Reich

freckles, on 31 October 2012 - 06:45 PM, said:

Because that wouldn't look even weirder. We'd probably find ourselves dragged into some sort of enquiry.

Perhaps if they keep cutting it, it will become a Beckett like yawn of ten seconds.

If only Julian Assange was on the mailing list, we'd know by now

Crazy marketing strategy - as mentioned earlier, announce the shows and they might get some people to join for priority booking!

Since I'm a Sarf Londoner I almost never veture that far North. So Bijan Sheibani would be great as it would mean I'd never have to suffer another of his turkeys at the National

I guess this means the St James only has another few months to capitalise on being "London's Newest Theatre"

Any protesters will have time to attend Evensong beforehand.

Jamiem, on 29 September 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

So you think a thread title of "Biggest Musical Theatre Flops Ever" should be interpreted as "Let's list every show that ended up losing £0.01 or more"?

For example, I can't see how anyone could claim that Avenue Q was one of the biggest flops ever. I don't know whether it eventually failed to recoup - if it did then its break-even point must have been at least 80% because once they'd cut their prices it was sometimes difficult to get tickets. But it was a critical success, it ran for several years so it must have been covering its running costs for almost all of that time, and it proved popular enough with the public that it was worth someone else taking it out on tour when the West End production closed. None of those things say "biggest flop" to me.

To illustrate "biggest flops" I'd offer...

Behind the Iron Mask
People flocked to see it in their tens. They flocked to escape in numbers nearly as great. "Unwatchable shit" would have made a comparatively positive review. Nobody had anything good to say about it, with the possible exception of "We're finally out of the theatre. Good." It was astonishing that it ever made it to the stage, and the most baffling thing about it is that at no point prior to the opening night did anyone take the creator of the show to one side and say "Are you insane? Have you actually watched this rubbish?"

The Lord of the Rings
Hugely expensive and heralded with claims along the lines of "All you other shows might as well pack up now because the theatre revolution is coming", it failed to capture most of the audience and only occasionally pulled in enough people to cover its daily running cost. A cheaper, less ambitious production might well have survived because there was nothing fundamentally wrong with it apart from its failure to tell its story, but the production team appeared to think that the more money they threw at it and the more over the top the spectacle became the more certain they were to achieve success. It turns out you can't buy popularity that way.

That's what I think is meant by "biggest flop".

I heard that Lloyd-Webber wants to see it like he has always want...in an ill conceived arena tour in front of 20,000 people with really bad sound quality...I heard he was going to cast the show via local papers classified ads, and that the set would be an olympic sized swimming pool and the cast would be in the pool in synchronised swimming routines! - but that's just what I heard *Whistles Sarcastically*

On a real note - I enjoyed CRH's revival and could see it touring to middle scale venues like Liverpool Playhouse, WYP etc, but have a feeling as noted above ALW only wants get rich quick cash cows, so have a feeling this won't happen!

In The Heights!

Revivals on any Sondheim would be good. I'd specifically love to see Pacific Overtures at the National.

Reich, on 23 September 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

That's better than what we got on Friday - no crotch shots or indeed any shots whatsoever during the curtain call.

Love it!

I thought Zippy was making a valid point here. that's all.

I got all excited at the mention of Candide and then I found it's some boring straight version without songs *sadface*

freckles, on 08 September 2012 - 12:46 PM, said:

But they are £27.50, if you book now tickets are only £10, I'll save the £17.50 and buy a cushion