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Post by loureviews on Mar 13, 2018 11:58:20 GMT
Some titles round my house:
John Gielgud - An Actor and his Time The Guys and Dolls Book Antony Sher - Year of the King Frederick Nolan - The Sound of their Music (Rodgers and Hammerstein) Oliver Ford Davies - Playing Lear Noel and Cole: the Sophisticates Britain's National Theatre MacQueen Pope - The Footlights Flickered Alan Jay Lerner - The Musical Theatre The Lost Theatres of London
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Post by loureviews on Mar 13, 2018 9:55:00 GMT
Possibly, Phantom. It isn't narrated as such but does make much of what the characters reflect on from the past.
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Post by loureviews on Mar 11, 2018 16:08:38 GMT
This is so awful
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Company
Mar 9, 2018 16:15:33 GMT
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Post by loureviews on Mar 9, 2018 16:15:33 GMT
I take it the matinee on the 13th is still on, the weekend before the revised first night?
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617 posts
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Post by loureviews on Mar 1, 2018 22:34:56 GMT
I live in West London now, 25 min on the train into central Theatreland. Previously lived in Leeds so did theatregoing there as well as Sheffield, Bradford, York and Harrogate. Was born in Oldham so the rep and various theatres in Manchester plus Ashton's Tameside were my first shows.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 23, 2018 7:43:04 GMT
The theatre is beautiful, listed and has a lot of history behind it. And once you allow one demolition ...
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Post by loureviews on Feb 20, 2018 17:44:43 GMT
Two pursed-lipped women behind us at the Patrick Stewart Macbeth a few years ago, before curtain up. "This is the sort of thing he should be doing, not all that sci-fi and fantasy nonsense." As opposed to, of course, what he chooses to do. Indeed - if Sir Pat wants to play a poo emoji, who are we to judge ...?!
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Post by loureviews on Feb 20, 2018 7:45:31 GMT
People would not want to hand coats in if it was mandatory. How could you get 1,500 coats back at larger venues, people have transport to catch, parking booked for only certain amounts. What about parties of older people who may not be able to stand to wait for coats, school parties. If you had any exceptions then I'd just argue it was discrimination if I wasn't allowed an exception. Not to mention some draughty theatres where you have to keep your coat on (yes, Duke of York's, I'm looking at you).
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617 posts
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Chess
Feb 19, 2018 16:51:00 GMT
Post by loureviews on Feb 19, 2018 16:51:00 GMT
Am I the only one really excited about old Murray being in this?
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Post by loureviews on Feb 18, 2018 21:08:07 GMT
The chair in Phantom.
The barricade in Les Mis.
Macbeth at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, with water featured throughout. It was amazing.
Chitty's car!
Miss Saigon's helicopter in the original production.
And War Horse, foal to horse, of course.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 18, 2018 10:52:13 GMT
Miss Quentin is playing the Duchess I presume. She has a great voice, even if it isn't much if a singing part. It's great to see both Joanna Riding and Gary Willmott together in Flowers For Mrs Harris. I'm pretty sure they played opposite each other in Me and My Girl! They did indeed. Lots of fun, that production.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 17, 2018 19:26:39 GMT
I saw Ruthie in that awful Follies concert and her vocals were frankly alarming. She was better in Billy Elliot, but she has ruined her voice playing soprano roles too high for her for years. A good thing about Chicago is that it has been stunt-cast for so long that at this point no new performer who steps in can be the worst. Honestly, her voice was fine in Follies. No idea where all this gossip about her voice being ruined had come from. She's not in her 20s now so she's bound to have changed/matured.
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617 posts
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Chess
Feb 17, 2018 10:24:31 GMT
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Post by loureviews on Feb 17, 2018 10:24:31 GMT
I sat in balcony for Sweeney Todd. They built the stage over the orchestra pit and the musical was mainly played to the front of the stage. Couldn't see anything. Theatre apologised and said they only knew this was going to happen when they constructed stage and set. I hope you got your money back.
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617 posts
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Chess
Feb 16, 2018 7:23:27 GMT
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Post by loureviews on Feb 16, 2018 7:23:27 GMT
There are currently loads of tickets available. Maybe the casting confirmation will give the production a kick.
And wasn't Bjorn Skifs the original Arbiter in the WE cast?
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Post by loureviews on Feb 14, 2018 21:59:29 GMT
Michael Ball was great and unrecognisable in Sweeney Todd, and can certainly sing Anthem! Have seen him years back too in Sondheim’s Passion, and he can act. I’m looking forward to it. Too old though.
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Chess
Feb 13, 2018 13:07:38 GMT
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Post by loureviews on Feb 13, 2018 13:07:38 GMT
Murray Head is 71. 71. Why don't they just bite the bullet and bring back Page and Korberg. Seeing the original cast would sell more tickets. Good lord I suppose he must be. But he might surprise us by still having the voice (they might even have considered giving him a rerun as Freddie!). It's not impossible - think of Ted Neeley still doing JCS into his 70s.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 12, 2018 21:49:00 GMT
If there's no Quast I'm not interested. I saw him play Ben. If that was his last musical theatre role it left me very happy.
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Chess
Feb 12, 2018 21:46:25 GMT
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Post by loureviews on Feb 12, 2018 21:46:25 GMT
Rumour mill on Facebook is saying: Tim Howar as Freddie Michael Ball as Anatoly Alexandra Burke as Svetlana Cassidy Janson as Florence Murray Head as The Arbiter Quite how true though, lol. Alexandra Burke??? Who turned them down? Michael Ball is far too old for Anatoly IMO. Murray Head though, I like that idea. And Tim Howar has the rock chops. Cassidy? Maybe.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 12, 2018 21:23:34 GMT
My review:
Eugene O’Neill’s semi-autobiographical play comes to the West End in another lengthy production, this time starring Jeremy Irons as ageing actor James Tyrone, and Lesley Manville as his morphine-addicted wife, Mary.
