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Post by mrbarnaby on Aug 13, 2021 1:07:52 GMT
According to news reporting that there was (unmasked) crowds at the stage door last night. I’ve seen photos of Lily Allen having photos taken with unmasked fans at stage door. Amazed that this is allowed.
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Post by cavocado on Aug 14, 2021 8:51:35 GMT
There was a mention of this in The Metro yesterday, which said LA "has managed to mostly remember the play's script without the prompter, but added: 'I missed out a significant chunk last night i.e. the plot.'" Setting the bar a bit low perhaps?
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Post by Stephen on Aug 14, 2021 10:29:01 GMT
I have ordered a copy of the playtext. The consensus seems to be that it's fairly entertaining on stage but the writing might not live up to the hype. Interested to read it without seeing it!
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Post by mrbarnaby on Aug 15, 2021 9:42:36 GMT
I wonder what happened to the BRIDGET JONES DIARY musical Lily Allen was writing? It’s a shame it never happened. I saw a recording of the workshop with Sheridan Smith and Michael Xavier and it was great.Some brilliant songs too.
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Post by Stephen on Aug 27, 2021 14:23:42 GMT
I'm reading the play text for this at the moment. Just hit the interval. It doesn't read as anything particularly special but is light, fast and entertaining - just as I'd imagine it to be onstage!
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Post by anthony on Aug 28, 2021 9:21:03 GMT
Just picked up some cheap seats to this on Tuesday. Oddly cheap, actually - they're right next to band 2 seats and from Seat Plan, there doesn't seem to be anything off about them...
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Post by Steve on Aug 28, 2021 10:40:02 GMT
Just picked up some cheap seats to this on Tuesday. Oddly cheap, actually - they're right next to band 2 seats and from Seat Plan, there doesn't seem to be anything off about them... I expect that as they have thus far opted not to do Todaytix Rush, they are filling seats by some pretty aggressive dynamic pricing as the undersold shows approach.
If you were free to take a punt on the Wednesday matinee, there are currently two pairs of £27.50 seats, in the front row, which cost £70 each, booked a month in advance.
Be quick if you fancy them.
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Post by andrew on Aug 28, 2021 23:40:31 GMT
Holding off until more word of mouth reaches me. Very mixed press reviews, no one exactly raving about it, don't want to waste a precious theatre evening on something that this board seems to be labelling "slight".
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Post by anthony on Aug 31, 2021 22:21:04 GMT
I genuinely really, really enjoyed it - arguably the best thing I've seen since theatres reopened.
Whilst I agree the use of the loud and high pitched scream is overused (in between set/time changes, for seemingly no reason other than to get the audience to jump,) they weren't too bad. The story itself was great, actually. It centres around Jenny, who has just had a baby with her husband Sam. Sam is working away from home and whilst away, Jenny hears footsteps in her baby's room at 2:22am for 4 consecutive nights. Sam believes solely in science; everything can be explained and this comes to a head at a dinner party with their friend Lauren and her new boyfriend Ben when they all decide to stay awake until 2:22am to hear the footsteps for themselves.
I genuinely didn't see the ending coming and I don't think any one in the audience did either - there were audible gasps and chatter as we all became aware at the same time.
It was wonderfully staged and everyone played their part well. I genuinely wouldn't have realised that Allen didn't have acting experience and think a lot of her critique has been because of her name rather than her ability. I wouldn't say it's scary; arguably it's more of a comedy in some places with Jake Wood's Ben getting constant laughs.
Really great. We were in row D in the grand circle (£15 seats, right next to the band C seats - they're currently selling for £50, so might be worth waiting until closer to the date you want to see it)) and they were great. For that price, I honestly can't recommend it enough. I'm tempted to book it again.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 1, 2021 6:13:39 GMT
I’m going to make a wild guess about the denouement of this {Spoiler - click to view}The husband Sam who is all about science is behind it all because he wants Lily Allen to appear unstable, so he can run off with the other woman and the kid. Tell me I’m wrong!
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Post by Rory on Sept 1, 2021 8:48:00 GMT
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Post by Stephen on Sept 1, 2021 11:25:31 GMT
{Spoiler - click to view} You're not 100 miles away but also not correct I’m going to make a wild guess about the denouement of this {Spoiler - click to view}The husband Sam who is all about science is behind it all because he wants Lily Allen to appear unstable, so he can run off with the other woman and the kid. Tell me I’m wrong!
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Post by Stephen on Sept 1, 2021 11:25:59 GMT
I’m going to make a wild guess about the denouement of this {Spoiler - click to view}The husband Sam who is all about science is behind it all because he wants Lily Allen to appear unstable, so he can run off with the other woman and the kid. Tell me I’m wrong! Keep trying!
