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Aug. 11th, 2007 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fairyd123Am currently watching Thunderbirds. Whoever decided to turn the Tracy's into blond bland Americans and then completely sideline them for the entire film in favour of 3 irritating kids needs to be shot. No wonder they didn't make any more. Sophia Myles is completely awesome in it though.
If you'd be wondering about the total radio silence for the past week its because if you looked up the definition of "wretched" in the dictionary you would have seen my picture next to it. First there was the bad cold, then the eye infection, and then last Saturday I fell asleep in the sun and fried myself to within an inch of my life. My legs are still red raw and incredibly painful.
Saw Joseph last Saturday.
I had a fantastic seat- second row in the stalls with an uninterrupted view of the stage. And its definitely difficult to concentrate when Lee Mead dressed in only a loincloth and handcuffs is so close to you you can see the sweat glistening on his chest!
I know that regular theatre goers have complained a lot about the fact that the production is identical to the 1991 production which was at the Palladium but as I never saw that version (my sister and I were going to see Philip Schofield in the role (he was kind of the God of my childhood with his gigs in the broom cupboard with Gordon the Gopher and then on Going Live) but the ticket agent ran off with our money- but enough about my traumatic childhood) I was very impressed with the production.
I thought the production design was great - everything was colourful and over sized as befitting of a production which started out as a school play. Loved the heavy use of the children's choir especially as it was so entertaining to watch the different ways they responded to being on stage. There were about 4 of them who clearly desperately wanted to be big stars - they spent all their time gurning at the audience and over singing every line. On the flip side there was this brilliant little girl in the front who clearly couldn't give a damn about the fact that she was on stage in front of about 500 people and only occasionally looked up when she was forced to. She was definitely my favourite!
The supporting cast was great - the brothers were all very funny (especially Reuben) as well as being great singers and dancers. I loved the very silly, goofy humour such as Joseph wrestling with the snake and the singing camel.
As for Lee - well he was wonderful. Very very strong singer with not a single bum note- granted I was close to the stage but his voice carried effortlessly. He absolutely owned the stage - he really did have fantastic stage presence. To be fair as a role Joseph isn't exactly a stretch but Lee acted it well switching from arrogance to humour to vulnerability. He did look amazing in the loin cloth and he just had the audience in the palm of his hand. Obviously the audience were all rooting for him to do well - they cheered when he walked on stage and he got a 5 minute standing ovation at the end. I had been dying to hear him sing Close Every Door (as he never got to sing it in the show) and his version was absolutely fantastic (although I must confess I do perhaps think Daniel ultimately sang it better) - I was thrilled that he got to sing it twice - once at the appropriate moment in the show and at the end in the mega mix section when they just basically do a 15 minute romp through the highlights of the show.
That's not to say that the show was perfect. I was horribly disappointed with the Narrator (Preeya Kalidas). She's a tiny little thing with a voice to match. Her voice was weak and reedy and wavered all over the place. She would frequently start singing each line too quietly, build in strength and then taper out. I couldn't help but feel that if she gone through the same process to get the job as Lee did she wouldn't have made it past Joseph school. More than that she's just plain miscast. The Narrator is a key role - she links every scene and signals the different changes in musical styles. The role needs to be played by someone who can connect with the audience and the childrens' choir on stage - I thought Preeya came across as cold and remote. She didn't connect with the audience at all. Her casting was a real misstep.
I'm also not sure what the additional song added to proceedings. I don't begrudge Dean Collinson's wonderful Pharoah the additional stage time but the audience didn't respond half as well to the new song (which basically seems to be titles of different Elvis numbers strung into a song) as they did to Song of the King.
Afterwards I went to the stage door to wait for Lee and quickly deduced (as I was the only one there) that I was in the wrong place. The nice security guard told me that Lee would come out the front and would be signing in about 15 minutes time. So I went back to the front and joined what can only really be described as a teeming mob. Dear God Adelphi security did you give any thought whatsoever to crowd control? Lee won a show which attracted 8 million viewers a week, its a Saturday night, the performance is sold out, its a gloriously warm night - do you think it possible that a lot of people may want to stay and get his autograph? The answer to that is YES dear Adelphi security in case you were wondering. Morons!