A claustrophobic set lined with books and lights moves the plot forward as first, we see Mary Tyrone in recovery, happy and calm, but soon realise she is in her own reality of dope heaven (or hell). In Manville’s hands the role takes on both the fierceness and deceit of an addict, along with the weakness of the wife and mother who ‘once fell in love with James Tyrone, and was so happy’.
Irons is a theatrical Tyrone, every inch an actor and never a glimpse into the real man. He baits his sons – the shiftless Jamie (Rory Keenan) and the consumptive Edmund (Matthew Beard) – and yet can’t control even the level of whisky in the bottle he keeps on the table. He sees the girl within his wife, but can’t reach her.
The twisting hands, the trailing wedding dress, the lying on the bed with eyes open, the drifting, the drinking, the moments where just for a minute or two Mary Tyrone is happy again. It’s all about her, and the moments where Manville is absent from the stage drag, just a little, in a heart to heart between Irons and Beard where the latter just can’t catch the tragedy of the character.
Keenan, though, is good, filled with self-loathing and self-destruction, on a spiral of disappointment by seeing addiction and disgust all around him. He has his father’s name and perhaps, his weakness too. There’s nothing but a downward spiral for all of them, in this raw and broken world where everyone lies and no one can face what’s really going on around them.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 11, 2018 12:11:20 GMT
I do feel like I'm feeding the troll a bit but ... seriously? You saw and heard nothing good about it?
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Post by loureviews on Feb 10, 2018 20:37:36 GMT
How does this compare with the Suchet production? Jeremy Irons doesn't shout as much and I found him a lot more responsive and sympathetic. A better production all round, really.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 10, 2018 20:36:22 GMT
I just happened to walk along that passageway between the Wyndham's and the Noel Coward Theatres yesterday teatime. It looked like a film/tv crew had been doing something at the former. They had so much equipment, it seems unlikely they were filming a 90 second piece for the local news. Does anyone know what was going on? Andrew Marr show tomorrow.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 10, 2018 20:35:44 GMT
Lesley Manville was terrific in this. On the Oscars, wouldn't it be fun if she and Gary Oldman both won so she could say at the photocall 'big mistake, leaving me for Uma ...'
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Post by loureviews on Feb 10, 2018 10:13:07 GMT
You can have both ...
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Post by loureviews on Feb 9, 2018 18:05:06 GMT
Booked - Jonathan AND Eileen
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Post by loureviews on Feb 9, 2018 13:32:36 GMT
What a boring box-set. I was expecting far more obscure recordings for this release, we all know they are out there, and done professionally, too (like the concept recording for Cats).
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Post by loureviews on Feb 9, 2018 10:11:50 GMT
I'm in the Royal Circle. Wouldn't miss this one for the world.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 8, 2018 21:13:35 GMT
My review:
Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots were both of the same Royal blood, both anointed monarchs, and both passionate.
This production plays with the similarities and differences between the Queens by having both leading actresses playing one or the other parts on the toss of a coin.
Yesterday afternoon Lia Williams played Mary and Juliet Stevenson was Elizabeth. Mary was quick, impulsive, frustrated, and every inch a queen even when imprisoned in bare walls.
Elizabeth is proud and aloof, commanding her courtiers with a click and primping her appearance with a compact mirror. A public virgin she privately romps with the duplicitous Leicester (John Light) while toying with a promise of marriage from France.
Mary, though, three times a wife, a mother, a lover. Also with Leicester, which may be her downfall, and his. She seethes at her treatment and long imprisonment when seeking asylum – this play is on the side of her innocence – but equally she seeks Elizabeth’s acknowledgement as an equal.
The meeting never happened in history but here it works well within the machinations of state and politics. Stevenson’s Elizabeth is imperious enough to recover quickly following the shock of seeing the woman who has plagued her and caused her endless worry standing before her in the garden at Fotheringay.
Mary’s gamble, hoping for the mercy of another monarch, causes her to move quickly towards execution; a misfire in which Elizabeth’s pride is worked on by a weasley Burleigh, despite the best efforts of a sympathetic yet tradition-bound Talbot (a very strong performance from Michael Byrne).
The slight amusement of early scenes evaporates in Act Four as Mary’s fate is sealed and her execution looms. A Catholic, she is allowed her last communion and to walk to the block in the company of her nurse (Carmen Munroe).
The scene where Elizabeth is garbed in her white face, boned corset and dress, pearls, ruff and wig, is juxtaposed with Mary reduced to a simple shift, majesty removed but morally victorious. It’s an emotional piece which is riveting and accompanied by a new song by Laura Marling.
Robert Icke directs Friedrich Schiller’s play, in a sparse set with modern dressed characters, an explosive script, and two very strong women who are closer together than they might think.
Mary gains a strange sense of freedom while Elizabeth remains uneasy and trapped with the guilt of her regicide. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, indeed.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 7, 2018 21:37:14 GMT
I think they should let one of the audience toss the coin instead to see if Lia and Juliet really don't know who is playing Mary and who is playing Betsy until the beginning of the show. Well you see the coin spun in real time but ... how do we know which role is heads and which is tails?
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Post by loureviews on Feb 7, 2018 18:12:38 GMT
I loved this - Lia as Mary, Juliet as Elizabeth this afternoon.
No creaking from the revolve.
John Light always plays John Light. But he's OK in this. Thought Michael Byrne was excellent.
Very moving final scenes.
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