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Post by loureviews on Apr 20, 2018 8:38:05 GMT
Yes I saw Su in a 60's musical shout a while back and she had the best voice in it. Exactly. She sang You're My World if I remember correctly.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 19, 2018 16:02:55 GMT
It's really excellent.
Su Pollard is a fantastic singer.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 13, 2018 19:10:10 GMT
We're going to see Suzanne Vega. I really like the venue for concerts having seen Marianne Faithful, Liza Minnelli, Randy Newman, Chrissie Hynde, Christy Moore, kd lang, the Human League and others there on previous occasions.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 13, 2018 16:33:37 GMT
Yes Prof that was in the 50s TV days on Armchair Theatre. As it was live TV it was a case of shuffling the poor chaps lines and telling the cast once they were off air. A play called Underground and actor Gareth Jones.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 12, 2018 17:40:28 GMT
I see that the RSC have decided to stick an interval in this production. Current running time is 135mins + interval This would be normal. No? I’ve never seen a Macbeth with no interval. Royal Exchange Manchester back in the 90s ran straight through. As it was set in a concentration camp it made it very intense - and claustrophobic in that space.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 12, 2018 17:37:48 GMT
Just read about Alex Beckett. No age at all. How very sad.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 12, 2018 7:29:40 GMT
Looks very promising based on that clip.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 11, 2018 18:36:30 GMT
Why is everyone suddenly so sniffy about our homegrown West End theatre awards?
The Tonys are for Broadway.
They are both equally valid - unless we all subscribe to the view that unless its American it has no real value.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 11, 2018 18:32:08 GMT
Henry Pordes on Charing Cross Road sometimes has gems. But nothing like the good old days when you could browse in and out of shops there all day.
I have done well in charity shops but you have to be patient. Turnham Green Oxfam bookshop for one. Teddington has a handful of good second hand shops which sometimes have decent theatre coverage.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 11, 2018 11:46:04 GMT
For me it was Slow Train. That's when Shirley Henderson's character came to life and it was lovely. Just a great performance end to end in a tricky role.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 11, 2018 6:31:19 GMT
I stand firmly by my stance that it's a play with music, but that doesn't mean I'm not hugely entertained by their having a nominee for Best Actor in a Musical, and it's a man who doesn't sing at all in the show (that I remember, maybe he's in a full company number or two?)! Ciaran does not sing in any of the numbers.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 13:01:05 GMT
(Has it occurred to you that maybe you're both right, and possibly that's part of the reason why it's the title? ) Absolutely!
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 12:58:56 GMT
Bat Boy Rockula Marlene Pal Joey Camelot Damn Yankees Flower Drum Song Salad Days
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 12:36:02 GMT
My thoughts, ported over from my blog: The soprano of the title (not moderate as in average, but as in gentle of voice) is John’s wife, Audrey, played by Nancy Carroll, and we meet both of them in the first scene after the Second World War, when their enterprise is to be taken under the control of a Trust, ‘for the people’. ---- I thought she was moderate as in average - there was a lot about how she wasn't quite good enough to be an opera star. Quote directly from the play!
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 6:48:01 GMT
I'm going to the Thursday matinee in Wimbledon and I've noticed that it's a double Wednesday-double Thursday week as opposed to a Monday evening performance. Just checking there's no chance Ria will miss a matinee because of this is there? I wouldn't have thought so, she seems to have been an absolute trooper so far on tour but just checking! I'm going on Saturday. Hope Ria is doing the matinee!
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 6:43:55 GMT
My thoughts, ported over from my blog:
There is no singing, operatic or otherwise, in The Moderate Soprano, which returns to the stage following a sell-out run at Hampstead three years ago.
There is Roger Allam in a curiously bad wig (and at one point, lederhosen) as the eccentric John Christie, who made his fortune from building and decided his destiny was to build an opera house in his garden – which became Glyndebourne, England’s answer to Bayreuth.
The soprano of the title (not moderate as in average, but as in gentle of voice) is John’s wife, Audrey, played by Nancy Carroll, and we meet both of them in the first scene after the Second World War, when their enterprise is to be taken under the control of a Trust, ‘for the people’.
We then go back to see how Glyndebourne came to be, by the tenacity and naivete of Christie, and the help of three refugees from the Nazis: Rudolf Bing, Carl Ebert, and Franz Busch. So a truly English institution was modelled on the German model by three specialists in the production of Mozart.
There are hints and glimpses of politics pre-war, and these are done well, but they feel a bit lost in what is essentially a light comedy, and David Hare’s play, now split into two Acts with an interval, could do with an additional trim to stop the action dragging to a stop.
