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A Trip to the Theatre

jokerman

Giga Poster
gavin said:
Oh, and Steven Berkoff can **** right off...

What?! He's amazing, one of my favourite dramatists ever. "East" is one of myt favourite plays. Admittedly his acting is poor, but his writing and direction is fantastic.
 

silenthillXD

Hyper Poster
I saw chicago and phantom recently, both were amazing but Phantom was the clear winner.

Chicago - 8

Well, I really enjoyed chicago. The dancing in particular was simply amazing, it was the constant high point throughout the whole musical. Also the acting was amazing, mamma morton was very well done, with a massive stage prescience and roxie and velma were simply brilliant. In fact the backing dancers aswell performed incredibly well, my personal favourite was the guy who played the jury, who just happened to be rather attractive... ^^
One thing that really worked well was its style! The minimalism nearly drove me off when I heard of it but it works so well! And also the fact the band are actually on the stage was not only intriguing but also very effective. It worked very well in making it feel like a show at a sleazy jazz club, what with the see-through tops and all.
Now the only reason it got an 8 is because the balance on song to story seemed out of proportion. I saw the film first, which got a perfect balance, but the stage performance was strongly song. Which wasn't too much of a hinderance as it meant there was more amazing dancing and singing. The problem is certainly not in the quality of the songs as they were perfect. It just seemed to be song after song after song with hardly any acting to hold them all together. I feel very bad saying that as I loved it and am hopefully going back to see it again. But overall its a very good performance that everyone should go see!

Now for The Phantom of the Opera - 10

Wow. It was simply spectacular. The whole musical is just a complete spectacle of theatre. The story line was well adapted into music, and they were certainly not shy of introducing some amazing effects, like the chandelier and the pyrotechnics which surprised me slightly. The songs and the music were also fantastic Webber made an amazing score for it and the cast performed their roles almost perfectly. Christine was a standout, her voice was beautiful. The phantom was also amazing with his singing being perfect on all songs, bar one, which just happened to be my favourite, all I ask of you reprise, it is probably me being harsh as he performed it amazingly, but the final words in the song kind-of fell flat as he didn't sing them with the aggression featured in other phantoms I have seen on youtube. Although his acting and singing in all the other songs made up for it. The whole performance was amazing, with a very creepy atmosphere around it. The first scene made me shiver so much as the grey drape flew off and the chandelier sparked, literally, to life. Pure brilliance!
 

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
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^I LOVE Phantom. The whole chandelier being unveiled and rising, with that music, is probably my favourite moment of any stage production. I could watch that show hundreds of times and never get bored.

jokerman said:
"East" is one of myt favourite plays.

Aaarrrghghhh! East is the exact reason I can't stand him. Ok, so it's not his fault, but being forced to play Mike in a uni production with a bunch of lazy, talentless f**ckwits has put me off Berkoff for life.
 

jokerman

Giga Poster
I love that style of acting, and that's why I love Berkoff. I did Dad's monologue about Ozzie Moseley for As level and got full marks, but to put on a Berkoff play, everyone has to be giving it everything, there is no half hearted Berkoff.
 

jokerman

Giga Poster
Me again. Royal Shakespeare Company and Rupert Goold do Romeo and Juliet.

I'm studying in drama and we were supposed to see it on the 18th Dec, but snow stopped us, so I got to the theatre early morning on the 27th, to grab a £5 ticket, as soon as the box office opened, for that evening's performance.

If you've read my other reviews of Goold's work, then this is basically the same, so stop reading now. It was great fun and very entertaining to watch, but I didn't have a clue what the message Goold was trying to put across was.

The two leads wore modern clothes, there were bikes and policemen, fire came out the stage and monks kept chanting. It was certainly an experience, especially at the Roundhouse, which is a fabulous theatre. It was very funny, the balcony scene especially, and I enjoyed how they made the famous lines (eg, what light from yonder window breaks) sound original and quirky, not cheesy.

I had a great time and I would recommend you all see it, but it's run in London is over, and I think it's almost sold out in Stratford-Upon-Avon. There might be some tickets left in New York.

8.5/10
 

jokerman

Giga Poster
Guess Who? Oh me again.

Salad Days at the Riverside Studios Hammersmith.

This was fun. There's not much more to say really, it was just so much fun. There isn't a sad song in it, and in the end the plot is so ridiculous that the show begins to take the piss out of itself.

The stage was traverse audience either side of the action, and this allowed for some incredibly interesting dance numbers. Impressively it didn't cause the actors to not be heard when they had their backs to you.

The show is set in the fifties, so is certainly rather twee, but this all adds to the fun. I utterly loved the whole thing, a great laugh, very funny.

Despite it not having that much to it, it was a fantastic production (well done tete a tete), and I can't give it any less than 9/10!
 

gavin

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Blood Brothers.

Meh.

Not my idea, but some friends were going, so I thought I'd go with them. It was alright I suppose, but just not as good as soooooooooooooooo many people seem to think it is.

It's just all too predictable. You hear the name Willie Russel and you just know it's going to involve scouse accents, class issues and feeling sorry for dole scroungers because life is so hard and unfair etc.

