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Post by steve10086 on Sept 1, 2023 21:58:16 GMT
Quiet day. The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria at Pleasance Dome This has already received plenty of attention, rightfully so. A hugely entertaining account of a relatively obscure episode in World War Two - Bulgaria's participation and the reign and actions of the king in place at the time Boris III. Starts off in an Ubuesque manner then gradually focuses mainly on the struggles of Boris to save his Jewish subjects. Music and high jinks lighten the heavier aspects of the play but it is undoubtedly a success and deserves a London outing - Park? Southwark? How about Arcola, 26 Sep - 21 Oct? www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/the-brief-life-mysterious-death-of-boris-iii-king-of-bulgaria/
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 24, 2023 21:15:20 GMT
Who cares about the dodgy story, the flakey script etc. Spoiler alert - IT'S JUST A MUSICAL! 🙄
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 23, 2023 19:56:18 GMT
I mean, why is it “amazing”? You said it, so I assumed you’d know. Personally I think it’s pretty obvious why people have hated it.
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 23, 2023 19:18:13 GMT
It’s amazing how so many people have hated this show since it’s conception. Why?
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 23, 2023 17:12:56 GMT
Would this be a possibility for next year at the Coliseum or is there already a musical in place for next Summer’s musical? Guaranteed flop!
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 23, 2023 8:10:45 GMT
I’ve certainly disagreed with ALW a number of times, been baffled and annoyed by some of his comments and behaviour, but I was happy for him last night.
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 22, 2023 22:17:20 GMT
10/10 for this concert production, certainly one of the best of these events there has been.
But the source material is still duff. Such a waste of some gorgeous music on such banal lyrics and such a ridiculous plot. I can never keep a straight face when they are recounting their night of passion (“and I licked you, and I flicked you, and I sucked you, and I f…” etc) that has been conjured out of thin air to enable them to have a son.
Didn’t think Norm Lewis was right for this at all either.
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 11, 2023 9:15:07 GMT
Right to be confused. I am the grumpy ‘aged person’ who says go the other way but this person raised his voice to me. Ah, i deserved it, didn’t I? But he could so easily have seen he should have gone the other way, the difficulty of OH getting up ( we always wait ) and it was just a min before the start. No excuses, Lynette, you are a disgrace to the theatre going public and need a retraining course on how to behave. Just a minute before the start is not really on - I can't stand those folk who turn up with a minute to go and are right in the middle of the row. That said, we all make mistakes - I totally misread my numbers at the final night of Only Fools and Horses and in trying to avoid making people get up, chose the wrong side and ended up making 2/3 of the row stand up. I was so embarrassed and personally apologised to each person for the inconvenience. (And that is the lesson for me, I think - human courtesy should be that if you cause somebody an inconvenience, no matter how small or large, simply apologise for it and admit your mistake - I bet if the person who raised his voice to you had been more apologetic for your inconvenience, you would have probably have been okay with it.) What mistake? Trying to get to your seat while someone mumbles a complaint about you?!
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Post by steve10086 on Aug 8, 2023 21:25:42 GMT
Brave… I’m reluctant to engage with the offender. At Dear England a couple came in just before the start, the wrong way. FOH should really sharpen up on this imo. Meant that my OH and I had to get up and move out of our aisle seats. When I mumbled about the other way, he said loudly something along the lines of what am I making a fuss about. Well, he could see that OH has trouble getting up so at least a very o sorry would have sufficed. Small first world problem but actually first time anyone had responded like that in my experience and the people next to me were also astonished. I’d confused. Shouldn’t the person trying to get to their seat be the one posting about bad behaviour, not you?
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Post by steve10086 on Jul 29, 2023 21:40:09 GMT
Their choice, but never understood actors who follow this. Why deny yourself some great roles? Even Elaine Paige knew what an opportunity Norma Desmond was, and it finally took her to Broadway. Evidently someone has shown this discussion to Emma Williams, or she reads the site herself, because she's replied on Twitter (click on the tweet because her reply includes 2 subsequent tweets). Well that’s exactly the kind of attitude you’d expect from a pro!
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Post by steve10086 on Jul 29, 2023 16:23:37 GMT
Their choice, but never understood actors who follow this. Why deny yourself some great roles? Even Elaine Paige knew what an opportunity Norma Desmond was, and it finally took her to Broadway.
