London City of Angels

I am a big fan of this score. Is the London cast worth getting?

I have the OBC. My problem with some London recordings of American musicals is that the accents are often unbearable.

I saw the London production. The accents were funny, but the performances were energetic and sincere. If you love the score, you have to have both OBC and OLC. If only for variety.

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I love Roger Allam. His performance reminds me Humphrey Bogart in those old detective movies.

I don't mean to hijack the thread but speaking of bad accents, listen to Michael Cerveris and Brian D'Arcy James butchering English accents in Titanic - couldn't they get coaches? In general I find that English actors do much better with American accents - even regional ones - than the reverse.

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The Broadway cast of City of Angels is stronger, but I do like the London recording as an alternate. The Broadway recording has more of a slick pop sound, while the London recording always strikes me as giving more of a sense of how the score worked in the theatre. As another virtue, the London recording has Stone and Alaura's "Double Talk," which is omitted on the Broadway recording.

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Updated On: 9/9/05 at 04:26 PM

If you are a "big" fan of the score, as you say you are. You have two options. Not a real strain for you brain.

If you must choose only one...then OBC... but if you can buy both... then by all means get both, they will only make you appreciate the score and the efforts of the performers more.

I'm not really sure what the dilemma is.

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Jesus Yip, must we be so snotty? I have the OBC. I've said that in this thread already.

Thanks for the tip.

No worries Yipper. It seemed out of character, so I was just curious.

Yeah, I'm pissed about that too. Gay marriage is wrong, but leaving people to die from a natural disaster is okay.

Which one is destroying the "moral fabric" of America again?

Go figure.

Updated On: 9/10/05 at 04:54 PM

No, it didn't do well. Close for a short time run. What a shame! such a great show and a really strong cast.

I remember that CITY OF ANGELS announced its closure on the opening night of ALW's SUNSET BOULEVARD at the Adelphi. This resulted in lots of free publicity as almost every "Name" attending the SB opening spoke about how tough it was to have a success if a BRILLIANT show like COA was closing. Even ALW said it was the most intelligent show in London. COA ran another couple of months on the extra ticket sales generated but it lost HENRY GOODMAN (Buddy Fiddler) who got another job lined up for the original closing date - Matt Zimmerman took over. BIG shock came when the OLIVIER awards gave BEST MUSICAL to COA (over SB) and even more so since COA had closed by the time the announcement was made!!
I saw the show twice and the most difficult thing was sitting behind Chinese tourists trying to explain the plot to one another!!!
The sets looked fantastic though apparently ROBIN WAGNER was unhappy as the stage wasn't big enough to accommodate them properly (they had been shipped from the L.A. production) and I did notice that the final sound stage set looked rather squashed!

OVERAL ABSOLUTE MAGIC FROM CY COLEMAN!!

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"and it's one of the few London recordings I've heard where the American accents are painful."

hee hee

Try Gypsy with Angela Lansbury or Whistle Down the Wind. Yikes! I remember seeing shows in London wondering why the American accents in musicals were so bad, yet American accents in plays were perfect. I could only assume that dialect coaches were probably trimmed out of the already enormous budgets for musical theatre. The accents in Peggy Sue Got Married were quite humorous, though most of the cast got them right in Witches of Eastwick. The British are rarely satisfied with Americans performing British accents, but they rarely admit that they can be just as guilty performing ours.

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I agree with Mister Matt. Just listen to the Lansbury GYPSY, the American newsboys sound like hold overs from OLIVER. Very Funny.

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