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Post by distantcousin on May 14, 2024 13:46:48 GMT
I would imagine It's All Coming Back to Me isn't in Titanique because they couldn't get the rights from the Jim Steinman estate. Yes I think you could well be right! Maybe that's also the issue with Power of Love!? Good! That's Jennifer Rush's song. I refuse to associate it with La Dion!
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Post by distantcousin on May 14, 2024 13:44:11 GMT
Also how can you do a Céline musical and omit her three best songs, even if one was a cover. (That’ll be Think Twice, Power Of Love and All Coming Back To Me). I'm always amazed to be reminded of the fact that Twink Twice, despite being a mega hit in the UK, didn't do much elsewhere. I believe even Céline barely performs it. Shocking! I'd also have thought the Arts was the perfect place for this! Keen to see it but they have to get the right person as Céline! Before the streaming era, it's physical sales were pretty much equal with My Heart Will Go On. It was a top 10 hit in several countries, but crucially not the US.
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Post by distantcousin on May 14, 2024 12:00:25 GMT
Also, he’s a qualified doctor with a successful medical career, he’s got several tv gigs and he’s a published author. How much more attention do these people need? Narcissists! I've always found him utterly ghastly. And yes, the narcissism shines through.
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Post by distantcousin on May 13, 2024 11:21:39 GMT
There are rumours that this is not about Nemo at all, and the voting was manipulated to ensure a neutral country (in the current geopolitical climate) won.
make of that what you will!
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Post by distantcousin on May 13, 2024 9:54:23 GMT
Absolutely. This is the difference.
The win went to someone of gender non-specificity and wearing a pink skirt. I don't think conservatism was an issue. but essentially sexless.
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Post by distantcousin on May 12, 2024 20:36:37 GMT
I fear his theming/choreography is going to be a little too ‘much’ for the conservative leaning nations. Eurovision loves camp, but not necessarily ‘gay’. :-(
Absolutely. This is the difference.
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Post by distantcousin on May 10, 2024 9:05:04 GMT
I’m convinced this show is only 1 or 2 workshop weeks away from brilliance. They clearly fixed a huge amount in previews already. There are so few things wrong with it - but those two things have it holed below the waterline. What a frustrating shame when there’s a largely superb score, excellent performances, it looks great and the tech is smart and so well deployed. It could have struck a deep chord of empathy at this particular time, and become loved. If, like Myrtle, you saw a young person (who reminds you of yourself) killed at a moment you’re under severe work pressure, why wouldn’t that trigger feelings about dead friends, parents gone or ebbing away, and global decay and conflict? So many people would relate to and love this show for going there and exploring why we carry on and how. But it resolutely avoids broadening its vision of Myrtle’s breakdown, reducing it down to her obsessing about her age (with theatre men and a female writer goading her about it. why? She’s their global star!). Perhaps Van Hove is honouring Cassavetes’ original, but there’s so little to fix to take it to those other places - just lines of dialogue to revisit. It would also fix the lack of genuine drama (a fuzzy electric guitar under ‘the demonic bit’ doesn’t count). The ghost of Myrtle’s fan doesn’t really do anything much to mess with Myrtle - if she ‘kindly’ brought back Myrtle’s parents or a dead friend, that might finally be something that causes Myrtle to end this (a bigger rewrite). {Spoiler - click to view} But the stakes are never built up so far that a stake through the heart (or floor lamp to the neck) feels necessary.
