Gone With the Wind? Northwest Arkansas News isn’t thrilled! March 27, 2008
Posted by Linda in : Gone With the Wind, news , 2comments
Just found this gem of a reaction to the new production of Gone with the Wind that’s hitting the boards next month:
NWAnews.com :: Northwest Arkansas’ News Source
ATLANTA — Talk about holding a grudge.One day you toss the tyrannical mother country’s load of tea into Boston Harbor. The next — give or take some 235 years — she retaliates by turning your beloved Gone With the Wind into a musical.
A musical where Melanie sings a ditty called “Desperate Times” after Scarlett kills that nasty Yankee soldier who tried to get into her pantaloons. Fingers crossed there’ll also be tap-dancing !
Gone With the Wind: The Musical, is the brainchild of a novice playwright from Southern California who spent two years creating songs before she even approached author Margaret Mitchell’s estate for rights to the book. It stars American actress Jill Paice (Broadway’s Curtains ) as Scarlett O’Hara and Scotsman Darius Danesh as South Carolina Lowcountry native Rhett Butler.
Mostly though the NWAnews is not thrilled that they won’t get to see the behind the scenes documentary that’s being made of the rehearsals. It will screen here on April 20th on the satellite television channel Turner Classic Movies (Yeah, I never heard of them either…….) and again later in the year with added footage from the opening night.
Hmm, last musical that struck a deal like that was Lord of the Rings with National Geographic last year. I’m only saying 
GWTW opens on April 22 at the New London Theatre. We wait with baited breath. Personally I’m not holding out much hope for them recreating the burning of Atlanta. Can’t help being a little concerned about how they’ll handle the total lack of political correctness of the original. Could be fun
Fagin as played by Mr Bean? March 27, 2008
Posted by Linda in : Musicals, Oliver, news , add a commentWhen the 100 strong cast starts rehearsals for Oliver they’ll be joined by Rowan Atkinson of Mr Bean fame. Actually I’m not being mean about Rowan Atkinson. I’ve got a lot of time for him as a performer and I think he’s an interesting choice for Fagin. As he says:
“In the 1980s I enjoyed doing a lot of West End theatre and since then have been distracted very much by Mr Bean and film-making,”
Of course that was his one-man show Rowan Atkinson In Revue rather than a West end musical. It ran at the Gielgud (once the Globe) before touring the UK and internationally. He won the 1981 Laurence Olivier Award for Comedy Performance of the Year for the show.
Atkinson is not new to the role
Atkinson goes on to say that he’s been thinking of returning to the stage for some time and this is an ideal opportunity. It seems he has played the part of Fagin once before but quite a long way from the West End. In Oxford in fact in a school production! Before you think it, this was no 17 year old Fagin. The production was at his son Benjamin’s £16,000-a-year Summer Fields School in Oxford. They got him for two weeks for rehearsals plus the performances in July 2005. He didn’t charge them a bean Sorry couldn’t resist it!
Fagin is a hard role to get right but I think Atkinson might just be the one to manage it. Interesting.
High School Musical Latest News. March 25, 2008
Posted by admin in : High School Musical , add a commentHigh School Musical, the Disney smash hit, will open at the Hammersmith Apollo on June 30th. It has a limited run of only six weeks so you need to book soon if you want tickets.
Performance times:
Tues - Sat: 7.30pm
Wed, Thurs, Sat, Sun: 3pm
The plot
Based on the Disney film, High School Musical tells the story of two high school students Troy Bolton, the popular high school basketball star, and Gabriella Montez, a shy bookworm, who discover their shared passion for singing - and then try out for lead parts in their high school musical. Their friends do everything they can to stop this happening. The ‘jocks’ and the ‘brainiacs’ hatch plots to keep Troy and Gabriella from sharing the stage and mayhem and misunderstandings abound.
High School Musical is all about popularity, first love and balancing education with fun, and the value of family and friends.
Characters
Introducing Hayley Griffiths
Understudying the female lead, Sharpay, will be Teeside lass Hayley Griffiths. Hayley, 20, is a total newcomer to the West End and graduated from Laine Theatre Arts, Epsom last July. Probably their most famous graduate is Victoria Beckham.
Hayley had to do four auditions for the understudy role and she will make her
debut in the ensemble on June 28 . The show runs for ten weeks. Hailey said:
“I had to sing in front of 10 American producers who had the last word - it was nerve racking. All my friends had heard back but I hadn’t so I thought I hadn’t got through, so I came home.”
