(no subject)
So this is DEFINITELY the year I finally go and see something at the Chichester Festival... and when I say something I mean Guys & Dolls because:
(also I would like to see Gypsy with Imelda Staunton as Mama Rose AND I would quite like to see Amadeus but I think we'll see because Chichester really IS a ridiculous place to get to and I might already be seeing quite a lot of theatre including one definite Stratford trip and another potential also this is the year of ALL the cons also the year of the TdF being back in the Uk so... yes)
*stops rambling*
Alright, let's do some short & fun reviews of things that I might be able to resist the urge to write essays about *doesn't look at non-existent Sam Wanamaker Playhouse reviews*
Tell Me On a Sunday @ St James Theatre
First things first- I'd have enjoyed this evening (back in January) a whole lot more if it really had been just Tell Me on a Sunday and they hadn't felt the need to add a first act of random songs from "upcoming musicals"! The two singers & two dancers were all very good but they managed to make songs from Once, Urinetown, Bonnie & Clyde and... something else I now can't remember all sound both dull and as if they came from the same show which is clearly ridiculous!
Seeing Marti Webb sing Tell Me on a Sunday was worth it though ♥ I mean yes she's clearly too old for the role now and there were some very knowing looks and some laughs in places you wouldn't usually get them but I love this show (in all the various versions I've heard recordings of it) and I had such a wave of nostalgic love when watching it plus it's funny and clever and I love the songs and I'd forgotten just how much that's true!
The original Tell Me on a Sunday doesn't actually include Unexpected Song (though it does have all my other favourites like the various It's Not the End of the World and Take That Look Off Your Face and of course the title song which always makes me want to cry) so she sang it as an encore instead ♥
This was my first time in the theatre part of the St James and it's a nicely designed modern theatre and we could see & hear everything and my only real problem was that silly first half. Marti Webb was a class act and I'm so glad we went.
Putting it Together @St James Theatre
This was only a week after Tell Me on a Sunday so having added a new theatre I cemented my relationship with it :-P
And I do love Sondheim ♥ plus how can you resist a show with a cast like this: David Bedella, Daniel Crossley, Janie Dee, Damian Humbley and Caroline Sheen.
(side note- Damian Humbley was in Merrily We Roll Along last year as Charley and he was amazing but when I said this to my Mum & N they actually laughed at me and told me not to be ridiculous he was clearly a different person *scowls* he looked a little different maybe but I have no clue how they didn't recognise his voice!)
I adore David Bedella usually but oddly I'd say he might have been the weakest here but I think it's because some of the songs weren't entirely in his natural range? IDK a weak David Bedella is still SO much better than a lot of musical theatre people though and he was having a stupid amount of fun especially in Hello Little Girl <3
Damian Humbley basically made me desperately want to see him in Company <3 also everything ever because his voice is stunning (again HOW did they not recognise him?), Caroline Sheen was sweet and funny and kept up with a pretty high powered cast and Daniel Crossley has brilliant comic timing which was particularly obvious when he & Janie Dee did Everybody Ought to Have a Maid and that brings me to a thing- Janie Dee was amazing.
I mean.. no she was just amazing. My Husband the Pig/ Every Day a Little Death was perfect and I have never heard anyone sing Ladies Who Lunch quite like she does but then they did Marry Me A Little which I've now heard three times live and each time I've said THIS one's the best but they've been so different and all so wonderful ♥ I could watch Janie Dee for hours is basically the take home message.
Also I need a recording of Putting it Together.
One more review? Let's do the other musical I've seen.
From Here To Eternity @ Shaftesbury Theatre
What to say about From Here To Eternity? Donna found us cheap tickets or I think I'd never have gone and I'm glad I did go and really it's a pretty good show. I've never actually seen the film but the show has some good (if generally unmemorable) songs and the cast were all perfectly reasonable and the sets were clever and... the whole thing felt lacking somewhere? Though each individual element worked.
IDK maybe I expect too much of big musicals because I resent the ticket prices :-P
The main four cast Darius Campbell, Rebecca Thornhill, Siubhan Harrison and Robert Lonsdale are all attractive and have great voices and I was pretty invested in the characters (although I don't know that Robert Lonsdale quite sold Prewitt's angst enough that it excused some of the stupider things he did).
Mostly I just wanted more Ryan Sampson (Private Angelo Maggio) and not knowing the film spent a fair amount of time dreading the inevitable (but it might not have been!) plus of course the whole storyline with Private Isaac Bloom which... jewish and gay and kind of the bad guy and :-|
Actually that may well be why I have this lingering not so great feeling about the show, that whole storyline makes me sideeye so hard though Joshua Lacey did a great job with it.
And having said the songs are unmemorable I should admit that, whilst writing this, the main Boys of G Company song has taken up lodgings in my brain.
It's certainly a LONG way off the worst show I've seen and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected too but I'm not really surprised it closed early sad though it is for the cast.