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Post by steve10086 on Jul 10, 2023 22:37:35 GMT
Billy Porter was at Mrs Doubtfire tonight.
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Post by steve10086 on Jul 6, 2023 21:10:32 GMT
Alw doesn't have all the power, it's going to be Camerons decision more so. As we've seen before Cameron has ultimate control of the show. And yeah new casts mean nothing, plenty of examples of casts joining then shows closing. Even if it did announce closing I'm sure it would extend like broadway did. Even if just a few months. I have no knowledge on whether it is or not but there's nothing we know that would suggest it wouldn't suddenly announce closure. Why does Cameron have ultimate control? Really Useful own 55% of the production company, while CM owns 45%, with a co-production agreement stating there is no single ultimate controlling party. Do you mean that when they jointly make an unpopular decision ALW blames it all on CM? That sounds more plausible.
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 17, 2023 16:18:35 GMT
Mrs Doubtfire has nothing to do with trans issues, and it’s ridiculous that it’s been caught up in it.
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 16, 2023 11:42:00 GMT
If Newsies can work at Wembley then Starlight Express easily can. Consider the advances in theatre and tech since SE closed - some investment and vision could create something truly fantastic. But, financially, Newsies hasn’t worked at Wembley. That’s the point.
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 13, 2023 12:09:49 GMT
I'm a bit confused about all the moaning about the bad location, unless you're a tourist who stays in Central London and might not be keen on venturing out into the suburbs. But if you live anywhere in the greater London area, shouldn't be all the same whether you take a tube to Wembley or to Piccadilly Circus? And would the location not actually be beneficial if you were going to take the family by car? No driving into Central London and parking is presumably cheaper in Wembley as well. And there's so much on offer around there - you could go shopping in the nearby Mall, there's plenty of food places and if you need to lure Dad with sports, they could book a tour of Wembley. I'm genuinely interested, partly because of what this means for the Troubador Theatre's future and partly... well, just because. I live in North East London, Wembley is in North West. It takes as much time to get from Central London to Wembley as it takes me to get to Central London from home - so it’s double the journey time. It’s not a huge deal on a weekend, but not that practical on a weekday evening, which is when I see most shows.
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 13, 2023 11:00:20 GMT
I’d have gone to see it again if it was in the West End - can’t be bothered trekking to Wembley again though.
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 13, 2023 9:35:26 GMT
Booked a couple of dates, including Joe’s birthday 😆
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 4, 2023 15:42:09 GMT
Final performance today. I do feel for the cast/crew. So much hype and just seems to have been over in a flash. I also feel for the cast/crew, because I don’t like anyone losing their job. But they should have seen this coming when they signed up!
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Post by steve10086 on Jun 2, 2023 16:48:16 GMT
Eva sleeps with Magaldi and moves to the city with him when she’s 15.
Better cancel that upcoming Evita concert. How will people cope with the “ick factor”? 😱
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Post by steve10086 on May 29, 2023 14:09:31 GMT
It’s not my place to speak on behalf of a black audience, but I’m not seeing much defence of this idea on here, so I am going to comment. If I say anything offensive I really didn’t mean to!
As I understand it, this is a black story, which wants to reach a black audience (amongst others). Different cultures have different ways of responding and “behaving” (not meant to mean “good”, or “bad”) when watching a play, and perhaps some people want to experience their own culture on stage, and be allowed to react in ways that are culturally appropriate to them, without some middle aged white bloke (me) telling them to sit still and be quiet every five minutes!
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Post by steve10086 on May 27, 2023 10:07:29 GMT
There was a time when any new production of an ALW show would mean me booking 2 or 3 performances, at top price, the second the tickets went on sale. But this just didn’t excite me. The tickets are far too expensive, and some of the casting was putting me off.
Anyway, I overcame the first problem by getting a £145 “premium” seat for £25 on TodayTix yesterday, so went along last night.
Still not convinced by Jamie Bogyo’s vocals. Thought the new placing of “Love Changes Everything” was very random. But the main thing that let this down was the awful cheap projected film clips! The set itself is beautiful, then an awful, tacky and jerky video clip passes across it 🙄
Well, apart from that this is a great production. The orchestra sounds gorgeous (you know you’re on to a winner when there is a harp!).
I really don’t care about all the storyline controversy. Depicting something does not equal condoning it. And anyway, all the characters are against the Alex/Jenny relationship, to the point that it literally gives one of them a heart attack!