Check Availability for High School Musical breaks
With up to 40% off rail fares, enter dates from July to Mid August :
God of Carnage by the writer of ART March 23, 2008
Posted by admin in : gielgud, godofcarnage , add a commentGod of Carnage is the new play by Yasmina Reza, the writer of “Art”. Art was a brilliant comedy/play with a cast of three male leads that ran for eight years in London with 25 cast changes. It took the french playwright five years to get around to writing a followup, and now “God of Carnage” is playing in London’s Gielgud theatre with a cast of four including Ralph Fiennes and Tamsin Grieg. Tamsin Grieg is no newcomer to the stage having played in Much Ado About Nothing and Abigail’s Party but you might know her from TV’s Green Wing , Black Books and Love Soup. (I’ll always hear her as Debbie from The Archers)
The Mousetrap March 21, 2008
Posted by admin in : ST Martins, The Mousetrap , add a commentInteresting review here by an American student in London:
On Wednesday we went down to Leicester Square and checked the Half Price Theatre Tickets. We let availability and price dictate what we saw, and wound up seeing The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie.
This production was excellent. We saw it at the St. Martin’s Theatre, which seemed to be rather old, and apparently this was the longest running show in England. While the acting certainly ranged from good to very good, with no particular weak links nor any real stand outs, what struck me the most were the technical aspects. The snow falling outside the window looked incredibly realistic. Actors coming in from the snow had snow on their clothing which actually melted as the jackets remained on stage. Lighting outdoors matched a Winter Afternoon to Evening transition, and seemed to match up with the lines very well. One murder done on stage was matched up with a radio program, and the voicing on that did sound old and very sinister.
The audience laughed most about jokes to do with class and poking fun at the English in general.
Ticket touts are out at Hairspray March 20, 2008
Posted by admin in : Hairspray, Musicals, Shaftesbury, opinion , add a commentBeware!! Touts about!
It seems that there are a number of ticket touts working around the Shaftesbury Theatre area selling tickets for the smash hit Hairspray.
One punter says they queued for day tickets for Hairspray last Saturday. They arrived at about 7:15 and were too late to get any tickets for the evening performance.Well der, this is the hottest show in the West End at the moment! Arriving at 7:15 does seem a tad optimistic They went on to say that the vast majority of the tickets were bought by people who they thought were obviously touts.
Someone else said that they had complained to the theatre, who, it seems, said that they were aware that the tickets were being sold to touts, but that they could do nothing about it! Hmm, I don’t suppose that was the official line, perhaps they just asked at the box office.
None of this is terribly surprising. The touts are out and about all over the West End, walk round near any theatre and people will approach you trying to either buy or sell tickets for the shows. The main thing is not to get caught by them. It’s just not worth it. You could end up with a totally worthless fake ticket or pay a stupid amount of money for terrible seats.
It’s just another reason for making sure you book in advance through a legitimate source, even better as part of a Hairspray theatre break. With something as popular as Hairspray your chances of getting day tickets are pretty minimal and they would be even if there were no touts. It is the hottest ticket in London at the moment, you simply are not going to get it for £10!
I’d do anything, just how experienced are these “newcomers”? March 19, 2008
Posted by Linda in : I'd do anything, Musicals, Never Forget, Oliver, news , add a commentThe researchers at the Show and Stay blog have been busy finding out about the background of some of the potential Nancys for the new production of Oliver. (No tickets yet but watch this space!)
Jodie Prenger lost all that weight she mentioned on a reality tv show, Katie Rowley-Jones is currently appearing in Wicked (no great recommendation in my book . ) They’ve also managed to spot someone with even more experience, Francesca Jackson
not only did Francesca play Joanne in West End’s RENT but she also starred alongside none other than DENISE VAN OUTEN! For those of you who don’t know RENT, Joanne (Francesca) is Maureen’s (Denise) girlfriend which means they had to portray an intimate relationship on stage and kiss each other 7 nights a week. One has to ask - how the bloody hell can Denise vote fairly on Francesca when only a few months ago she had her tongue down her neck? Well I’d Do Anything fans, as always, we’ll just have to see how this one pans out!
I have to say I agree, although I’d probably been a little more delicate in phrasing it
Of course our eagle-eyed readers had already spotted Nancy Sullivan on the Never Forget DVD
So come on readers, who else on this list of potential Nancys has more TV or stage experience than we might have been led to believe?
(source Show and Stay )
The Jersey Boys Opens - updated March 18, 2008
Posted by admin in : jersey boys , add a comment“The Jersey Boys” musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons opens in London tonight the 18th March, and the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 ran an extended report this morning which sounded almost like an advertisement for the show. The reporting by Rebecca Jones included interviews with original Four Seasons members and excerpts from the hit songs.