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Post by andrew on Sept 2, 2021 20:55:53 GMT
I was left fairly unimpressed by this. I ended up going as a result of some positive commentary latterly on here as well as the fairly kind reviews, and I wish I hadn't. I agree that Lily Allen was pretty good, she's not playing the easiest character ever written and she pulls it off. Jake Wood was also surprisingly good, he ends up playing to type as an East End geezer but was comfortable onstage. Hadley Fraser is always a favourite and it's a pleasure to see him on stage again. I also agree that there is some good dialogue, there are some funny lines, there is some nice writing weaving around the ghost story plot, which when the set up is 4 people in one room over several hours needs a lot of work and effort to hold the audiences attention. That's right about where all of my praise ends. To be honest my main criticism is the fact that we just deserved so much more from the play. We deserved more spooks, we deserved more twists and turns, we deserved more of a moral or emotional backbone to the plot. For some reason every single scene ends with a scream sound effect and cheesy flashing lights, which most of the time is non-diegetic, the sole purpose of which is to make the audience jump. I'm happy to be shocked, I love the rush of a good jump scare, but it's really cheap and brainless to create them for absolutely no plot point whatsoever. Meanwhile in the actual context of any scene, there are shockingly few frightening moments. I kept predicting set pieces or character moments they were about to throw at us, and then nothing would happen at all, and the scene would just end with a fake scream sound effect. As a non-spoiler example, towards the rear of the set there are patio doors which are mentioned a few times in the dialogue, and outside is a foggy night with a motion-activated outdoor light. This is used a couple of times to minor effect, but the obvious really spooky thing would be for a dark figure to be illuminated briefly, perhaps only to the main character when the others are turned away. Or perhaps the patio door that keeps being left open would slam shut suddenly when a key bit of dialogue is mentioned. Or a message appears on the glass. Or the glass shatters. Or the light flickers. Anything. There's a moment involving the unseen bathroom which is mildly unsettling, and I thought "oh great, there are going to be escalating moments of unsettlingness that topple the characters off their perch" which ends up being revealed as nothing at all, and no further moments like it really occur. To reveal why I really left with a sour taste in my mouth would be to give the whole game away, but all I will say is that if you'd asked me about 15 minutes into the first act to plot out the most predictable outcome based on what had happened so far, I could have told you it. And not only that, together we'd have come up with something much more creative and interesting instead. If that sin was not great enough, when the entirely predictable conclusion occurs, instead of it being threaded around an interesting commentary on something, or a great moment of emotional breakthrough for a character, it's just left hanging as if the plot point was enough to justify our attendance for the whole evening. News flash, it was not enough for that. Not by half. If you're not intending on going, in spoiler tags at the bottom I'll outline my issues. Overall though I just thought it was weak, it wasn't a bad setup or concept, there were some decent moments in it, but it's almost like the writer just sort of gave up at some stage and decided not to bother creating something complex or meaningful, and figured if we put some star names in it during a desperate time for interesting plays in the West End we can get away with a first draft. It's not 1 star, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone other than fans of occasional loud noises. {Spoiler - click to view} OK so about 5 minutes in we hear that the returning boyfriend who has been mysteriously uncontactable for days has cold hands. His uncontactability coincides with the low key haunting (footsteps and crying sounds from a second bedroom). Immediately anyones hackles should be up that he is in some way involved in the bumps in the night in this house. We then see that he can't activate the Alexa that is easily activated by Lily Allen. At that moment, not even halfway into Act 1, it is patently clear to anyone with half a brain that he's either a ghost, or a zombie, or a vision, or something, but he is intimately connected to the haunting. Sure, I may not have been able to say exactly why 2:22 was significant or what he was, but now any revelation about him being a ghost, which ends up 2 HOURS LATER being the only plot point in the denouement, is completely unshocking. And because this has no other real emotional or moral significance beyond being shocking for Lily Allen (and not surprising to us at all), it's overwhelmingly unsatisfying. In The Sixth Sense, it's genuinely a twist to discover the main character is actually a ghost, and it was cleverly written such that he never interacted with any character other than the boy. In this, for some reason Hadley Frasers spirit has an entire bleeding dinner party with two annoying guests, even pops out to buy some wine, no effort being taken to separate him out as not being an ethereal human. I thought maybe there would be a little patch of chat after Lily discovers this fact that might actually create something interesting out of the play, but no, she just cries and the play ends. Stupidly predictable, stupidly boring.
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Post by cherokee on Sept 16, 2021 13:31:01 GMT
I rather enjoyed this. As a ghost story, it's no great shakes and relies on a sound effect at the end of each scene to elicit a jump scare from the audience, but I found it witty and entertaining, with a strong cast. Hadley Fraser is always great, and Lily Allen more than holds her own. Jake Woods is very enjoyable too. Maybe I'm just dense, but I didn't see the twist coming at all, and it was fun reassessing the rest of the play in light of that.
