We’re warned at the start of the show with an upbeat number that this is not the usual sort of musical. And it turns out to be just that. But with boundless enthusiasm and energy from its two leads, who deploy a range of voices and breathtaking energy to create a series of voices for puppet characters, a bedtime story becomes a silly oddball tale about four souls stuck in purgatory. With puppets. And various toilet humour references. It’s currently playing at Upstairs At The Gatehouse . The piece starts as a bedtime story. Daddy (Mark Underwood) is about to read a bedtime story for Louise (Sarah Louise Hughes). But her stomach felt funny, and soon, she went to the bathroom. Then, for reasons that seem to only make sense in the confines of the show, they start telling the story of four people who died in unfortunate circumstances in the bathroom. Depicted as puppets, they’re stuck in purgatory as St Peter doesn’t have enough space for each of them in the afterlife. And so begins a puppe...
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Lovely repeating spam: Spamalot
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The new, slightly sillier version of Spamalot which has come back to the West End turns out to be almost like an out of season panto. Given the large number of families who were there to enjoy it during half term, perhaps the show really an awfully appropriate and a surefire way for cheap laughs in the West End.
In this revised production, a few scenes have been cut and songs trimmed and more topical references have been inserted into the lyrics. It now runs only two hours including the interval, and the end result is that it feels like a snappier and faster paced show. Even if the production values aren't as lavish, the naughty words are not as frequent, or the cast as large, I much preferred this version to its original West End run.
The show is loosely based upon (or lovingly ripped off from as the show calls it) the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which lampoons King Arthur's quest to find the Holy Grail in the middle ages. But all you really need to know is that it is a series of sketches and songs that send up the middle ages, knights, celebrities and musicals and is pitched at the same sort of comedy level as the Book of Mormon... The young and energetic cast that appear in the show which helps give the show the right level of mild insanity. Even if one of the songs in this new version replaces the mildly baffling "You won't succeed on Broadway" with "You Won't Succeed in Showbiz" espousing the need for a star, this show works fine without one. King Arthur is younger here and played this time by Robin Armstrong, and makes more sense given that Monty Python were young when they filmed the piece...
If there is a star for the show, it is Bonnie Langford, who is returning as the Lady of the Lake after her successful stint in the role last year. It's a big role that takes the silliness to a whole new level with a need for a sense of comic timing overly dramatic singing. Bonnie was off as she was playing 9 to 5 in Leeds last week so that meant I saw the wonderful Sarah Earnshaw. Sarah's no little voice or wallflower either, but Bonnie is back in the show from this week.
Although some of the audience were a bit taken aback by the loose staging of the big disco number about Lancelot in the second act which looked like they were air bumming, this is mostly a family show with only occasional hints of naughtiness.
As an update, comedian Joe Pasquale (opposite) is now in the role of King Arthur. Pasquale and Bonnie Langford starred in Peter Pan quite a few years ago and after they were reunited via Twitter (the lure of social media can be intoxicating).
Joe came to see her in Spamalot and following the performance, Bonnie suggested to the show's producers that Joe would make a great King Arthur... He is on for another month... Look out for two shows on Friday as well.
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.