The early earworm ‘Gotta Make Magic Out Of Tragic’ isn’t sung with the Kander/Ebb bitterness of an actress forced to dance and smile for Broadway, which seems odd when the lyrics invite that. When it’s reprised at the end all becomes disappointingly clear - we realise that Myrtle genuinely believes that's what she’s there to do [If only she’d listened to those men at the start, eh? Because none of the action of the musical has done anything to have jogged her view of life and her art] But the stakes are never built up so far that a stake through the heart (or floor lamp to the neck) feels necessary. The other big problem is that I never believed for a moment this was a real play they were performing. I sat next to someone who’d recently seen ‘Six Characters In Search Of An Author’ - the characters in that are rehearsing an actual Pirandello play ‘The Rules Of The Game’. Research 101 is for any cast to read and act ‘The Rules Of The Game’ together. Did ‘Opening Night’ at least have a synopsis for the play Myrtle is supposed to be starring in? Probably - these are a top notch production team and cast; but it didn’t feel like it. And casting as they did (excellent Nicola Hughes) what would Sarah’s writing of a White woman mean in the real world specifically now? Even if Sarah didn’t want it to mean anything heavily political the reception on a highly politicised USA writing scene (particularly around race) wouldn’t let it be light. That could have been so interesting for the two women to grapple with. I watched Nicola Hughes' character at the very end, during the scene from ‘the play’, which just felt like improv - and her expression was blank. Not a criticism - how could she show a flicker of either horror or approval when that would re-complicate what’s just been ridiculously easily resolved? The show needs to end, so her character has to just go into neutral. Perhaps more metatheatricality could break the spell instead - in the way Madame Irma at the end of Genet’s ‘The Balcony’ switches on the house lights and tells us to go home and ponder what’s real in our lives and what’s performance. That play ends, but doesn’t resolve - that’s left to us. I loved the range of Rufus Wainwright’s score - I’ll have to peruse Steve ’s analysis to revisit it all. I can’t quite fathom it, but the sensation (more than the exact sound) reminded me of ‘Evita’ - perhaps it’s just the austere, next to the gorgeously lyrical, the spiky rhythmed, and rock. A joy to hear a score that doesn’t ingratiate itself with the audience as much as we’re becoming used to - it’s not ‘cute’. There are anomalies: 3 or 4 of the loveliest songs have a 1960s/70s feel (more like something from ‘Pippin’); one I could accept as being a character in a mellow moment, trying to apply some ‘Kumabaya’ to a pressured company; but more than one and I wondered if it would be better set in the 60s/70s where the sexual politics portrayed might work. But - beautiful songs they are. Sheridan Smith makes it a privilege to watch. Yes, a few of her trademarks slip in (and the tattoos would be better covered up for this character I think), but in all other ways she really transformed and even aged up for a hard boiled (so always brittle and ready to crack) American actress. Myrtle’s final big Act II number showed Sheridan Smith as a fine singing actress; not needed, but some tones even reminiscent of Dusty Springfield. If it had run I’d have seen this again and again. I never got to see if the internet clips of the curtain call are indeed mocking the audience by being in character as feisty actors with an antipathy for their audience. That was almost completely absent last night in favour of extended choreography. The final production number is so off kilter (as others have said) it teases the audience with the ‘good time’ that too few have felt. Meta? - maybe. If this was ‘A Strange Loop’ that song might have featured earlier, in a taunting fever dream of Broadway pizzazz conjured by the impish ‘dead fan’. It’s a good song wasted. Rufus Wainwright’s comment about Brexit narrowing tastes is way off-beam for why ‘Opening Night’ closed early. There’s so much that’s inventive with storytelling structure and style in London right now - ‘Dorian Grey’, The Glass Menagerie’, ‘Blue Beard’; Van Hove’s ‘A Little Life’ was a challenging hit. The impish dead fan is a nice call back to the agent/trickster character in Van Hove’s own brilliant David Bowie musical ‘Lazarus’. Pre-brexit, but I never expected to see Sean O’Casey played in High Viz jackets, with a character dropping into an Elvis impression, but it was revelatory. London isn’t the problem. If only they’d done a ‘Martin Guerre’ and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and closed it - for a fortnight - to ask some basic questions that might just have let what’s great about it shine for longer and for more people. Agree with pretty much everything you said, and I'm glad you picked up on the issue around Sarah writing a play from a black woman's experience (or was the show "colourblind" casted - for want of a better word - thus creating this issue?) being performed by a white woman. that really clanged for me on various levels. And yes, she showed a strange lack of expression/emotion at the point it was really required/needing to be "telegraphed" to the audience.
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Post by distantcousin on May 9, 2024 8:16:50 GMT
No shade, but I'm surprised this show still sells so well. Is is still on the GCSE reading list or something?
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Post by distantcousin on May 8, 2024 14:06:42 GMT
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Post by distantcousin on May 8, 2024 10:26:42 GMT
I may well be able to attend - unless I decide to go away for the weekend. If I'm not and I'm going out with friends clubbing in THAT London on the Saturday night, then I'll definitely come along in the afternoon.
