42nd Street at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The understudies have been pretty much told not to reveal holiday dates for any of them on social media until closer to the time. I think it's because of Philip Bertioli originally being the second cover of Billy before being bumped up to first, so if anything like that happened again it wouldn't come across shady or rude by a second cover posting they are on before the first cover gets a say etc.

Pretty sure they've always been listed like that because I remember seeing what a crazily busy Christmas/New Year period they are having. In terms of covers getting shows that week I don't see that happening for any of them. I would expect them all to be on in all the shows (unless they have holiday dates/are ill). It's the last week, they'll all be going out with a very tired bang! I'm happy to be proved wrong though, would be lovely seeing covers getting shows in the last week.

Interval time in a packed house, complete with cameras.

The leads, Clare Halse and Philip Bertilio, in fine form.

Chaotic on arrival. The normal ticket collection door was closed and there were long queues for almost all the queues apart from the paid ticket one. For some reason my ticket was missing but it got sorted.

Very lucky in the circumstances to have got central row B Stalls from TodayTix. The show I was originally going to was a late cancellation. Although the guy almost in front of me seems happy showing the price he paid (well, he wasn’t in the same queue as me) to everyone near.

Actually, I suspect the other luckiest person is Zac Watts, as he’s on in Philip’s track.

The audience is full but not the best behaved. Go figure.

And everyone is acting for the camera, different to usual. Smiles all around. Christopher Howell is really restrained. Quite a different show.

Philip is mic’d better than usual too.

Don’t know if this will be the broadcast day. They obviously have to keep the cast the same. But I can see them using the crowd shots as they’ve gone to such an effort to fill the place.

More thoughts later.

The only holidays he announced for November were the 24th and the 30th.

If he missed the start of filming I guess he'd have to miss the rest of the filmed shows for consistency, whether he was well or not.

Was in this afternoon and yes, they’ve finally got the sound right. All cast members clearly audible and a rich full sound from the orchestra, exactly what the show has needed. Shame it took 20 months and a filming contract to get it right - but at least they have. Hope it stays like this now until the end of the run. Busy house at matinee but lacklustre audience.

Second half.

I spoke too soon about Zac, as they substituted Martin McCarthy for the second half. Think Ryan Gover was a second half substitute as well, but not sure who he replaced (possibly Liam Wrate). Only the second half boys got to bow.

Only male ensemble who wasn’t on was Freddie Clements. I thought I’d seen him at the back in the opening number but he wasn’t on later so must have been mistaken. I guess this is to get as many of them featured as possible for the cinema release (as well as the royalties).

Couldn’t tell with the girls but I’m sure something similar was on.

It’s a shame for Ashley Day that he missed this, but being immortalised like this could do wonders for Philip’s career. He did a great job. Most of the audience would have had no idea they weren’t seeing the lead.

Of course, the whole team were fantastic and really did something special for the full house and the cameras (and were able to ignore the few idiots in who were wolf whistling and the like).

One lady tried to get a standing ovation going after Dames, but it didn’t quite work. Maybe one for closing night?

There were standing ovations after the bows and the finale ultimo, as you’d expect. And lots of cheering, including plenty of people staying and cheering during the band play out.

I’m sure it will sound and look fantastic when all the different recordings are merged and edited together. Maybe even better than the theatre version would have been?

Ryan and Liam were both on throughout. Philip's track was covered like you said by Zac in act 1 and Martin in act 2. Martin and Freddie were both in the opening number as I'm sure were all the female swings but there are too many of them for me to work out who is who.

Dippy and I must have been writing about that at about the same time.

I didn’t actually think of that as bad behaviour. She looked like a regular, was really into the show, chatted with Jae etc. I think she was just trying to get something special going for the recording.

(she was almost in front of me, I was Row A, mistyped it earlier)

The laughter at the wrong time, I didn’t appreciate. Particularly as they were almost certainly the people on the free tickets, who should know better. But loads of people talked during the announcement at the start and the overture, so they might not even have twigged about the night being anything special.

Anyone know which shows they filmed? Has it been every evening this week and matinees too? Any more to come?

So pleased that Philip has got this amazing and very well deserved opportunity to shine.

Thanks, interesting to know.

So, they've only filmed two full performances, but they're obviously having to get close ups and different angles from cameras on the stage, which they can't do during the live performances. Will be good to see how it's all mixed together.

Have I understood this correctly that Ashley Day won't be on the recording?
That's such a shame.
But at least there is going to be a recording so suppose can't moan too much.

Have to admit I had to go to my programme to see who Philip was as I don't really know the names of all the cast but as soon as I saw his face there I knew exactly who he is. 
I have only ever seen Stuart or Ashley playing that part.
But Philip is always one of the ensemble I look out for as he is excellent and puts everything into his role, plus he is very pleasing on the eye. 
So I am now looking forward to seeing the recording with him in the lead role as I can guess he will be great.