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Post by Mark on Sept 29, 2021 23:06:03 GMT
I'm impressed you picked up on it so soon andrew - my friend and I didn't have a clue until the very end It wasn't until we discussed it afterward that we picked up on everything - the Alexa not responding to him, not eating, not drinking, the only character not to use the bathroom, or open and close the rear doors. The upstairs window not being closed after it had already been closed, and then again after he'd gone to close it again. I'm sure if you were to watch again there'd be many more pointers towards the eventual outcome but clearly it all went right over my head.
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Post by stevejohnson678 on Oct 28, 2021 9:08:33 GMT
Returning to the West End at the Gielgud with "all-new star casting" to be announced. Runs from Saturday 4 December 2021 - Saturday 12 February 2022.
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Post by alicechallice on Oct 28, 2021 11:37:16 GMT
Returning to the West End at the Gielgud with "all-new star casting" to be announced. Runs from Saturday 4 December 2021 - Saturday 12 February 2022. I'm thinking Daniel Bedingfield, Kate Nash, Honey G and Clarke Peters.
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Post by stuart on Oct 28, 2021 13:27:47 GMT
Returning to the West End at the Gielgud with "all-new star casting" to be announced. Runs from Saturday 4 December 2021 - Saturday 12 February 2022. I suspect this is a precursor to a tour. I heard it was in the works.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2021 9:22:19 GMT
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Post by alicechallice on Nov 8, 2021 11:38:29 GMT
So nice of Giovanna Fletcher to take a role away from a working actor. That family, eh?
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Post by Roxie on Nov 8, 2021 12:14:02 GMT
So nice of Giovanna Fletcher to take a role away from a working actor. That family, eh? Giovanna IS a trained actor. She went to Sylvia Young. And I don't think Lily Allen (who previously did the role) is a trained actor either. I don't understand the hate the Fletchers get on this board. Seems like jealousy to me.
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Post by alicechallice on Nov 8, 2021 13:01:45 GMT
So nice of Giovanna Fletcher to take a role away from a working actor. That family, eh? Giovanna IS a trained actor. She went to Sylvia Young. And I don't think Lily Allen (who previously did the role) is a trained actor either. I don't understand the hate the Fletchers get on this board. Seems like jealousy to me. Excuse my ignorance, I didn't realise she was trained as such, I should have done more research. And I probably would have done if she wasn't such a crushing bore. Turns out she went to Rose Bruford which carries a bit more weight than Sylvia Young but I'm still not impressed. I know it's down to producers wanting names but it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to those who have honed their craft by working harder than her by performing constantly. I think the animosity (I think hate is too strong a word) towards the Fletchers comes from their prominence within the industry despite their sheer blandness. And it's certain not jealously on my part, I definitely wouldn't want to be responsible for some of the popular fiction they've put out into the world or have such a wide social media profile without a hint of self-awareness.
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Post by jaqs on Nov 8, 2021 14:15:19 GMT
Giovanna was in Ivanov in the Donmar west end season years ago, it’s not like she’s never tried to be a stage actress previously.
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Post by Roxie on Nov 8, 2021 14:43:41 GMT
Wasn't she also in A Christmas Carol musical? and the christmasaurus musical?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 8, 2021 20:08:45 GMT
Her sister-in-law tweeted that she hopes the schedule works out so she can go and see a performance. Pretty hilarious considering the amount of performances CHF misses on the regular.
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Post by imstillhere on Nov 8, 2021 22:33:33 GMT
This casting (much like the last company did) reeks of Runaway Entertainment and the other producers not being confident enough in the material and filling it to the brim with "names".
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Post by Jon on Nov 8, 2021 23:43:54 GMT
I like Giovanna but I'd booked to see this for Stephanie Beatriz, she's great in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and In The Heights.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2021 10:44:08 GMT
So nice of Giovanna Fletcher to take a role away from a working actor. That family, eh? Giovanna IS a trained actor. She went to Sylvia Young. And I don't think Lily Allen (who previously did the role) is a trained actor either. I don't understand the hate the Fletchers get on this board. Seems like jealousy to me. Lol jealousy is such a lazy argument and often not true at all. Carries issues and attitude have been discussed to death, many people have issue with Tom and giovanna (and others) with the 'we're such quirky perfect parents' routine, plus the furlough issue didn't help them either. They also suffer from the fact they seem to be everywhere at the moment.
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Post by fiyero on Nov 9, 2021 13:56:24 GMT
I like Giovanna but I'd booked to see this for Stephanie Beatriz, she's great in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and In The Heights. It was Stephanie who got me there too! My friend saw the first run and says it is a great play too.
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