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Post by distantcousin on May 8, 2024 9:47:17 GMT
I remember when this was first announced with Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley. I said I would give my eye teeth to see them - then I saw the price of the tickets and realised forget the eye teeth, I would need to sell a kidney for decent seats. Then as it progressed and I read more, my enthusiasm waned over the weeks, months and now years. I never did get to see them, or anyone else, and now wild horses wouldn't drag me there. Funny ain't it? This is how I feel, I wish I had gone then. I have no interest in seeing Layton. THIRDED! Although I would still love to see it, but there's just never been a combination since I could bring myself to spend money on.
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Post by distantcousin on May 8, 2024 9:46:41 GMT
I hope Layton keeps the drag out of it. It’s not drag. Either way, with every cast change the idea of spending circa £200 on this becomes more preposterous. I am destined never to see it. My sentiments entirely.
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Post by distantcousin on May 7, 2024 18:22:41 GMT
Going this year, but suspect it'll be the last. It's becoming a highly elitist activity - we were very lucky to get our airbnb at the same price as last year (by going direct) everything else is up 50%. The Scottish government are hellbent on killing off the golden goose.
If the average earning performer can't afford to fund their Edinburgh run anymore, then the end is surely nigh?...
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Post by distantcousin on May 7, 2024 14:01:15 GMT
Sally Ann Triplett goes in as Schneider, but will need to wait for the next pairing to be able to see her...! Same. No way I would pay money to see Williams. I absolutely can't stand him. (And no, I didn't even watch Strictly)
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Post by distantcousin on May 3, 2024 12:13:29 GMT
I remember when Lesley Sharp did The Rise & Fall of Little Voice years ago, - my friend and I were dying to meet her (as we adore her as an actress) but I was told by the Stage Door person that she routinely left via a fire exit as she didn't like meeting people at stage door(fair enough).
Everyone else hanging around that evening were girls waiting for Diana Vickers, who was fresh off The X Factor at the time.
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Post by distantcousin on May 3, 2024 11:25:40 GMT
They do need to do something about stage door, particularly for younger audience fanperson attracting shows as this issue comes up time and time again. (Personally I’ve literally never seen the appeal but appreciate a lot of young fans seem to love it. The boundaries inevitably get blurred though for the problematic minority….) This all started with Wicked didn't it? Or was it Rent? The "Rent-heads"? Did the internet engender these sort of cultish show fanbases, even pre-social media?
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Post by distantcousin on May 2, 2024 10:25:36 GMT
[...] I loved Positive Role Model and was surprised that they swapped it out for Vocal, but I must admit that the lyrics of Vocal do work better in the show. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? They swapped out Positive Role Model? But I want a Positive Role Model!That song is so EPIC! What a finale!
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Post by distantcousin on May 1, 2024 19:11:46 GMT
I've seen two previous versions of this - the amateur premiere in Brighton about 2010 and the Union Theatre one about 10 years ago. I thought the amateur one was FAR better in every way!! Spookily I was only watching clips of the original production on youtube yesterday, as I'd been watching an interview with "Jonathan Pie" and it reminded me that he (well, Tom Walker) played Mile End Lee. He was cute back then!! SIDE NOTE: I often wished Elaine Paige had recorded Friendly Fire - would have been magnificent! Oh my God he was cute - literally never made the connection that this was the same person. Interesting fact of the day :-)
He's in this clip
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Post by distantcousin on May 1, 2024 14:07:10 GMT
I've seen two previous versions of this - the amateur premiere in Brighton about 2010 and the Union Theatre one about 10 years ago.
I thought the amateur one was FAR better in every way!!
Spookily I was only watching clips of the original production on youtube yesterday, as I'd been watching an interview with "Jonathan Pie" and it reminded me that he (well, Tom Walker) played Mile End Lee. He was cute back then!!
SIDE NOTE: I often wished Elaine Paige had recorded Friendly Fire - would have been magnificent!
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Post by distantcousin on May 1, 2024 10:19:24 GMT
Oh my God this is fabulous! Not usually one to get excited about casting, but Queen Frances Ruffelle - take (more of) my money. What a perfect fit! Glenn is an interesting choice - really wouldn't have had him down as a Straight Dave but maybe the role's been butched up lol. Anyway he can SING so another excellent choice. Not sure what you mean, because I've never heard of Glenn Adamson. Do you perceive him as more butch or less butch than how the character has been previously portrayed?!
