Review – The King and I, London Palladium

In a relatively theatre-free summer Phil’s last two and a half theatre outings have been to revivals of popular musicals which were turned into successful films starring the original stage star. Rather scarily Phil saw both these stage productions with the aforementioned stars.

Review – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Musical

Last week Phil was due to see Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown but it seemed the show itself was having a breakdown of its own.

He’s already reported about turning up at the Playhouse theatre a week last Monday to find it cancelled as three, yes, three of the leads were off sick. A friend who had been the Saturday before reported that apparently the director had come on stage before the performance to apologise for the cast feeling ‘tired and under the weather’. Surely not a wise move. If you’ve forked out for a ticket you don’t really want to know this. What were they hoping for a sympathy vote?

All were present on Tuesday, though they’d had the official opening and an after-show party the night before yet no one appeared tired. With the frenetic goings on in this musical adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar‘s farcical 1988 film tiredness would not sit too happily with the madness they have to contend with.

Review – South Pacific, New Wimbledon Theatre

Phil tried to break the news to Andrew as gently as possible. But there was no other way but to simply blurt it out.

“It’s 3 hours long. Act 1 is 1 hour 37 minutes”.

The corners of Andrew’s mouth turned due south as his eyebrows shot off in entirely the opposite direction; you’d think he’d just heard that Carol Channing had announced her retirement.

The problem with Rodgers and Hammerstein is they just didn’t know when to stop. Many musicals are lucky to produce any, let alone one or two memorable numbers. They should heed South Pacific and weep: it has over a dozen of them plus the reprises.