JD094

Anyone else reckon that Geronimo's latest tweet makes it sound an awful lot like he's staying on?


@GeronimoRauch:1m
A year ago I was arriving to London without knowing what my future would be! Now I can say that I'm staying for a while!

I'd heard he was leaving and then he re-signed, which I hope is true because he is my favourite Javert!

The new Valjean has a lot to live up to post Karimloo and Rauch though, I really hope they go for talent and not a name (not that the producers are often guilty of this in fairness).

Dirty Dancing, 9 to 5 or Jersey Boys depending on who you believe on here!

Yep, cast are all tweeting they had their closing notices today, for Saturday 29th June.

Saw this last night. I will do my best not to be too hysterical about it, and what follows is just my take on it, not what is gospel...

Some parts of it I enjoyed; mainly the large production numbers of the bigger hits - aside from the ridiculous blow up things in Spice Up Your Life. Choreography was largely very tight too, it seemed. The number Viva Forever was beautifully rendered by Ben Cura too, I adored that arrangement. The pit sounded phenomenal throughout, so hats off to the MD and his team; the sound quality was brilliant and so loud as well; I seem to remember thinking the same coming away from Ghost.

Great performances few and far between. Notably from Hannah as Viva; adored her voice, and loved Kirstie Skivington who was on as Diamond, very well suited. In addition, Hatty Preston's Minty was great, with impeccable timing, but the hash-tag thing began to grate on me towards the end. Sally Ann Triplett and Simon Adkins did solid jobs too, thought they were a bit under-used but can of course see why the focus is largely on the four girls.

Now the book. It's just dreadful. Coarse joke after ridiculous near-profanity after coarse joke after another (etc). Some got laughs, some certainly didn't. I thought Act 1 held up fairly well but about 15 minutes into Act 2 the whole thing just falls apart. It was the first time I've ever felt uncomfortable in a West End theatre. Seated high up in the (near full) Upper Circle, there just reached a point where everyone was looking at each other as if to say, 'what on earth are we witnessing here?'. Cue heads in hands and much muttering and laughing throughout the sparsely thin dialogue that made up the rest of the show. 2 Become 1 is a cringe-fest. Agree with previous posters on the abrupt ending but was nice to see the girls back together one last time. And the blasting mega-mix at the end is all very well but is surely an effort to try and get people to dance away the previous 2 hours' troubles!

I am not going to slag off the actors because I appreciate they all do the best job the can with the material given. But the characters of Suzi, Johnny, Simone, Karen, Lance and to a certain extent, Mitch, I just found so bland and irritating. They added nothing to the story really, and Simone in particular has far too much stage time. The over-arching concept itself is not a bad one at all but it could have been executed so much better. But safe to say, with such a talented cast, I left the theatre disappointed for them: that despite what I am sure is a mammoth effort each night, the end product is largely forgettable.