What Was The Worst Musical You Saw — Page 8

I'm going to spare the actual worst musicals I've seen, which were at the Edinburgh Fringe or tiny fringe theatres in London. Instead I'll stick to the ones must have had significant people vouching for them to put them on.

wonder.land - a retelling of Alice in Wonderland where a teenager tries to escape her life by playing an online game. It felt like it was written by someone who'd only encountered teenagers on bad TV, and only knew about video games by hearsay. Oh, and it was one of those musicals where you could tell instantly that the songs were written by someone with no knowledge or interest in musicals. Every choice was so uninspired and forgettable, but it had the full National Theatre spectacle treatment, which proved that even giant psychedelic sets and futuristic costumes can't make a dud interesting.

Paradise Found - this musical came to the Menier Chocolate Factory when the theatre was winning award after award and it felt like it could do no wrong. It was billed as a pre-Broadway tryout with a stellar cast and creative team, but of course it never made it further. Mandy Patinkin played a bald eunuch learning about love and sex in various palaces and brothels. As bizarre as it was, that's literally all I remember about it because every weird choice just added up to nothing. I think I'd forgotten the plot the moment I stood up from my seat. (Aaaah I've only just realised this was apparently Hal Prince's last original musical. Also the Menier doesn't list it on their website or wikipedia page.)

And now, the easy target: Tell Me on a Sunday. I saw the 2014 revival with Marti Webb and it seemed to go on for an eternity. Nothing remarkable about it, it was just so so boring.

NJGUY said: "Growing up in Washington, DC in the 1960's,1970's and 1980's, I was fortunate to see countless pre-Broadway productions. Some of the worst include:PLATINUM(pointless and yesAlexis Smith was really bad), 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE (even then I said WTF), ARI(the musical of Exodus-UGH). In D.C.,I also did see (pre-Broadway) the original Mack and Mabel and Sugar, both at The Kennedy Center, I sort of liked them as I was an impressionable teenager and was awe-struck by their production values, but by critics standards they were both meh."



Speaking of DC theaters: Signature and OVER AND OVER!!!

Jarethan said: "Malinda5000 said: "...I would also like to add

Legs Diamond

Big Deal

Woman Of The Year

Smile

Uptown...It's Hot!

Bring Back Birdie

The Wiz (1984 Revival) ...even with Stephanie Mills it was bad.

How could i EVER have forgotten Smile.

"

All bad! Forgot about BIG DEAL. Fosse's last and worst.

Adams3 said: "Hot Feet!"

Skip23 said: "Jarethan said: "The WORST OF WORST (in order):


Fun list.


I too hate Hadestown.



And I just watched video of ALICE AT THE PALACE with Meryl. Whaaaaaa????


I can only tell you it was even worse in person. I don't know the name of the theatre at the Public in which it played, but it was square, with the playing area in the middle, and noone was far from the action. Meryl, who was aready getting mega-attention acted up a storm (was really excellent in fact) and the audience hated it. But, since they were all there to see her, no one left or snuck out at intermission (I actually don't remember if there was an intermission)

It was just so pretentious and numbingly boring; if I remember, the music was by Elizabeth Swados, who had some critical success (4 Tony noms for one show), but never had any popular audience success. To me, all her work was pretentious and boring.