Wonderful Town - Opera Holland Park w/ Louise Dearman

Mods, feel free to edit the title to give Louise her full name! 🤣

Just amazing. And Siobhan.😍

Don’t know this show at all, but what a treat.

♥️♥️♥️ X 1000

I saw the 2012 tour with Connie Fisher, Michael Xavir and Nic Greenshields.

A pretty underrated musical this. Has the right combination of your typical American light-comedy musical with heart. And a surprisingly diverse ensemble of interesting characters, and the musical somehow finds time with every one of them.

Some good numbers including Ohio and Pass the Football.

And the end of the first act comes out of nowhere with one of the most bonkers moments I've seen in a story.

Only thing that lets it down is that having focused on so many characters the musical rushes to an underwhelming ending.

Yes I saw that too in Birmingham. Remember enjoying it but don't remember too much about it. Having the sublime Louise Dearman however adds another level to what I am sure will be a great show.

I can hear her giggling away now.

Semi staged as they've got a choreographer. Tickets on sale Thursday.

And some deets here.

New orchestrations by Jason Carr.

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/full-cast-announced-wonderful-town-holland-park_54121.html

Booked. Out of everything I've got planned I'm looking forward to this the most.

I've booked the opening night. Not many single seats, got a front row side view for £53.50.

Is there a better way to spend a summer evening than open air musical theatre with the sublime Louise Dearman ?

Anyone seen this yet? Photos on WOS look wonderful. Going on Saturday matinee.

www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/wonderful-town-opera-holland-park-first-look-_54414.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=2July2021

The show is light as a feather, the choreography and performances top notch. However my enjoyment was marred for unexpected reasons and I've made that clear from the feedback I left.

The seats. It's not really an open air venue, and when you walk in the auditorium looks like an antique chair exhibition with dozens if not hundreds of different types. Some are almost armchairs, mine was I'm sure a former infants school chair. Small, wooden, hard backed, one thin cushion. I was given an extra cushion almost immediately but that wasn't enough to make it anything like comfortable. Each seat was supposed to have a tag with its number. Mine didn't, nor the one next door which was about twice the size of mine and well padded. The usher had acknowledged there were seats whose numbers had come off. An even-more-elderly-than-me gentleman was sitting in the other/my seat. The usher had confidently said I was in the correct one. but I soon noticed the two seats immediately to my right did have number tags and were A57 and A58, my ticket was for was A51. I then found out the other man's ticket was A54. I don't think a seating pattern of A54,then A51, then A57/58 is very likely. it wasn't fair to ask him to swap when it wasn't his fault.

Half way along each side block is a stack of speakers about twelve feet high. These reduced the view from my seat to zero occasionally, and restricted it regularly, but it was not sold as restricted view at all. I accept that the speaker location probably wasn't known until quite recently. The performance wasn't sold out and at 7.25 there were at least 10 empty seats in my eyeline. Right then an usher came along. I explained I had been given the wrong seat and my chair very uncomfortable and pointed out the high speakers. I asked whether after about 20 minutes I could move to a vacant seat further back, the reply was I'm not sure but I'll find out for you. Curtain up wasn't till about 7.38 but nobody returned. I did move but only to the next seat which remained empty. Better comfort but no better view.

So 8/10 from me for performance but  poor comfort and even poorer customer service. If they use the same seats for operas I'm surprised they get away with it and the lack of numbers on seats is very unprofessional I think. Am I being too "moany" folks ?

Agree the speaker location was dreadful. I was in one of the "cheap" (£40) tickets and luckily at the end of a row with no-one beside me so I could move my seat to get a better view. The ushers were very helpful and quite happy to let me do that (and I also appreciated the offer of a blanket in the interval!). However I did find it odd that they repeatedly announced that latecomers wouldn't be admitted but happily let about 10 people in late in two separate batches!

There is barely any rake so anyone with someone tall in front of them will struggle as they haven't staggered the seating properly.

The sound balance is also terrible. I appreciate it's outside, but Regent's Park this ain't (because there they at least have the sound sorted). Probably partly an issue because the speakers were placed where they were, as it meant those of us sitting on the sides got hardly any sound at all. I could barely hear half of what was sung, I lost count of how many times microphone cues were late and the orchestra (fabulous though they were) just drowned everything out.

Enough has been said already about how dated the book is - it just isn't a good show anymore. I didn't believe for a second that Ruth and Eileen were sisters but it didn't really matter as most of the characters weren't believable.

The performances were good and sometimes great, and it was lovely to see a talented bunch of West End performers back on stage and doing some interesting choreography really well (you could tell that about half of them have done stints in Hamilton!). But it was all marred by the extent of the technical issues, which really should have been sorted out.

A pleasant enough evening, but nothing more than that.

Also, I don't want to generalise, but all the Opera Holland Park members I encountered last night came across as entitled so-and-sos, skipping the bar queue, demanding that they get a free programme instead of paying and berating the bar staff when they were told the free programme didn't apply to this show! Really made for a rather unwelcoming atmosphere.

The staff were great though, and apart from the failure to sort any kind of queuing system for the bar the venue is well laid out).

We loved it this afternoon. Had a perfect view and no sound issues - although could spot the speakers and a few people moved during the first act. Yes it’s a very dated show but Louise Dearman is absolutely incredible as Ruth. What a star turn. Great choreography too.

A hugely enjoyable old fashioned musical comedy. Just what we need right now.