Review – Come From Away, Phoenix Theatre

When Phil mentioned – to those without a soupçon of musical theatre knowledge – that he was going to this Broadway import, Come From Away most asked “what’s that?” (marketing department take note). His reply, “It’s the 9/11 musical” drew comments of “seriously?” or “you’re kidding” or the kind of incredulous expression that at best implied “too soon”.

Of course it’s not really about 9/11. That event just facilitated the story. It’s about niceness. The niceness of a Canadian town Gander (population 10,000) that for six days accommodated, fed, entertained and medicated (in both senses) over 6,600 passengers plus a cargo of animals – which included a pregnant ape – from the 38 passenger aircraft that were diverted there after the attacks.

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Review – Young Frankenstein, Garrick Theatre

In which Phil acts as advisor to Mel Brooks.

Phil’s having a half-arsed catch up of shows he missed during his confinement. Or you could say a catch up on the seventies since this is his third in a row that steals from classic movies from that decade (Network, The Exorcist). Though this is less of a catch up than a revisiting. Of sorts.

Review – Hand to God, Vaudeville Theatre

Janie Dee pulled out of Mrs Henderson Presents before it launched in Bath last year. After visiting that dispiriting show last week we thought she’d had a lucky escape. After suffering at the err, hand of Hand to God we’re not so sure.

Something of a hit in New York, both off and on Broadway, you can’t say that it  doesn’t do what it says on the tin with its poster screaming “Sesame Street meets The Exorcist”.

Dee plays recently widowed Margery who runs a Christian puppet group in a church hall, possibly as something of a therapy session for her troubled (schizophrenic?) son Jason (Harry Melling) who fists a rather odd sock puppet called Tyrone which unsurprisingly develops an even more disturbed personality of its own.

Review – The Scottsboro Boys, Young Vic

Phil is constantly surprised by life.

After experiencing his first earthquake and returning to his hotel room, he ran a forensic check on his bathroom’s grouting. How, when the whole building was quivering around him, did it survive intact without even the hint of a hairline crack? It wasn’t even flexible grouting. How do they do that?

And he shouldn’t really be surprised by the musicalisation of grim real-life events anymore but he is. After all he suffered Jean Seberg (which, if he remembers correctly  – when he saw it – opened with the actress’s body discovered in the boot of a car after her suicide and also contained the jaw-dropping moment of a chorus line of tap dancing psychiatrists) then there was the equally memorable Too Close to the Sun (the last 24 hours in the life of Earnest Hemingway before he blew his brain out). The surprise in The Scottsboro Boys, concerning nine black teenage boys, falsely accused of rape in the Alabama of 1931, isn’t so much that the event was turned into a musical, but that – unlike those others – it actually works.

Review – Sondheim on Sondheim, Studio 54

We’re still here.

And despite our involuntary extended status as Broadway babies it wasn’t the least bit difficult to observe the embargo on this show.

Sondheim on Sondheim officially opened at Studio 54 on Thursday night.

The Bellyachers  had graced it with their presence at last Sunday’s matinee but had to keep their traps shut until yesterday. Which was a relief really as we’ve been getting way behind with our posts and just when we almost catch up we ruin it all by going to see something else.