Legally Blonde - What's Happening?

All I can say is I hope that it does open and finds its audience. It could be as big as Hairspray or flop big-time. I honestly think the main way to this shows success will be the stunt casting.

mind you, Hairspray held auditions ages before it ever came - and some of the auditionees were told later it was off. And then a lot later it was back on! I think the best thing is to believe it is on WHEN it if official. You know how insider nonsense can often be taken with a pinch of salt.

Like The Wedding Singer did a "pre-West End" tour? :/

... oh, pass. If it happens, it happens, and we'll know for certain when ticket-booking opens. ^_^

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its sept/oct

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'Break a Leg' with your audition SADM2, let us know how it goes :)

Any show is a risk at the moment..! As I said in a thred on the Broadway board about Legally Blonde... I don't think it is that favoured as cheesy/camp favourites like Fame, Footloose and SNF in the UK... the show has no songs people know and would need to pull off clever casting... as I don't think the name Legally Blonde (unlike say Dirty Dancing) will generate immediate massive sales.

Oh and the show is due to start previews in Sept, im pretty sure the economy will have started to level out by then.

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I was talking about the original Hairspray film

And who pays 100 quid for a thetre ticket???

"Do I know the show?" "Do I know anyone in it?" and "Do I know any of the songs?"

if that was the case 99 percent of musicals including Les Mis, Saigon etc etc would never have been hits xx

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It is hardly guaranteed to be a sure-fire hit. The film, while reasonably known in the UK, was barely successful here and most people I know who are occasional to regular theatregoers know very little of the stage show (rather than those friends etc who are dedicated musical theatre fans who know every thing about every show and all sorts of insider rumour, speculation and gossip).

For me it was one of the most trite, desperately unfunny musicals I have seen for a while despite some fun numbers and its perkiness is in no way a guarantee that it will do well with UK audiences. Compared to Hairspray, for instance, which is arguably a better story, has better music and has more appeal. Also with Hairspray it was VERY well known among schools, as was Wicked - those two became popular in schools about a year after their respective broadway productions opened and before the Hairspray musical film came out.

I think Legally Blonde's arguable "cleverness" as a musical is no indication whatsoever of its potential success - it does not of course work like that in theatre: many very clever productions, even those that have been very well received, have failed and similarly many poorly received (by critics and/or by message board regulars on many boards) succeed.

Even if the economy does pick up later next year, that will barely help the production (or any production) IF it does come. It will be dubious whether there is a sustainable market for it. Yes, in London high camp fluff does tend to reign but there is a limit.

Either way, if it does come (and I hope it does not as we dont need yet another vacuous musical) it needs very clever marketing and needs to sell itself bigtime. Sadly London is very poor at actively promoting and advertising its theatre with a somewhat arrogant expectation that "word of mouth" will do the trick. And posters on tubes and buses barely does the trick.

We watched the LB movie in an English lesson t'other day, even the chavs loved it!
Legally Blonde can be entertaining to anyone in it's own special way, and to a greater extent the musical can. It's an easy show to watch, and nowadays that's what everyone is after, hence shows like Marguerite and Imagine This failing and The Wedding Singer and Hairspray being succesful. Speaking of which; The Wedding Singer - a hardly succesful movie in the UK with an original score when it was brought to the stage, very little stunt casting and from what I could tell when I saw it, found an audience who loved it! If The Wedding Singer can find it's audience then Legally Blonde will do so with great ease.
To NOT bring it to the UK would be a mistake!

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With LOTR its a chance that an audience who enjoyed the movies would not be the kind of audience willing to watch a musical. Fangirls who love stuff like LB will sit through anything, i'm telling you. A friend hates musicals, is obsessed with Legally Blonde, I gave her the CD, now all she wants is to see it! (We made plans to do so together if it makes it London hehe...) Things like Bad Girls and LOTR attract non-musical going audience. To a lesser extent Bad Girls, but didn't that have good sales etc. but was just eaten alive by the critics? I didn't really follow what was going on there...

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See i have to disagree with Bag Girls as well, this was a genuinely good show, staged well and performed by a brilliant cast, hell if you read back over the reviews for it (i will post them again when i have time) the critics really liked it.

I was a huge Bad Girls TV show fan (and have to agree with the statement about it been the highlight of the ITV schedule) but did not want to go near the musical, as a fan of the TV show oi thought it was going to be dreadful, we only went to see it because i had seen everything else, turned out i had a great night.

What im trying to say is that fans of something like Bad Girls TV series and Lord Of The Rings are not really gonna go flocking to a musical, whilst regular theatre goers see them as to much of a Fan Thing to give them a chance, thats what led to Bad Girls critically praised but short lived run (though im sure the tour will do very well)

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