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Post by distantcousin on May 1, 2024 10:18:02 GMT
And that Tiktoker/instagrammer, Lewbearbrown (Lewis James) who I admit can be very funny.
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 23, 2024 9:30:44 GMT
"We must address the truth that some of our beloved musicals, monumental as they are, leave legacies totally outdated to our current ideologies."
This was the viewpoint of producer James Steel, when addressing the question: are classic musicals from the 20th century fit for purpose in the 21st?
It was raised at a panel at the UK Musical Theatre Conference 2024, held at the Royal Court in London on April 12.
Alongside Steel, the panel comprised producer Joanne Benjamin, writer, actor and songwriter Anoushka Lucas and critic Andrzej Lukowski.
Steel, who thinks musicals from the 20th century are not fit for purpose today, told delegates that classic musicals were a "product of their time, clashing with today’s values and sensibilities".
He said many older musicals were "tainted by racism and misogynistic" terms.
He admitted that, even the show he is currently producing – Ushers the Front of House Musical – had become "outdated" in the 10 years since it was first staged, and changes had been required for its latest run.
He said he was more interested in "new stories about today’s society" than reviving old shows.
"Plays and musicals speaking to modern concerns not only ensure the continued relevance of theatre, but foster ongoing dialogue and growth in our industries," he insisted.
He also said older musicals should be filmed and stored in archives, to allow people to use them as a source to "look back on", rather than being restaged.
Meanwhile, Benjamin, a producer at Trafalgar Entertainment, said she believed "new musicals and revivals can work in the same environment". Trafalgar Entertainment was behind the successful revival of Anything Goes at the Barbican Theatre, in 2021 and 2022.
"Many older musicals were revolutionary in their time and still hold relevance today, and many new musicals are written in a style that hark back to the past," she said.
She argued that audiences still want to see shows from the 20th century, and that they can be introduced to other, newer musicals through these musicals.
She also highlighted how recent revivals, including Oklahoma! and Cabaret, had been made "accessible to our modern audiences" by directors who have made alterations to the scripts.
Benjamin said writers creating musicals today should be able to look at the structure of older musicals and learn from them.
"If you are a musical theatre writer you can look at the work of Berlin, Novello, Sondheim and Porter, for [examples of a] great, structured art form. Looking at the past helps you structure your own musicals," she said.
The debate also heard from critic Lukowski, who began by referring to Stephen Daldry’s production of the JB Priestley play An Inspector Calls, first staged in 1992 and still being produced today.
"Nobody is allowed to do a new production – it killed or froze An Inspector Calls as a living work of art," he said, adding: "Is it reasonable a whole generation of directorial talent won’t get a crack of it?"
He added: "My point is, what is extraordinary for a play is alarmingly normal for a musical."
He said the current musical theatre landscape was "rooted" in a handful of long-running shows "barely changed since they were first staged decades ago", such as Les Misérables and Mamma Mia!.
"It is not a question of whether they are good, but a question of what the artistic implications are for some of our most successful works of theatre remaining all but unchanged for decades on end," he said.
He said musicals from the ‘Golden Era’ were often rolled out "nostalgically" but pointed to productions such as a revival of Carousel at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2021, which he said was "not nostalgic, new and vital" because of how it was reinterpreted.
"Shakespeare plays move with the times, they are not put on because we are in a constant grip of Elizabethan nostalgia," he added.
"Having a classic production 50 years ago or 30 years ago does not make a musical classic now, but I think the industry often acts like it does. In the right hands and right team, most decent musicals can be fit for purpose. It is the 20th century we need to move on from," he said.
Lucas, who starred in Daniel Fish’s update of the musical Oklahoma!, which originally opened at the Young Vic before moving to the West End, described humans as "complicated creatures", in an address in favour of restaging musicals from the 20th century today.
"We can like and dislike commenting at the same time and that makes them interesting and useful, not bad," she said, highlighting how she had enjoyed Anything Goes with Sutton Foster, even though it was "racially confused".
She said Oklahoma! director Fish had spoken about the need to make audiences sit for "long periods of time in discomfort".