So they ask all the children to move to the front and then they close off the left and right doors and bring Lee out through the central doors. Lee appears and the easily 100 strong crowd surge forward. So moving all the little kids to the front seems like a great idea now doesn't it! Lee handed out coloured A5 signed photos of himself and I managed to snag one despite the charming chav next to me trying to rip it out of my hand. Its a nice shot of Lee in the dream coat - although the signature itself is sadly a pre-print making the photo a lovely freebie but ultimately worthless from an autograph perspective. Lee then started to sign for people but because the security hadn't gotten people to form a decent line there was no way for people at the back to get near to Lee and no way for people who had gotten their autograph to get out of the way. Lovely! And as is always the way there was some huge asshole with a digital SLR snapping hundreds of pictures and refusing to move out of the way of the mostly female, mostly very petite crowd squashing everyone in his way.
I managed to get as close as I could to the front and proferred my brochure for Lee to sign as I figured I would have more chance of him signing it as its longer and bigger than the programme (easier for him to reach). He signed it and I managed to drown out the screeching mob enough to tell him that I'd thought he was absolutely wonderful in the role and was met with the most beaming smile I've ever seen for my troubles! Seriously it was like his whole face lit up! I then literally had to fight my way to the back to leave. Honestly they do this thing so much better on broadway. When I saw Denzel Washington in Julius Ceasar he signed afterwards for the entire audience. Everyone formed a queue which went back about 2 blocks and his manager told me that they'd gotten it down to such an art that he could sign and pose for photos with the entire audience and it would take less than 30 minutes. Yet we always manage to get it so wrong in the West End that we have rugby scrums which threaten the safety of the crowd and the actors - would it kill them to hire someone with a little brains to arrange these things?
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cyberamanda I now have a front row dress circle ticket for a John Barrowman hosted gala in September. Woo!
If you'd be wondering about the total radio silence for the past week its because if you looked up the definition of "wretched" in the dictionary you would have seen my picture next to it. First there was the bad cold, then the eye infection, and then last Saturday I fell asleep in the sun and fried myself to within an inch of my life. My legs are still red raw and incredibly painful.
Saw Joseph last Saturday.
I had a fantastic seat- second row in the stalls with an uninterrupted view of the stage. And its definitely difficult to concentrate when Lee Mead dressed in only a loincloth and handcuffs is so close to you you can see the sweat glistening on his chest!
I know that regular theatre goers have complained a lot about the fact that the production is identical to the 1991 production which was at the Palladium but as I never saw that version (my sister and I were going to see Philip Schofield in the role (he was kind of the God of my childhood with his gigs in the broom cupboard with Gordon the Gopher and then on Going Live) but the ticket agent ran off with our money- but enough about my traumatic childhood) I was very impressed with the production.
I thought the production design was great - everything was colourful and over sized as befitting of a production which started out as a school play. Loved the heavy use of the children's choir especially as it was so entertaining to watch the different ways they responded to being on stage. There were about 4 of them who clearly desperately wanted to be big stars - they spent all their time gurning at the audience and over singing every line. On the flip side there was this brilliant little girl in the front who clearly couldn't give a damn about the fact that she was on stage in front of about 500 people and only occasionally looked up when she was forced to. She was definitely my favourite!
The supporting cast was great - the brothers were all very funny (especially Reuben) as well as being great singers and dancers. I loved the very silly, goofy humour such as Joseph wrestling with the snake and the singing camel.
As for Lee - well he was wonderful. Very very strong singer with not a single bum note- granted I was close to the stage but his voice carried effortlessly. He absolutely owned the stage - he really did have fantastic stage presence. To be fair as a role Joseph isn't exactly a stretch but Lee acted it well switching from arrogance to humour to vulnerability. He did look amazing in the loin cloth and he just had the audience in the palm of his hand. Obviously the audience were all rooting for him to do well - they cheered when he walked on stage and he got a 5 minute standing ovation at the end. I had been dying to hear him sing Close Every Door (as he never got to sing it in the show) and his version was absolutely fantastic (although I must confess I do perhaps think Daniel ultimately sang it better) - I was thrilled that he got to sing it twice - once at the appropriate moment in the show and at the end in the mega mix section when they just basically do a 15 minute romp through the highlights of the show.
