally, envelopes itself in political spin to avoid criticism- so let's not talk about "playing politics in a national emergency"), has come up with a vague approach, pushing responsibility for the nation's well-being back on the individual. Compare this with the strategies in New Zealand, Germany and South Korea, for example. The fundamental fact is that the virus has not gone away. So we have the choice a) isolate in lockdown to reduce transmission or b) ALL follow specific behaviour to minimize risk We don't have such a protocol from the government- we have vague slogans (what exactly are we being alert for? clouds of germs? someone having a single cough? someone who looks a bit dirty?) and contradictory recommendations: look at the crowds on the Tube- how are those people supposed to "go back to work" (since they can't work from home), AND avoid public transport (there are not enough Ubers in the country to cope with that demand), for instance? What happened to the hints of staggered work hours? What about public transport running at 10% capacity? Such things require co-ordination, not individual choices. The UK government has demonstrably shown itself to be incompetent during this crisis- we could consider early complacency, delay in banning mass gatherings, mis-use of resources, the PPE and care home scandals, bungled procurement, MPs being unable to interpret the government's advice correctly etc etc etc. Is it any wonder there is so much anxiety about lack of faith in this latest plan?
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Post by horton on May 12, 2020 11:34:59 GMT
An Evening With Gary Lineker - Lock Up Your Daughters!
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Post by horton on May 10, 2020 22:42:18 GMT
Top Girls - 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
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