Alfie Boe and Michael Ball seem to be a bit of a joke act anyway. Their endless interpretations of popular songs (also known as covers) and their double-act bromance make them quintessential crossover artists where popular music meets opera and Broadway. And a perilous choice for the discerning listener. It’s not that they aren’t talented musicians and performers in their own right. Still, their musical choices are always safe, predictable and less than their potential. But every country deserves to have a pair of self-described national treasures that can tour the local arenas and give people a good time for the bargain price of £175 a seat. And so the concept of Adam Riches and John Kearns - two world-famous from the Edinburgh Fringe comedians taking on this bromance seems like a curious choice for a Christmas musical fare. One can only hope that over the fourteen nights, it is playing at the Soho Theatre that the show evolves into something more substantial than a series of po...
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Theatre Wake: Too Close to the Sun
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It didn't feel like closing night of Too Close To the Sun. It felt more like a wake. Too Close To the Sun opened two weeks ago and immediately posted closing notices. We arrived almost too late for curtain up as John, Feigned Mischief and I were still having dinner across the road from the Comedy Theatre. I was keeping an eye on the theatre to watch when people went in, only to realise (almost too late), that with so few people attending the show, it was hard to tell. As we entered there was a deathly silence, and while I don't recall if there even was an overture, it felt like there should have been an organ playing funereal music.
The musical is a four-hander about the last few days of the life of Ernest Hemingway. The synopsis goes something like this: Ernest plods about and tries to molest his secretary. His wife, played by Helen Dallimore, walks around the set in some rather fascinating stirrup pants and heels. Meanwhile some other guy tries to woo Helen Dallimore and the screen rights to Ernie's books while singing Ethel Merman-like numbers. All this apparently drives Ernest to blow his brains out. Any insight into one of the great writers of his time must have been superfluous.
When a show is this bad, it isn't t necessary to wait for the reviews. John and the West End Whingers provided enough analysis to explain why it was not going to work in any case. John for some masochistic reason wanted to see it again, but I was grateful that he was there as an expert witness as I could keep asking him important questions about the production such as:
"How long is it until Ernie blows his brains out?"
"Does that mean it is intermission?"
"How long is it now until Ernie blows his brains out?"
"Didn't Ethel Merman sing a song that sounded like that once?"
"How long is it until Ernie blows his brains out?"
"There surely must be only five more minutes before Ernie blows his brains out right?"
Since the previews, some of the more ludicrous elements of the show had been toned down. It was also thankfully a little shorter. The "I don't trust that pirate girl" number became "I don't trust that little girl". The reference to pirates in Iowa was too much for some preview audiences who reportedly erupted into howls of laughter. Part of my motivation in seeing the show was that I missed the composer's previous opus, Beyond the Iron Mask, back in 2005, so naturally I was a little disappointed by these improvements. Still, there were enough WTF moments in the show to keep shrugging and shaking my head. Mostly they had to do with the musical numbers which bordered on the atonal and not well executed. The exception being the jazz parts of the number "I've been Too Close to the Sun", which ends the first act with a whimper... It could have been Liza... Although pity the character singing was Hemingway. The production also marked the return of the pointless revolve to the West End as well as the house turned and turned and turned without adding much. You were still in Iowa...
During intermission our group noticed two ladies who managed to smuggle into the theatre some Korean takeaway from a restaurant nearby as well. A lovely aroma wafted through the theatre and became the topic of the Audioboo I recorded and posted above. Talking to the ladies afterwards they suggested the food was the highlight of their evening as they bought tickets to this show on the premise that it was a play and they couldn't understand what the point of all the music was. Then they added that they couldn't understand the dialogue either. We probably should have asked Roberto Trippini who wrote the libretto to explain it to them as he was sitting a few seats away.
After the show we waited by the stage door to congratulate the cast for being professional and to wish them well. We also showered them with party poppers as a tribute to being in a show where the highlight of it was when the lead character blows his brains out. Somebody clapped as Trippini walked out as well but he said (what seemed like without any irony) that the real stars were still coming. When they did appear they were good sports and hopefully they had a stiff drink afterwards. Helen Dallimore also had a creepy fan who looked like Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver give her a stuffed animal and a kiss before she left as well. Lets hope nobody remembers that they were in this production... But the fans of course...
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue . Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple. The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
