West End Gossip #2

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Starlight Express seems to be teasing something for the 40th anniversary on Wednesday. It must be cast announcements.

Slightly off topic - just wondering if anyone knows much about Musical Theatre degree at LMA London?
 
Anyone else seen "Opening Night" with Sheridan Smith? Opens tonight and having seen it at the weekend, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets absolutely slated in the reviews. Sheridan and the cast performed well but the actual show wasn't great, it's unfortunate in that it uses on-stage video screens very similar to the recent production of Sunset Boulevard which just reinforced how much worse it was.
 
Seeing it next week.

I generally quite like the "mixed media" plays with video screens for certain scenes. I saw "The Human Body" at the Donmar last week and thought that used them pretty well, just doing close up video for the scenes where the two leads were chatting closely, like when they were in the train carriage or at a restaurant table.
 
Mark81 said:
Minor? OK, she wasn't a name outside of theatre fans but multiple west end leading roles, and multiple Olivier Award nominations wouldn't make her minor to me.
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Oh I thought I'd uploaded the pic too 🤣

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BobbyBoos said:
Opening night has been slaughtered in the reviews.
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So I saw this last night, having booked the ticket ages ago long before there were any reviews or offers 😭

It was as terrible as I'd read, but sadly not "so bad it's good" terrible, it really is just terrible.

Sheridan and a couple of the other actors are good, but they've just got such a hopeless book and staging. The much touted outside bit where it's said that she crawls through the streets of soho was a nonsense, she literally walks (not crawls) about four haphazard steps across the narrow road at the stage door round the back of the theatre and straight back onto the stage, nowhere near what they did in Sunset Blvd.

I suddenly remembered about half way through act 2 that her co-star in the "play within a play" that she's doing is her ex lover, and then all of a sudden some (but not all) of what I'd seen made sense, they had said that he was her ex at the start (I've never seen the film) but it was so poorly written and so all over the place that I'd forgotten this crucial detail. So if you go to see it (only if there's very very cheap tickets around) do remember that important plot point.

There's continuous overuse of a massive centre-stage video screen, there's probably two scenes where it was useful, the rest of the time it could have done with being flown out. One particular scene they put live headshots of various other actors' "reactions" up on it full-screen, including some of the stage crew, and you're just sat there wondering who they're supposed to be, it was like how by about episode 6 of The Apprentice there'll be a couple of randoms pop up who've been there all along but done nothing, so you don't know who they are or anything about them.

Weirdly, there's a scene in Sheridan's' apartment with a sofa and shes puts a big handbag down next to it. When the crew picked up the sofa to take it off stage her handbag fell over and an actual foil-wrapped creme egg fell out and rolled under where the sofa had been, so the crew removing the sofa didn't see it. And it then sat on full view in the middle of the stage floor for the whole of the next scene until one of the actors diverted his exit to pick it up and put it in his pocket. Was it a secret snack for Sheridan? Is it her actual handbag? crew playing a trick on her? a weird "easter egg" in-joke that I didn't get? (I mean the play is set on Broadway, where they don't have creme eggs). Pondering why there was a creme egg in the middle of the stage was one of the highlights of the performance.
 
kev1974 said:
So I saw this last night, having booked the ticket ages ago long before there were any reviews or offers 😭

It was as terrible as I'd read, but sadly not "so bad it's good" terrible, it really is just terrible.

Sheridan and a couple of the other actors are good, but they've just got such a hopeless book and staging. The much touted outside bit where it's said that she crawls through the streets of soho was a nonsense, she literally walks (not crawls) about four haphazard steps across the narrow road at the stage door round the back of the theatre and straight back onto the stage, nowhere near what they did in Sunset Blvd.

I suddenly remembered about half way through act 2 that her co-star in the "play within a play" that she's doing is her ex lover, and then all of a sudden some (but not all) of what I'd seen made sense, they had said that he was her ex at the start (I've never seen the film) but it was so poorly written and so all over the place that I'd forgotten this crucial detail. So if you go to see it (only if there's very very cheap tickets around) do remember that important plot point.

There's continuous overuse of a massive centre-stage video screen, there's probably two scenes where it was useful, the rest of the time it could have done with being flown out. One particular scene they put live headshots of various other actors' "reactions" up on it full-screen, including some of the stage crew, and you're just sat there wondering who they're supposed to be, it was like how by about episode 6 of The Apprentice there'll be a couple of randoms pop up who've been there all along but done nothing, so you don't know who they are or anything about them.

Weirdly, there's a scene in Sheridan's' apartment with a sofa and shes puts a big handbag down next to it. When the crew picked up the sofa to take it off stage her handbag fell over and an actual foil-wrapped creme egg fell out and rolled under where the sofa had been, so the crew removing the sofa didn't see it. And it then sat on full view in the middle of the stage floor for the whole of the next scene until one of the actors diverted his exit to pick it up and put it in his pocket. Was it a secret snack for Sheridan? Is it her actual handbag? crew playing a trick on her? a weird "easter egg" in-joke that I didn't get? (I mean the play is set on Broadway, where they don't have creme eggs). Pondering why there was a creme egg in the middle of the stage was one of the highlights of the performance.
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I went to see this last week. I wasn't going to, but the bad reviews made me curious snd I was able to get a decent rush ticket. Even at £30 I think it was overpriced. It really wasn't good was it 🙈
 
OatMatchaLatte said:
I saw Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre on Saturday...it was so good! We had second row of the stalls. I'd definitely give the standing tickets a go and we're considering going back to see it later in the year.
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It is incredible! I did standing last year with one friend, so immersive it's incredible! I've booked for June with my 2 oldest friends. How was it seated? I imagined just getting jealous of the standing people (obvs not for anyone who can't stand for that long)
 
kev1974 said:
Weirdly, there's a scene in Sheridan's' apartment with a sofa and shes puts a big handbag down next to it. When the crew picked up the sofa to take it off stage her handbag fell over and an actual foil-wrapped creme egg fell out and rolled under where the sofa had been, so the crew removing the sofa didn't see it. And it then sat on full view in the middle of the stage floor for the whole of the next scene until one of the actors diverted his exit to pick it up and put it in his pocket. Was it a secret snack for Sheridan? Is it her actual handbag? crew playing a trick on her? a weird "easter egg" in-joke that I didn't get? (I mean the play is set on Broadway, where they don't have creme eggs). Pondering why there was a creme egg in the middle of the stage was one of the highlights of the performance.
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Sheridan Smith’s crème egg is the sort of piping hot tea I’m here for! 😁
 
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