"There are respectful ways and disrespectful ways to do this, but we must allow new directors and creators to re-interrogate these texts. There is so much good in them for artists and audiences to learn about structure, music and dance and storytelling. The entire point of art is to make us deal with how imperfect and confused we are and find beauty in it," she said.
Lucas also said audiences should be trusted to be able to see shows and "sift through" what was and what was not acceptable.
"Should we stage racist, misogynistic, queer-phobic shows with no interrogation? No. But are people born in 2002 capable of sitting in an audience and dismantling misogyny from fantastically structured songs? Yes. I think we discredit audiences when we say they can’t hold the political complexities of old work," she said.
MY TAKE:
It is an interesting debate - initially it got my hackles up, mainly just because I think 20th century musicals are FAR better than anything that's been written in the 21st. But as I read on, I did think some good points were made on reinterpretations of theatrical works, by new generations. And I've never believed musicals should become museum pieces.
BUT I don't believe in b*stardising them to such a point, they disrespect the writers (even if they are dead) because they are so ludicrously removed from the original intent of the piece.
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 23, 2024 8:07:01 GMT
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 19, 2024 12:42:09 GMT
I don't get this thinking as you've had all your nostalgia too? Mamma mia, jersey boys, wwry, tonight's the night, Saturday night fever etc etc. The 00s were all about gen x nostalgia. Now we are on the elder millennial/millennial era. I think all that passed me by. I see all those as PEAK Gen X, which I came along a bit after!
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 19, 2024 11:44:13 GMT
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 19, 2024 11:26:57 GMT
I think what's happened here is exactly how I feel about the state of London theatre in general. New work like Opening Night that is (in my eyes) bold and fresh can't succeed and we have to endure rubbish like 2:22 and Heathers until the end of time. Sidenote: I read an article the other day complaining about how millennial tastes/nostalgia has a chokehold over the TV/theatre getting produced and prominence right now. Heathers, Mean Girls etc etc.
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 19, 2024 8:35:17 GMT
So overall, I found it unfocused, too many undeveloped threads. It was an incredibly frustrating piece, as there was a lot of interesting stuff in there.
I didn't really like the music at all - not my style, and not immediate enough for musical theatre.
It felt like a work in progress - the type of show I've seen at Edinburgh Fringe, but on a big budget.
Sheridan was solid, but miscast. She didn't for once convince me that she was playing a huge American star. The piece needed an actor with the megawatt star aura of a Nicole Scherzinger or similar for the whole thing to hang together more convincingly. She excelled in the quieter emotional scenes, but I didn't buy her as 'Myrtle, the massive celebrity'.
I found the open set and cast moving around distracting and fussy.
As others have commented, it was tonally all over the place, almost cringingly so at times, Veering from subtle to overblown from one song to another.
There were lots of lovely and beautiful moments, but it didn't hang together for me.
I've read all the reviews now and I can equally see why some gave it 4 stars and some gave it one.
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 19, 2024 7:47:33 GMT
Same. I saw it in the 2000's. I think with Kerry Ellis as Nancy. Can't even remember who played Fagin. Went to see what all the fuss was about. Got a day ticket from Leicester Square - ah, happy days of that. Thought the show was fine. Nothing bad about it. But it didn't move me. It entertained me on a basic level. Didn't hate it. Did it leave me thinking about it? No. Was that off the back of “Search for a Nancy” or whatever the BBC program was called? It was Jody Prenger but I saw Kerry Ellis too. I think it was Rowan Atkinson? Unless I’m getting my productions confused. Yes, you're right - it was Rowan.
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 18, 2024 21:57:35 GMT
For anyone keen to catch the outdoor scene, it occurred at 21:47 last night. You had to laugh at the footage of punters entering Broadway's "Orpheum Theatre" for the opening night, replete with black cabs and red double-deckers, all driving on the left. I guess no more suspension of disbelief required than when listening to some of the on-stage accents. I did wonder why van Hove didn't simply make everyone British and have the Gielgud play itself. Exactly what I felt. It would have gelled far better being set in the West End
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Post by distantcousin on Apr 18, 2024 21:43:02 GMT
I like the curtain call - fun that it's something a bit different 🤷🏻♂️ I found it absolutely cringe and just too out of place/tone to the rest of the show
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