paplazaroo

Pharaoh, on 24 May 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

That one was depressing You wouldn't of thought they just came out of a show

Thanks so much for coming! The Q&A was a blast. The support for this show (other than on this board) has been tremendous. So much so. that Jennifer Saunders has asked me to write the book for her one-woman show about Viva. I would say that tonight is the last night of EXIT at 9PM,  but then I would be selling myself on this board which is frowned upon.  Cheers!
VIVA AD: http://seekingtheexi...ly/EXITADS.html

Themed production gimmick: If you try to leave they'll force all your friends and relatives to disassociate themselves from you.

I was out tonight with a bunch of 20-35 non theatre friends who are all obsessed with the idea of getting BOM tickets, I mentioned they would love Once and they had never heard of it. The PR needs to do something because the few posters on the tubes and buses just look like another movie, they need to do TV appearances and more press or it will close soon.

Can anyone give us an idea of what songs are in the show??

dannyboyjohnson, on 07 April 2013 - 12:05 PM, said:

Oh dear. Its basically that no one is doing anything much with it. It works in the original because Geri starts it with her distinctive tone and then Melanie C (particularly)  Mel B and Emma take it away with theirs. If you sing it without distinctive vocals it just goes nowhere . I thought they had hopes of getting that  with some of the people they reportedly had in the workshop -  but going for raw, inexperienced vocalists just produces something that sounds like an X factor audition that Simon won't like.

It would work well on stage if you just had Melanie C's track done with half the mpact , and if you made it a big spectacular,  as in
https://www.youtube....h?v=kEK7Bm6A6sE
Or if you had 4 people who sound distinctive as in the original
https://www.youtube....h?v=5JD6ejmlpa8

I think they  are doomed though by their decision to try and avoid having anyone identifiable as individual Spice Girls. As soon as you sing this properly someone has to sing Melanie C's distinctive bits. - as soon as you do that,  you identify one of the girls as her - and it doesn't take long then  to identify them all and identify who is not there at all. Basically,  you have a musical where you have Spice Girls songs that don't, and can't, sound like the Spice Girls - which doesn't strike me as one of the smarter ideas in Musical Theatre history.

Not like sex then.

The RSC should learn from the NT's website for this - I had to queue for a bloody long time but at least I could watch myself edging up from 1289th in the queue, gauge the pace, and go and have a pee, make a cup of coffee etc. By the way  I've never had so much money invested in advance theatre tickets as I have at the moment.

I think Michael Ball hosting and singing will be good. I just wish they wouldn't always have to have him sing "Love Changes Everything". Why it couldn't it be "Sunset Boulevard" for a change? No one sings that as well as Michael Ball, and it is a so much more interesting piece.

And what on Earth is Simon (***) Cowell doing muscling in on anything to do with musical theatre? He has never been anything but derisive of it, although that wouldn't stop him exploiting it (or anything) if he thought it was going to make him more money.

And Denise Van Outen with Kimberley Walsh? It doesn't exactly inspire, does it?

Hearing something from "Profumo" will be interesting though. I wonder how that is progressing? I have to say I don't dislike the idea of that.

And will be interested to hear back from those who actually go to the recordings.

Hello all

Apologies for not replying sooner. Our small team is still recovering from the Awards, to be honest, and somewhat depleted with folks on holiday, and trying to get back to business as usual.

In any case, yes, we’re reading this and I have tried to address your various points below:

Re: seating - We tried very hard to get all of the nominees into the stalls this year, which we have managed to do in every previous year. Unfortunately and unavoidably, we simply did not have enough tickets in the stalls to make this possible this year at the Palace (a new venue for us, which threw up all sorts of challenges).

Fyi, the nature of the Whatsonstage.com Awards is very different from other awards. Historically, we have always had the massive industry Launch Party in December to announce the shortlists and big up every single nominee, reading out the shortlists to loud roars, doing interviews with everyone attending etc etc. We continue to do this, of course, as we have every year for over a decade.

The Concert is the second event in the Awards season. We only added this to the Awards season six years ago and the idea behind it, and the continued emphasis, was to give access to the public to share in the Awards celebrations and to let them effectively congratulate and applaud their nominees and winners in person. That creates a great atmosphere but it does mean there is even more pressure on tickets, as we make tickets available to the public at all levels – indeed about 70% of the house is open to the public, and these tickets go on sale before we even know what and who has made the shortlists.  We think this focus on public access is very important to maintain.