There will also be a BBC Radio 4 feature after the show on Wednesday in Front Row, 7.15-7.45pm in which John Wilson reports from the British premiere of Jersey Boys.
** book Jersey Boys theatre breaks with show tickets and hotel **
Update:
Well, Front Row loved it!
This morning in the UK press the critics are sharply divided.
Charles Spencer in The Daily Telegraph loved it:
the best collection of pop hits since Mamma Mia.
and so did The Times
Oh what a night. High-octane show justifies its transfer.
But in The Evening Standard Nicholas de Jong said:
“Frankie goes to the West End … but will he last four seasons?….. I doubt whether Jersey Boys will make it over here … This may be an American import too many.
and in The Independent Paul Taylor was unimpressed:
The hits keep coming but Frankie frustrates….The idea of New Jersey and many of the cultural references fail to stir the requisite strength of emotion in a British audience
Oliver - Who’ll Get a West End Theatre Break? March 16, 2008
Posted by Linda in : I'd do anything, Musicals, Oliver , 6commentsAfter my post about the thrall that TV seems to have over casting in London West End Theatre. “Break with tradition”, I thought, “and watch one of these things!”.
I’d Do Anything
Last night I sat and watched the BBC show I’d Do Anything. What an emotional roller coaster! Even Graham Norton seemed to wipe a tear away at one point. Is there some law that all Irish men cry at a few bars of Danny Boy? I will admit to welling up myself at a couple of things and I don’t cry easily. What was going on?
West End Theatre Break Favourites
By the end of the show I was pretty sure I’d seen the next Nancy and I already had some very definite favourites. I thought the genuine East End gal who was even called Nancy (!) sang with real, raw emotion. Stunning, powerful, believable, she really could be Nancy! I blubbed. I suspect it was the stuff about her dead dad combined with the song.I also liked Cleopatra, another Londoner, but the reliability of her voice is in question. Having to sip hot water and honey and losing your top notes is not a good start. That rasp in her voice was painful for her and us.I felt the Manchester girl who’d lost 8 stones (wow!) was a possible winner. She’s so exuberant and there was so much energy in her she really could be Nancy. I just worried that she might not have the stamina and there’s a vulnerability there that means she could get really hurt. Later I worried that she’s partly there for all us fatties to identify with.
And Not So Favourites
Of course there were other characters as well, the single mum who tugged at the heart strings, the Irish girl was cute and had a great voice. Lots of possible Nancies in fact.There was just one that made me really uncomfortable, and that’s when I started to feel slightly queasy about the whole show.You see I think she had by far the best voice but I just didn’t want to see her win Nancy. Her voice was amazing, range, power, the lot. I suspect she can act too. She even gave them a run for their money when the judges questioned her youth by pointing out that Dickens’ Nancy was only 17 in the book. Still, I didn’t want her to win. She was portrayed as a posh young miss, all of 17, product of two opera singers and a boarding school education. She was every inch the opposite of what we’d been told Nancy should be.
What’s Going On?
Just one thing, Oliver is a stage show, with, you know, acting? So why should I want someone be excluded for being too posh? Especially if she’s going to give the best performance? For the simple reason that my emotions had been manipulated by the TV show. Never forget this stuff is all very cleverly edited together to manipulate the audience. This is ‘reality TV’ not reality! Someone has been busy plotting story lines, mapping just how to influence the public vote, deciding when and how to release various bits of information, building up our idea of the characters. Except of course these are not characters they are real people with very real dreams and ambitions that the BBC are exploiting. And I got swept up in it :-(Trouble is I think it might just be unmissable TV! So I’m left hooked but not feeling too good about it. At least I have the excuse that I was watching so that I could write about it here. What’s your excuse?
Update
The East End girl (Nancy Sullivan), my top pick for Nancy. is on the Never Forget DVD. Here’s a clip:
Lord of the Rings Closes in July. March 14, 2008
Posted by Linda in : Drury Lane, Musicals, Oliver, Shows, lord of the rings , add a commentThe Lord of The Rings currently at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane posted closing notices today and will end its West End run in July.
Cast and crew were told last night by Kevin Wallace. There will be smaller productions in Melbourne and Germany. It seems likely that the show has lost its entire investment in London!
It’s not a huge surprise as the transformation of the theatre is on a massive scale, with stage elements spilling out into the auditorium. The production seems to have relied too heavily on special effects and rather neglected the basics of gripping plot and character, not to mention the music.
I’ve made my feelings about LOTR before, still it is sad for the cast, some of whom I believe were excellent.
It does solve one problem though, Oliver! will begin rehearsals at the Theatre Royal some time in September or October.
