Profile for algy

I mean it's not like this is an off-West End production - it's a 1,000 seat theatre and productions there are eligible for all the big awards. It's selling well too - I bought a ticket to see it next month because I've never see a Wildhorn musical despite having read all of the chat about them since about 2002 (I didn't make it to Wonderland at Leicester) and it was selling well enough to for me to decide that there weren't going to be many/any discounts or papering. I was regretting my choic...

Play Esq. said: "Really curious to see pictures of the set. The RSC isn’t know to be chintzy. I gather they have their sights set for the West End."I think they're hoping it'll be another revenue stream for them to help subsidise the other stuff. They got royalties for Les Mis in the West End for decades and it helped them have a strategic reserve, start the streaming broadcasts and do education stuff. There was a kerfuffle when Cam Mac did the restaging in 2019 which stopped that. They still...

I'm in the UK so I didn't see any of them - but I was very much hanging around on here when they all happened and I remember it being a lot of discourse and is probably where a lot of what I know about Wildhorn and his oeuvre came from!

It sort of fascinates me how different the Rocky culture is in the US vs the UK (where I am). Here we don't really have the midnight showings of the movie, but we have had touring productions of this show in theatres for decades - it was definitely touring when I was at school in the 90s, I think off the back of the Anthony Stewart Head-as-Frank West End Revival in 90/91. I saw it for the first time with David Bedella as Frank in 2006 (I saw that production a couple of times in various places...

I just listened to the preview of the audio book on audible - hoping to hear how it sounds after all the chat here but the sample covers the dedication and then four and a half minutes of Feinstein reading the introduction. So that's not much help at all!My signed copy arrived at home yesterday - but I'm not back until later in the week. My other half opened it and had a look and said that it didn't look like it was printed in, but that was as far as he would commit himself.I have strongly mi...

lilpunkin said:That was Katy Stephens, not Kate Fleetwood. Kate Fleetwood just finished starring in the West End “My Master Builder” (new play loosely inspired by the Ibsen), which she absolutely stole from the rest of the cast."I absolutely stand corrected - didn't check my programme before I typed and I just remembered "Unexpected Kate/y" and clearly had it confused in my head with all the master builer posters I had seen on the tube! Totally my bad.

altonido said: "Kate Fleetwood handled several big numbers well when she played another witch,Cruella de Vil, in the "101 Dalmations" musical at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in 2022."I saw her a couple of weeks ago as Jadis/The White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when the tour stopped in at Sadlers wells and she was good in the role, although strangely I can't remember how much singing she had to do! It is a show with songs though so there was definitely some singing involved.

The National Theatre is bringing it's adaptation of Ballet Shoes back this Christmas - I saw it earlier in the year and thought it was a really good show as well as being a clever adaptation of the original property. They've done some simplification and a little light updating and the fossil inspired set is just lovely too. I'm really glad to see it back - it's a much better Christmas offer than Hex was there a few years back.In Panto terms the Palladium panto is back again this year - Nigel ...

Jordan Catalano said: "The last production I saw last year in London last year starred two actors in their 70's (who were great) but did seem too old for it, which is just where my head was at thinking about ages for a new revival."I saw this one too - and I thought not only did they seem too old for it, but the new partners were too young for them - the final scene that culminates in them sneaking out again felt more like parents and children than anything else.I preferred the Donmar Warehou...

I don't know that lines is always an age thing - more than a lack of prep/underestimating prep.I saw Maggie Smith in her final theatre role - in A German Life, which was a solo show that was basically an extended monologue (just over 90 minutes, no interval) and she was mesmerising to the point that I didn't notice that the seat that she was in was moving forward and the rest of the set was receding as the show continued for quite a long time. She was in her early 80s. It was over a decade si...

Jordan Catalano said: "When the space is used as a traditional theater setting, it’s a decently sized stage. You can see what that looks like in this video of MERRILY from 2013.Merrily We Roll Along"I hate to be that person, but I think that Merrily recording is of the West End Transfer of the Menier Production - and was filmed at the Harold Pinter, not the actual Chocolate Factory. (which I'm off to next week to see The Baker's Wife)

I saw the last London revival (or at least I think it's the last London one) at the Old Vic with Hannah Waddingham - which was a lot of fun. Am off to this in a couple of weeks, mostly to see Stephanie Block in my quest to see the Broadway names when they come to London to tick them off my list! Only bought the tickets yesterday - they were running an offer although actually mine weren't discounted, they were just the cheapest!

I saw this in Leicester when it premiered with Ovenden and this score - and my major problem with the show was that the music was forgetable. I've gone back to my theatre book with my review (for my own benefit) from the time and this my first paragraph: "This needs work. The staging is great, nice projections, a couple of big set pieces (that don't get used enough) and the cast give it their all. Julian Ovenden's beautiful voice is wasted on the forgetable songs. None of them stuck in my hea...

I tried on the website for an hour - with various of the problems (no link to the tickets, no date to select, timing out etc) then did 15 minutes on hold before I decided that I was only 30 minutes away from the theatre and headed down - I got there just under the priority booking wire at about 11.55 and got two upper circle seats - initially was offered A14&A15 - but in the time it took the man to tell me that, they were gone - so we're in D. Feeling very, very lucky although I found the pro...

I'll admit to being perplexed by the reviews that this got - I saw it with a friend a few weeks back and was totally bored by it. The book needed a lot of work, the characters were unsympathetic (and the night we went 3 of the main actors were out), the music was forgetable and we were unsurprised that it had failed to find an audience. I was so disappointed, because it was a proper new show not a jukebox thing. I'd be interested to see how they change it for Broadway (I've no clue if I saw t...

It's so hard to pick out a favourite theatre memory, but I guess one that stands out in my mind is my first trip to see a West End musical (I'm in the UK, and I understand if this excludes me - but I'm sharing anyway!) - when I went to see Cats at the New London when I was around 9 years old. I don't think I shut my mouth from beginning to end and spent the next 6 months pretending to be either The Rum Tum Tugger or Mr Mistofelees (My sister and I alternated roles!) and dancing around the sit...

Re Spiderman - I live in London and I had a email blast from one of the theatre groups here offering me discount on Spiderman tickets - I'm not sure I've ever had that happen before...

So thrilled so many of the London cast are getting the chance to take it to Broadway - Chahidi was brilliant 11 years ago and last summer and Colin Hurley and Peter Hamilton Dyer were also in that original production too.

Awwwww - no! I so would've stayed for the evening show if it wasn't for the damn nightshift!

She was talking about playing card games backstage during the dance breaks after an interviewer pointed out that she'd been choreographed out of her own dance breaks...