Definitely worth seeing, but how it could have been worth £145 is beyond me.
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Post by steve10086 on May 19, 2023 21:03:44 GMT
I'd take this with a grain of salt, a VERY small grain (it's Jamie Lloyd after all) but I hear it's going to have a big set and that ALW wants to take to Broadway later down the line since the planned Evita revival is quote "not ready". Not sure if it will include Nicole as well but it's currently not in her contract to be first on Broadway. If true, how strange. What on earth would prompt him to build in the proviso that opening in London doesn't guarantee opening on Broadway? Haha I wonder 🤣
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Post by steve10086 on May 19, 2023 9:23:02 GMT
Just got an email from ATG: Nicole Scherzinger starring, directed by Jamie Lloyd at the Savoy. 16 weeks from September "NICOLE SCHERZINGER stars as the immortal Norma Desmond in ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER’s legendary SUNSET BOULEVARD. This thrillingly atmospheric musical, which features an iconic score including the songs With One Look, The Perfect Year and As If We Never Said Goodbye, is reimagined by visionary director JAMIE LLOYD for a new generation." Why does everything in that message fill me with dread? Why does everything have to be “reimagined”?!
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Post by steve10086 on May 16, 2023 18:16:54 GMT
Everything is so "iconic" these days it's a totally meaningless term. I'm wearing my iconic 🩲, to match my iconic 🧦 while eating iconic🍕! There are other more imaginative adjectives out there! You could say that about all kinds of words. It is used way more that it was 10 years ago, but in the sense of it's current meaning, I think OAT Evita was iconic. Not sure you can police other people's descriptive language - the words I would use to describe things are only ever IMHO. I am however glad that your pizza was iconic. Yum yum. The OAT production of Evita looked so ridiculous I steered very clear. Really hope Sunset doesn’t end up like that shambles.
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Post by steve10086 on May 15, 2023 18:54:02 GMT
Would love this to happen!!
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Post by steve10086 on May 14, 2023 10:42:22 GMT
Keep seeing comments online about last nights show being rigged so Sweden will host for ABBA’s 50th anniversary. Some people really need to get a better grip on reality 🙄
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Post by steve10086 on May 13, 2023 18:47:54 GMT
As for the next musical - I'm curious about what subject he was interested in doing before Cinderella was announced that he was looking to secure the rights for. The story of Master and Margarita (long abandoned) has seemed intriguing too. I find his more serious topics bring out more interesting compositions, so that would be my vote. That's funny, because the subplot of this story is literally the events depicted in JCS (only interpreted differently), involving the characters of Pilate, Jesus, Judas and Caifás. The novel's plot revolves around the Master's decision to create a novel about Pontius Pilate in the atheistic Soviet Union. The novel's chapter two is basically 'Pilate and Christ' from JCS as Bulgakov envisioned it. There's this 'a novel within a novel' thing where Bulgakov incorporates a few chapters from the Master's novel (obviously also written by Bulgakov) about Pontius Pilate into the main body of the 'The Master and Margarita' novel. I hope this makes sense. And the Master's novel about Pontius Pilate is basically JCS all over again. And at the end of the 'The Master and Margarita' novel the Master meets the character he's written about, i. e. Pilate and Christ, although they don't see him, because they are just the characters in his imagination (of which they are totally unaware), but he sees them and he is to resolve Pilate's (i. e. his protagonist's) fate. The Master shouts out 'Forgiven!' and that does it. Pilate is forgiven and reunites with Jesus for eternity. That sounds quite cool, and could contain snippets of JCS in a kind of sequel, but with a better plot than his last sequel attempt.
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Post by steve10086 on May 10, 2023 15:54:59 GMT
Why, oh, why couldn't they stream the whole show like this? Or at least the whole Act 2? They certainly seem to have the technology. But is it FUN?Are you having FUN? - bearing in mind so were the passengers on the Titanic till it hit an iceberg. Nobody expected Titanic to sink. Everybody expected Bad Cinderella to sink.
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Post by steve10086 on May 8, 2023 15:56:51 GMT
I’d much rather be stuck with a non-elected King, and for us all to be stuck with him, than be stuck with an elected $hit like Johnson, or stuck in a voted for situation like Brexit.
Democracy sucks when so many of your countrymen are brainless freaks!
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