42nd Street (Upstairs at the Gatehouse)

Looking forward to it. We've been discussing it in the other thread.

From the description, I have a feeling it will be one of the older version of the book (and song list).

Choreographed by Simon Atkins who was the resident choreographer on the Drury Lane production.

This one is selling well with several dates already sold out, so do book if this is a show you enjoy.

There are still a few seats left for the first performance on Wednesday, which have to be a bargain at £10 each. I'm booked for the gala performance on Thursday, which comes with interval drinks and a post show Q&A and is also supporting a valuable cause. The organiser contacted me to let me know there are only three tickets left for that date.

Thoughts from last night, which was the second performance.

This is very good for a show performed in such a small space and with such a small cast. It is obviously intimate. I sat on the front row and there are times you're incredibly close to being hit by a cane or a high kick, but the cast have worked out the angles perfectly.

If you've been to Upstairs At The Gatehouse, it's a layout these use often. Long rectangular room. Tiered seats (I think five rows) on two of the long sides. One side has small armrests, the other doesn't. The seats at the back tend to be wider and some people will prefer that wider view. Seating in unallocated.

Staging areas (and small changing areas for the cast) at two sides. One of them has steps and a podium (the steps unfortunately not used for the title number). The other is used as the carriage area for Shuffle, the Regency Club, Dorothy's dressing room etc. Most of action takes place on the main floor area.

So many of the dance routines are, I presume, prescribed so you'll recognise them even though they have fewer dancers (which isn't really an issue in the small space anyway). They are modified to work with the space.

The cast of 13 are generally young and switch quickly between their feature roles and general dancer roles. One highlight of this is the costumes, all lavish and the cast must have a real challenge to do the quick changes in the space available.

One disappointment is it's not the version of the show from the recent revival, so there's no Boulevard, Plenty of Money, or post bow tap dance. There are some minor changes to the book, possibly because it was slightly revised for Drury Lane, or possibly to suit the slightly smaller cast. I do miss Plenty of Money as it was one of my favourite songs. They do a great job with the routines for We're In The Money and Dames/Keep Young And Beautiful. 

The small band is excellent too. They are loud, but the performers and mic'd and split their time performing to the audience on both sides. It is unsurprisingly a loud show; there is tap dancing happening inches away from you. There were occasional sound balancing issues and difficult notes that were obvious in the small space, but I saw John Plews (director) and team taking vast quantities of notes.

Cast highlights for me? Rory Shafford has a lot of potential as Billy and even did a standing backflip at one point. Charlie Burt was excellent as Maggie, looked the part and really nailed the comedy lines. And generally all the cast did a good job with a difficult show.

After the show there was a Q&A (this was a benefit performance) led by John, who included pretty much all the production crew as well as the cast, who transformed their attire from suits to sports wear, but still proved to be very easy on the eye. The audience did not seem too familiar with the theatre world, so most of the questions were rather basic, like what happens in a theatre school, or seemingly complete amazement that this cast had only a short rehearsal period and had other jobs (mostly waiters and retail, although one person does write for the Sunday Times). A lot of the audience had seen the recent revival, but none of the cast said they had. The choreographer worked on the revival (if you worried if the routines are in safe hands). The Assistant Director was in Nice Work If You Can Get It last year.

John answered most of the questions. He had been trying to get the rights for a long time, but it is a drawn out process. He had to go to New York to negotiate for them and didn't find out if he'd been successful or not until late in the summer. Over 700 actors applied for parts (they get over 1,000 applications for a typical play). He rarely uses the same actors more than once. Scouts do come to the Gatehouse to recruit. And then there were lots of general comments from the audience about how much they'd enjoyed the production.

If you want to hear the songs again and see the dancing up close, this plays until 26 January. Running time is approximately 2 hours 30 minutes.

Looks great. Thanks for posting

Completely sold out now for the rest of the run!