Reviews by KarenIt is 1969, New York is celebrating man landing on the moon, and Prof. Indiana Jones is about to retire. Then his goddaughter turns up and he goes on one last adventure.
This film has sci-fi elements that aren’t in the previous 4 and we discover that the happy ending in the 4th film didn’t last, but it was an entertaining couple of hours.
6/10
I got a £25 Rush Ticket from to say is to see the second performance of this revival. It was a good seat slightly to the side a few rows from the front of the Royal Circle.
The munchkins were quite tall for munchkins, the special effects tended to focus on projectors with some limited scenery, and Toto had assistance from a puppeteer. However, it was still an entertaining show.
There were a couple of small possible mistakes. At one point when running around with her companions Dorothty appeared to fall over, and later in the second half in the melting scene, the victim clearly walked off stage rather than disappear through any trapdoor (but that was possibly linked to a bigger problem that occurred.
A couple of minutes into the second half there was a show stop. The problem was with the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle and she was left standing on it when it didn’t move like it should have done.
A man came on stage to say there was a technical problem. The auditorium lights stayed off, and the Witch walked off stage, then after a few more minutes, a company manager came on to say it was a problem with a piece of scenery that wouldn’t move and they were trying to get it working.
The lights came up a bit and then after a few minutes, Jason Manford came on still in his Cowardly Lion costume and did a bit of stand-up to entertain the audience for the next 10-15 mins until he was that the show could continue.
There was less scenery after that (not sure if that was how it was meant to be or if that was due to the problems) but it continued and Jason Manford got a well-deserved ovation at the end in addition to some possible in jokes added about how hard he had been working.
8/10
Second show of a 2 show day after getting a train direct from the matinee of Annie at Woking.
I saved over half the face value with an ATG offer for opening night.
It is adapted from the Roald Dhal story about a well-loved polite child who lives in poverty who wins a competition to tour Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory along with 4 spoilt rich kids. Wonka has devised tasks to choose a worthy child to win a valuable prize.
The special effects largely rely on computer graphics projected on a screen and the stage (which doesn’t help anyone in the stalls) and the audience’s pure imagination, with a glass elevator at the end on wires over the stage. In addition, the oompa loompas looked like human-sized budget cyborgs but the show was amusing.
6/10
I got a small ATG card discount for this classic musical about an orphan dreaming for her family.
It stared Craig Revel Horwood as Mis Hannigan, who runs the orphanage. He was fab-u-lous – as was everyone else (including the dog).
There were quite a few school parties in, and they were reasonably well behaved apart from a bit of sniggering and chatting when they realised Miss Hanigan was a Strictly judge in drag.
10/10
I got a £29.50 Rush Ticket from TodayTix to see this musical and the air-conditioned Sadlers Wells Theatre.
It appeared to be one of the best seats and had a great view of “those dancing feet”, for a massive discount.
It is about a new chorus girl Peggy Sawyer, who can pick up new dance steps amazingly fast, following her dreams.
I saw the previous version of 42nd Street at Drury Lane a few years ago. This version which is touring was a bit less lavish but was still very funny and entertaining with impressive performances from all.
They didn’t have all the merchandise yet, which was a bit disappointing, but there is a website where you can buy it once they are ready.
9/10
This was my second visit to the Globe, but thanks to a Gift Card I got a reduced price seat rather than standing.
The seat was reasonable but did have a pillar blocking the view a little bit zling with the pillars on stage that also block parts of the action a bit.
The person playing Demetrius was indisposed so as with Comedy of Errors someone wearing black red the part (although holding papers rather than a full ring binder this time).
This is a comedy in which the course of true love never did run smooth – largely due to fairies drugging people and thinking what fools these mortals be.
The audience was quite distracting with people taking photos during the performance, and people walking about a lot. Some of those in the standing area were taken ill during the show (it was quite warm) and were helped out by staff.
The play was amusing and it was a nice contrast having a seat this time. I was lucky to be in the shade throughout and as I was on the back row I had a wall as a backrest.
7/10
I managed to get a £25 Rush Ticket from TodayTix for this political satire.
There were some quite up to date topical references involving the current statuses of Rolf Harris and Philip Schofield, but the voice-over impressions appeared to be prerecorded for an evening performance as there were a number if references during the afternoon matinee to it being evening.
The theatre also wasn’t very full, with the upper circle closed and people at the back of the stalls being moved further forward. This meant at a point when they asked the different levels to hear, there was silence from the upper circle which wasn’t referenced.
Apart from that it was very funny.
There was a show stop about 15 minutes in which lasted 15-20 mins. It was unclear what caused it, but at some points it looked like there was a possible problem with spotlighting.
It focuses on King Charles cotonation and how to thwart a plot to stop it. There are lot of puppets that appear but some don’t have very much to do and seemed to just appear to show they made their puppets.
Overall or was an entertaining couple of hours.
8/10
This is not one of my favourite musicals but I had the opportunity for a heavily reduced Rush Ticket from to say is so I took the opportunity to watch it as I hadn’t seen a live theatre version of the show before.
The seat was good but due to the fact three were bright lights pointing at the audience for much of the show it was a bit too bright at times, and the staging was a bit weird, with the cast on stage when it wasn’t their part and not much scenery but there were some entertaining bits (particular if you weren’t sitting near the front of the stalls) and it was nice to be able to see the orchestra.
6/10
