Anything New and Exciting??

Hopefully Operation Mincemeat makes it to the West End soon. I know it's had a few runs in smaller venues, but it really deserves a long run somewhere more central!

I would suggest Standing at the Sky's Edge...except it's based on existing songs, so isn't original; it's already had a run in Sheffield, so isn't new; and it isn't a musical, despite what any other TB member may claim.

It is exciting, though, and will be arriving in London in just a few months.

Although not new Newsies is new for London, opening at the end of the year.

Afternoon, BurlyBeaR. How are we today?

Has anyone seen Diva: Live From Hell at the Turbine? It seems to be getting wonderful reviews.

I know I’m going to sound a bit fuddy-duddy and grumpy old mannish (I’m only 36, honest!) but to me there has been nothing which has caught the zeitgeist for years now.

With COVID this is understandable, but thinking back, some shows have had real buzz that I haven’t really experienced in a while. Wicked when it was brand new, the excitement of Idina opening it, it was a special time. Even the likes of Spamalot felt exciting and “big”.

I grant you there have been hits which have picked up followings - I am not ignorant of Heathers, Six and a few others - but even those are 3-4 years old now and a new wave ware ready to latch onto the “next one”.

I’d say the last truly massive show to open was Hamilton.

I’ve seen Cabaret and a few others like Anything Goes and South Pacific - and while excellent they aren’t a new work which taps into people like Wicked did.

I think if they hadn’t been stuck in the middle of Covid (or just plain avarage), I think both BTTF and Cinderella had ‘mega musical’ written all over them. BTTF has the flashy effects and Cinderella looked like it was going to be full of lush ALW classic tunes. Yet both missed the mark in their own ways. I like to think that BTTF will at least see the year out.

Potentially a bit niche this but there's a musical based on the kpop (Korean Pop Music) craze being developed called Icon, which has had some workshops. I can actually see it doing quite well if it makes it because the kpop scene is really quite big even here in the UK and there's already a musical based on Kpop i think just opening or about to open on Broadway,

It is based on the movie, though.

Its the Broadway musical. I'm not sure if the film came before the show but its the first time in London and, I think, the UK.

I don't get the complaints of musicals being adapted from films or even revivals of classic musicals.

That's only on Channel 4, isn't it? 

Maybe it'll be such a success that they adapt it for the stage. 

Ahem! I think you’ll find at least two people saw it at The Prince Charles in 1993 because their now wife’s friend went out with Christian Bale, and (we 🙄) had to go and have a look. This was despite me telling her that it was the boy out of ‘Empire of the Sun’ and we could just rent that from the Blockbusters on Mill Hill Broadway rather than traipsing into town. I remember very little about it though 😂

So many brand new musicals fail at the box office though down to unfamiliarity and, well, just nobody going. Adaptations of existing IP’s or of a particular artist give a ‘hook’ to interest people in. It doesn’t have to be born of laziness, more financial necessity. I know which I’d sink my money into.