That's not to say that the show was perfect. I was horribly disappointed with the Narrator (Preeya Kalidas). She's a tiny little thing with a voice to match. Her voice was weak and reedy and wavered all over the place. She would frequently start singing each line too quietly, build in strength and then taper out. I couldn't help but feel that if she gone through the same process to get the job as Lee did she wouldn't have made it past Joseph school. More than that she's just plain miscast. The Narrator is a key role - she links every scene and signals the different changes in musical styles. The role needs to be played by someone who can connect with the audience and the childrens' choir on stage - I thought Preeya came across as cold and remote. She didn't connect with the audience at all. Her casting was a real misstep.
I'm also not sure what the additional song added to proceedings. I don't begrudge Dean Collinson's wonderful Pharoah the additional stage time but the audience didn't respond half as well to the new song (which basically seems to be titles of different Elvis numbers strung into a song) as they did to Song of the King.
Afterwards I went to the stage door to wait for Lee and quickly deduced (as I was the only one there) that I was in the wrong place. The nice security guard told me that Lee would come out the front and would be signing in about 15 minutes time. So I went back to the front and joined what can only really be described as a teeming mob. Dear God Adelphi security did you give any thought whatsoever to crowd control? Lee won a show which attracted 8 million viewers a week, its a Saturday night, the performance is sold out, its a gloriously warm night - do you think it possible that a lot of people may want to stay and get his autograph? The answer to that is YES dear Adelphi security in case you were wondering. Morons!
So they ask all the children to move to the front and then they close off the left and right doors and bring Lee out through the central doors. Lee appears and the easily 100 strong crowd surge forward. So moving all the little kids to the front seems like a great idea now doesn't it! Lee handed out coloured A5 signed photos of himself and I managed to snag one despite the charming chav next to me trying to rip it out of my hand. Its a nice shot of Lee in the dream coat - although the signature itself is sadly a pre-print making the photo a lovely freebie but ultimately worthless from an autograph perspective. Lee then started to sign for people but because the security hadn't gotten people to form a decent line there was no way for people at the back to get near to Lee and no way for people who had gotten their autograph to get out of the way. Lovely! And as is always the way there was some huge asshole with a digital SLR snapping hundreds of pictures and refusing to move out of the way of the mostly female, mostly very petite crowd squashing everyone in his way.
I managed to get as close as I could to the front and proferred my brochure for Lee to sign as I figured I would have more chance of him signing it as its longer and bigger than the programme (easier for him to reach). He signed it and I managed to drown out the screeching mob enough to tell him that I'd thought he was absolutely wonderful in the role and was met with the most beaming smile I've ever seen for my troubles! Seriously it was like his whole face lit up! I then literally had to fight my way to the back to leave. Honestly they do this thing so much better on broadway. When I saw Denzel Washington in Julius Ceasar he signed afterwards for the entire audience. Everyone formed a queue which went back about 2 blocks and his manager told me that they'd gotten it down to such an art that he could sign and pose for photos with the entire audience and it would take less than 30 minutes. Yet we always manage to get it so wrong in the West End that we have rugby scrums which threaten the safety of the crowd and the actors - would it kill them to hire someone with a little brains to arrange these things?
Thanks to
cyberamanda I now have a front row dress circle ticket for a John Barrowman hosted gala in September. Woo!
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Date: 2007-08-11 09:12 pm (UTC)Hope the legs are feeling a bit better from the last time we chatted.
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Date: 2007-08-11 09:22 pm (UTC)The legs are still pretty unpleasant but at least the feet have stopped swelling - it's a bad day when you're having a competition with the nearly 9 months pregnant secretary at work as to which of you has the most hideously misformed swollen feet!