We had the extra challenge this year of being at a new theatre, as I mentioned – and all sort of extra challenges – fewer seats in the stalls and a much higher RSVP rate from nominees than previous years. By the time we realised how many more tickets we needed in the stalls for nominees, the tickets on that level had all sold out. We recognise that, as the Awards profile grows, this may increasingly become an issue for us and we’ll need to find a solution – but what I never want is to have the stalls/top price seats exclusively for industry folks and the public in the gods. This is against the entire purpose and ethos of our audience-voted awards.

Re: shortlist reading - Again that has been a historic decision related to having a separate event specifically about the shortlists and about creating a format that is unlike other awards shows. However, this is something we will be reconsidering for next year. As the Awards have grown, and many nominees may make one event and not the other and, understandably, not appreciate the history or reasons behind each, it may be wiser to conform more to expectations of traditional Awards events.

Re: the tone of the presenters - The event does have a reputation that has been built on being fun, raucous and slightly irreverent (those who came during the two years James Corden co-hosted will know that this year was quite tame by comparison). All of the hosts banter is done in a well-meaning, tongue in cheek spirit, but it is not to everyone’s taste clearly. It is difficult to strike the right balance. And we will have a think about this again next year.

Re: being there vs watching online - In general, the feedback that we have received from those at the Palace, which was absolutely packed, has been overwhelmingly positive. People seem to realise that, with these one-night events, it is by necessity quite pressured and somewhat flying-by-the-seat of our pants (we only have access to the theatre on the day) and that makes for part of the fun. There are always going to be goofs and slip-ups, which seems to add to the fun. (And raises the stress levels for those of us involved!)

Some of the points raised, therefore, may be down to our limitations with the webcast rather than any change of quality with the production itself, which was very much in the vein and irreverent but well meaning, tongue in cheek spirit of previous concerts. With the webcast, we’d love to broadcast the performances, for instance, but do not have the rights to do so – which we do pre-warn viewers about. We started the webcast last year to try to give more people access to the Awards results as they happen, but if this is not working for our audience, we may reconsider and simply not do the webcast next year. It is an awful lot of work and expense, particularly if it’s not producing a satisfactory result for viewers.

Anyway, thank you again for sharing your thoughts with us. We do read them and we do take them seriously. And, a very serious offer, if any of you would like us to plan or execute next year’s Whatsonstage.com Awards, we would welcome your involvement.

Until then, all the best,

Terri Paddock
Whatsonstage.com

Oh right all this time I thought it was Andrew Lloyd Webber!

A former student of mine, and a Musical Theatre Nominee for a major West End show, said on his Facebook page that he has been given tickets for the Circle alongside a very talented writer,
who had also been shoved upstairs.

He says it was a dreadful shame that this occurred at a huge industry night for our business.

This comment has attracted over 120 "likes" from people in the business.

I am sure there was ample room in the stalls for all the nominees and their guests, so who occupied all the other 500 plus seats in the stalls?

Here's The Stage Review
(not Mark Shenton!)

Never has the word "whimsy" been so well used as in reaction to this piece...!

I do maintain though, that the complaints of such whimsy & one dimensional characters seem to me to be missing the point somewhat. I thought that was deliberate, to enhance the fantastical, storybook nature of the tale & worked well...

Is it the one with a 10 on the front with a policeman outside it?

Interesting also to see that all the actual critics gave this 3 star reviews whilst Coveney has been rather over generous!

I just read that other excellent critic in the ES...she also thought it warranted 5 stars

I think it was going to be Cate Blanchett for Mrs Johnson and Bono as the narrator for the Blood Brothers movie. I personally would love to see a Blood Brothers movie but I think it would be better as a British film with a smaller budget than a huge Hollywood blockbuster as it would be better at portraying the back street sort of Liverpudlian poverty. It would be interesting seeing it with ACTUAL child actors. But I think the downside would be (as pointed out when the west end run ended) that a film or any sort of recording would stop schools visiting the UK tour, or unless Kenwright decides to tour it more rarely now (which I hope he doesn't!). Plus one of the huge pulls of the show is the dramatic plot that most the audience wouldn't expect.

This might be a bit unlikely as it isn't as popular on stage (and it hasn't even been in the west end yet!) but I'd love to see a Jekyll and Hyde movie, just as long as it isn't another Tim Burton/Jobnny Depp/Helena Bonham Carter collaboration.

Also I remember reading an article somewhere that Jerry Springer would play himself in a movie of Jerry Springer - The Opera, but obviously that wouldn't happen now with Christian protests. Plus it wouldn't really work anyway.