Paul Jesson, a stalwart of the RSC who I last saw playing Henry VIII at Stratford-upon-Avon, is Busch, a conductor who fell foul of promoting Jews above Gentiles for their talent in his opera house in Dresden, who was driven out after his orchestra took to wearing swastikas on their lapels.
Anthony Calf (best known perhaps, as Strickland in New Tricks) is Ebert, engaging with the Christies in characteristic Teutonic arrogance, and his assistant Bing is played by the very mannered Jacob Fortune-Lloyd.
The play is complex, but I felt it did not entirely convince. The performances are broadly good (especially Allam, who gets to the core of the character and Jesson, who convinces as a man displaced and somewhat befuddled by political progress), but there is something missing, and the decline in health of both the Christies is not fully explained, or the fact the private enterprise seems to decline during wartime.
I was also a little disappointed with the frugality of the sets and backdrops, and the dig within the script to people prepared to pay high prices to watch opera (which is also true, these days, of London theatre).
Just a reasonable two hours of theatre, not unmissable by any means, and not an obvious candidate to see out its full run to the end of June; it probably suited the small space of the Hampstead Theatre far better.
----
Incidentally I didn't mention but Jesson required a prompt which could clearly be heard in front stalls - a first for me to see at a professional production.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 6:39:54 GMT
Really pleased for Shirley Henderson. She was fantastic in GFTNC.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 6:37:37 GMT
So glad Jamie got nothing What a horrid thing to write. Don't give him the satisfaction. It's a great show with hard-working young performers I'm sure we will see winning awards in the future.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 6:33:05 GMT
Network’s technical wizardry made Cranston’s performance. On its own it was perfectly solid but aimed more at the screen than the back of the auditorium. It didn’t really fill the space when needed, maybe it looked better in the front stalls. I disagree. Saw it from the circle and he was terrific in a difficult role. A well-deserved win.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 7, 2018 8:58:27 GMT
And My Fair Lady with Tom Conti as Higgins. That was great, haven't heard since it was first broadcast.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 6, 2018 17:43:04 GMT
I'm going to see this tomorrow. I've just seen a picture of the Allam wig
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Post by loureviews on Mar 31, 2018 8:44:26 GMT
This was a good one if memory serves.
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Post by loureviews on Mar 31, 2018 8:42:02 GMT
Done all of them:
Charing Cross - former Jubilee platforms, focus on modern uses/filming
Euston - tunnels and lots of 60s posters, really enjoyed
Down Street - pricey but atmospheric, you have to use your imagination a lot though
55 Broadway - superb Art Deco architecture
Highgate - peek into the bat tunnel, see the thwarted plans for the Northern Heights
Clapham South - another one which requires imagination but rather interesting
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Post by loureviews on Mar 30, 2018 19:09:20 GMT
Missed this first time round - thanks for flagging!
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Post by loureviews on Mar 24, 2018 10:08:15 GMT
Judi Dench in the taped production of the RSC Macbeth. Tears and snot.
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Post by loureviews on Mar 20, 2018 7:56:24 GMT
David Essex production for me, awful !!! He broke out of character a few times to do the whole 'knowing' wink I'm David Essex thing to the ladies in the audience.....but I hated the show regardless. Yeah when I saw it the theatre was full of 'older' women who whistled and cheered when he came on stage When I saw it at High Wycombe some of his 'fans' were loudly muttering that he 'wasn't in it'. To be fair this was from the circle and they may have simply needed to put their glasses on!
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Chess
Mar 20, 2018 7:51:46 GMT
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Post by loureviews on Mar 20, 2018 7:51:46 GMT
I have been listening to the recording made at the Royal Albert Hall in 2008 and hope the orchestra at the ENO will be up to same standard. Groban and Menzel's voices complemented each other. I hope that will happen with our singers here too. Wish we had Bedella as Molokov. Menzel was too shrill for my taste tbh. But a good production in the main and I really liked Groban in it.
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Chess
Mar 20, 2018 7:50:20 GMT
via mobile
Post by loureviews on Mar 20, 2018 7:50:20 GMT
Alexandra Burke on The One Show: "There's no acting in Chess, just singing" Oh for ...
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Post by loureviews on Mar 20, 2018 7:43:42 GMT
I have never known a theatre to be named after a choreographer and a lady, but there are always firsts and this is well deserved too, nice to name the New London Theatre, where Gillian had tremendous success with Cats. Cannot say I saw this announcement coming. There’s an existing theatre in London named after a woman, there may be more actually but I immediately thought of one. I’ll leave it as a quiz question. I mean a specific named woman, I’m not accepting Queens Theatre etc. The Questors in Ealing has the Judi Dench Playhouse as its main auditorium.
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Post by loureviews on Mar 14, 2018 7:40:55 GMT
Lovely gesture and well deserved for Ms Lynne.
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