Plus the music really isn't that great. It's 2-3 basic melodies repeated for 2 and a half hours.

The woman playing the main character (some X-Factor contestant) was actually very, very good, but the show as a whole is just so overrated.
 

jokerman

Giga Poster
^This site is absolutely full of gays, I'm sure most people reading this topic will have heard of Wicked.

But yes, the current cast are absolutely brilliant. Everyone should see it again now, it was awesome. Glad to hear you enjoyed it.
 

kimahri

CF Legend
The gay is all up in this biatch...


I think I semi agree with Gavin on Blood Brothers. Although I did enjoy it when I went to see it with the school... Have I already said this in here?
 

Dave

CF Legend
Just found out John Owen Jones is returning as Phantom on the West End for a few months. So definatley going to see Phantom again!
 

Ollie

CF Legend
Went to see Derren Brown Svengali last night.
Such an amazing show. He's always such a joy to watch live on stage and the audience participation and interaction makes it so much better than watching it on TV. He's so funny and there is lots of humour and 'laugh out loud' moments in the show and he works the stage so well and manages to keep your attention from beginning to end.

It was a bit more theatrical that Enigma but that's not a bad thing as he had the audience listening to his every word and some of the tricks/stunts he did were amazing and horrible at the same time and I'm glad I didn't get chosen as sticking a needle through my hand isn't my idea of a good night out. :p

In Enigma when he tried to put some of the audience members into a trance it only worked on a handful of people but when he did something with the whole audience in this show it worked with loads more people. More than half the audience found themselves not being able to control their body and it was a weird sight. It happened to Maddie as well but I'm sure she'll tell you about it without giving away what happens too much.

The ending as usual finished with a bang as everything came together and he received a thunderous round of applause as he took his bow. :)

I can't recommend this show enough. If you like Derren Brown then you'll LOVE this show and seeing him live. If you don't like him then the show is still highly entertaining and will keep you talking about it for days after.

After the show we went to the stage door to meet him and get some stuff signed. It took him a while to come out as it's his last night in Liverpool but it was worth the wait. He is genuinely one of the nicest people you can ever meet and even though he was in a hurry he made sure he signed for everyone and stopped for photos.
Got to chat to him for a bit and got a big hug before he had to get in his taxi to head back to his hotel.

The set (taken from someones Flickr as my pic didn't come out too well)
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Me and Derren
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"By the end of the evening all but one of you will be dead. Only kidding. Give it a week."
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jjjjustin

Hyper Poster
Spiderman: turn off the dark
AMAZING 9.5/10
This will have spoilers​


This show was great but there were a couple things that caused it not to get any higher of a score.

1.Theme song was played to much. I know its a theme song but if its played every 10 minutes for 2 hours and 45 minutes its bad.

2. outfits and costumes - Some of the costumes were really bad looking (Cheap), some were annoying like Swiss miss'
swiss-miss.jpg
That gets annoying once 20+ bright white lights hit it​
Lizard costume looked really cheap (like something you buy at a cheap costume store)

3.The ending! Just how the green goblin
Died
confused almost every one in my school!
He pushes a piano into the a pit, Spiderman yells some really puny joke, then he fall of the building in a different direction that he pushed the piano. Apparently Spiderman webbed the piano to him. It could have been fixed if the piano fell of the building in the direction that he went!

Thats really it but still it was amazing and I would love to go again.
 

peep

CF Legend
Completely forgot to post this but on Tuesday night I went and saw Ghost Stories

It was amazing, didn't really know what to expect, heard it was good but that was it. I loved the way the theatre is all themed to the stories and the eerie music and sound effects as you enter the theatre are amazing, really created a cool, creepy atmosphere. I thought the show was rather simple but brilliantly done, the sets, actors, lighting, sound all were just perfect and yes I jumped several times :p We paid little over £20 and got seats in the forth row, epic :D

I highly recommend the show to all, it's just fantastic and it has lots of humour too which I highly approved of. Shame it ends on 17th June though.
 

peep

CF Legend
Umm, it was some website that my friend linked me to. We paid like £24 and on the actual printed tickets they were worth like £40, well happs with that.

Aha, Linkage
 

Ollie

CF Legend
REALLY enjoyed Ghost Stories. The writing was really clever and the acting was great alongside it.
After the first story I didn't think I was going to find it very scary as I could tell when things were coming and see things move in the background. But the second story picked it up massively and was my favourite out of the 3 and even made me jump. The scariest part of the show though is probably the end. Andy Nyman really shows that he can act and puts on a great performance. The ending made me jump more than once which was great.

I do recommend this show if you can get cheap tickets. We got it for £22.50 each and we were in row C right at the front in the stalls. If you enjoy clever writing, build ups of tension and some good scary bits (sometimes a bit cheap but oh well) then you should enjoy the show.

The theatre is really well themed as well and the scares start from the moment you collect your tickets from the desk. The twist at the end of the show was clever and the more you think about it and the show the more it makes sense and I wouldn't mind going again to see it knowing the ending so I can see all the hints (sometimes obvious but you don't take notice of it) and make more sense of it.

But yeah. See it before it ends next month. :)

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