- Jamie Parker as Sky Masterson
- Clare Foster as Sarah Brown
- Peter Polycarpou as Nathan Detroit
- Sophie Thompson as Miss Adelaide
- Choreography by Carlos Acosta!
(also I would like to see Gypsy with Imelda Staunton as Mama Rose AND I would quite like to see Amadeus but I think we'll see because Chichester really IS a ridiculous place to get to and I might already be seeing quite a lot of theatre including one definite Stratford trip and another potential also this is the year of ALL the cons also the year of the TdF being back in the Uk so... yes)
*stops rambling*
Alright, let's do some short & fun reviews of things that I might be able to resist the urge to write essays about *doesn't look at non-existent Sam Wanamaker Playhouse reviews*
Tell Me On a Sunday @ St James Theatre
First things first- I'd have enjoyed this evening (back in January) a whole lot more if it really had been just Tell Me on a Sunday and they hadn't felt the need to add a first act of random songs from "upcoming musicals"! The two singers & two dancers were all very good but they managed to make songs from Once, Urinetown, Bonnie & Clyde and... something else I now can't remember all sound both dull and as if they came from the same show which is clearly ridiculous!
Seeing Marti Webb sing Tell Me on a Sunday was worth it though ♥ I mean yes she's clearly too old for the role now and there were some very knowing looks and some laughs in places you wouldn't usually get them but I love this show (in all the various versions I've heard recordings of it) and I had such a wave of nostalgic love when watching it plus it's funny and clever and I love the songs and I'd forgotten just how much that's true!
The original Tell Me on a Sunday doesn't actually include Unexpected Song (though it does have all my other favourites like the various It's Not the End of the World and Take That Look Off Your Face and of course the title song which always makes me want to cry) so she sang it as an encore instead ♥
This was my first time in the theatre part of the St James and it's a nicely designed modern theatre and we could see & hear everything and my only real problem was that silly first half. Marti Webb was a class act and I'm so glad we went.
Putting it Together @St James Theatre
This was only a week after Tell Me on a Sunday so having added a new theatre I cemented my relationship with it :-P
And I do love Sondheim ♥ plus how can you resist a show with a cast like this: David Bedella, Daniel Crossley, Janie Dee, Damian Humbley and Caroline Sheen.
(side note- Damian Humbley was in Merrily We Roll Along last year as Charley and he was amazing but when I said this to my Mum & N they actually laughed at me and told me not to be ridiculous he was clearly a different person *scowls* he looked a little different maybe but I have no clue how they didn't recognise his voice!)
I adore David Bedella usually but oddly I'd say he might have been the weakest here but I think it's because some of the songs weren't entirely in his natural range? IDK a weak David Bedella is still SO much better than a lot of musical theatre people though and he was having a stupid amount of fun especially in Hello Little Girl <3
Damian Humbley basically made me desperately want to see him in Company <3 also everything ever because his voice is stunning (again HOW did they not recognise him?), Caroline Sheen was sweet and funny and kept up with a pretty high powered cast and Daniel Crossley has brilliant comic timing which was particularly obvious when he & Janie Dee did Everybody Ought to Have a Maid and that brings me to a thing- Janie Dee was amazing.
I mean.. no she was just amazing. My Husband the Pig/ Every Day a Little Death was perfect and I have never heard anyone sing Ladies Who Lunch quite like she does but then they did Marry Me A Little which I've now heard three times live and each time I've said THIS one's the best but they've been so different and all so wonderful ♥ I could watch Janie Dee for hours is basically the take home message.
Also I need a recording of Putting it Together.
One more review? Let's do the other musical I've seen.
From Here To Eternity @ Shaftesbury Theatre
What to say about From Here To Eternity? Donna found us cheap tickets or I think I'd never have gone and I'm glad I did go and really it's a pretty good show. I've never actually seen the film but the show has some good (if generally unmemorable) songs and the cast were all perfectly reasonable and the sets were clever and... the whole thing felt lacking somewhere? Though each individual element worked.
IDK maybe I expect too much of big musicals because I resent the ticket prices :-P
The main four cast Darius Campbell, Rebecca Thornhill, Siubhan Harrison and Robert Lonsdale are all attractive and have great voices and I was pretty invested in the characters (although I don't know that Robert Lonsdale quite sold Prewitt's angst enough that it excused some of the stupider things he did).
Mostly I just wanted more Ryan Sampson (Private Angelo Maggio) and not knowing the film spent a fair amount of time dreading the inevitable (but it might not have been!) plus of course the whole storyline with Private Isaac Bloom which... jewish and gay and kind of the bad guy and :-|
Actually that may well be why I have this lingering not so great feeling about the show, that whole storyline makes me sideeye so hard though Joshua Lacey did a great job with it.
And having said the songs are unmemorable I should admit that, whilst writing this, the main Boys of G Company song has taken up lodgings in my brain.
It's certainly a LONG way off the worst show I've seen and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected too but I'm not really surprised it closed early sad though it is for the cast.