Nicole schreibt...

A record-breaking year in terms of travelling to London ended with a grand finale after Christmas in which musicals dominated. One of my biggest regrets is that London constantly offers so many new shows that I'm unable to revisit shows I enjoyed the first time 'round. Dragging my mother along to "show her" some of my favorites of recent years was finally a good excuse and came with the added benefit of a lovely five-star hotel, the Grange Holborn, for which she forked out. Having thought Germany is the only place where Boxing Day is still a totally dead holiday while the rest of the world opens the shops and has fun, I was surprised to find the West End very quiet with many shops closed and not many people about. At least it meant easily getting a table at one of the otherwise perpetually busy restaurants in Covent Garden, the "Pho" which serves the classic Vietnamese soup along with other Vietnamese classics, cold Saigon beer and Vietnamese coffee. Lovely! First show was "School of Rock" which I had really enjoyed a year ago and which I wanted the mother to see because there's no chance in hell this show would ever make it to Germany with "laws against child labour" that date from the days 10-year olds were sent down the coal mines, prohibiting kids from doing more than X performances per year, so they would need a huge cast. But who cares when you have London where a new cast had taken over, led by Stephen Leask as Dewey Finn. It was still fun enough, with a fresh bunch of massively talented kids who - this being Boxing Day - treated the audience to an encore with young Tia Figgett (Tomika) singing "All I want for christmas", which was sweet. An added benefit of this particular hotel was the lovely spa area with a big pool, sauna and steam bath, which was also the perfect place to waste a few hours next morning as there was little else to do really before my own matinee at 2pm at Shakespeare's Globe. While I had been able to see a show in the proper outdoor theatre, I had as yet been unable to see something at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the indoor addition that is meant to resemble the first Jacobean playhouses of the Restauration. Now I finally had my chance when departing director Emma Rice put on a musical there, "Romantics Anonymous", based on the successful French-Belgian movie with Isabelle Carré and Benoit Poelvoorde about the cripplingly shy owner of a small chocolate factory and the equally shy young chocolate-making genius who are meant for each other - if only they would manage to make a move. In this cute stage version - with the playhouse being the perfect setting for it - Carly Bawden and Dominic Marsh played the leads Angélique and Jean-René and got it just right by making both of of them utterly adorable and not the slightest bit looking foolish. The whole production should and could have been so sugary-twee as to give everyone indigestion (especially an old cynic like me) but somehow, it just got everything right and turned it into a charming little gem of a show about two people you can't help loving. There was terrific support all around from the likes of Joanna Riding and Lauren Samuels (whom I had hoped to see live for a long while) and while the music by American composer Michael Kooman (with lyrics by Christopher Dimond) didn't really stick in the brain long, it was perfectly servicable and fitted the mood of the piece perfectly. There were other charming little ideas, like having Joanna Riding and Natasha Jayetileke dressed up as French cliches distributing little chocolates to the whole audience before the show or the amusing car chase sequence with a tiny Renault buzzing around the stage. I hadn't expected much from this show and so it became the most positive charming surprise of the entire trip. Still on a sugar high I made my way from Southwark to Victoria to re-connect with the mother for dinner in one of the fairly nice restaurants in new-fangled Cardinal Place that served decent British fare including a very delicious fish pie. Many years ago a movie I had expected little of had caught me completely unawares: "Big Fish", based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Wallace, in which down-to-earth-son Will is struggling with his father Edward's flights of fantasy, never knowing if there's any truth in his wild tales, while Edward doesn't understand why his son can't see how fantasy enrichens a glum daily existance. It somehow reminded me a lot of my own father who also had a predilection for wild tales, so "Big Fish" spoke to me on a very personal level. When a musical version (with music by Andrew Lippa) was announced for Broadway, it had almost been enough to lure me across the big pond, but sadly the show became a big flop and wasn't seen elsewhere for years. When it was now finally announced for London, I just knew I had to seize the chance to see it, even if it meant sacrificing the return visit to "Dreamgirls" (another show I would have liked my Mom to see as we don't get that sort of powerhouse vocals here). Being done at the small "Other Palace" (my third visit in this theatre in one year!) meant that there wasn't much chance for a big spectacular staging and director Nigel Harman instead set the whole show in the hospital where Edward recounts his wild tales and seeks reconciliation with Will before he dies. Unlike on Broadway, where Edward was played by just one performer, we get two here: The older Edward looking back on his life, played by US-sitcom legend Kelsey "Frasier" Grammer, and the younger Edward (Jamie Muscato) living the adventures, which worked fine. Could and should this show have been much bigger and brighter in those "fantasy" numbers? Perhaps yes. But it was big and bright on Broadway and still failed. What this production really got right were the human interactions between older Edward and his son Will (the wonderful Matthew Seadon-Young), the courtship between young Edward and young Sandra (Laura Baldwin) and the still-stable relationship between older Edward and older Sandra (Clare Burt), who gets to sing the most beautiful song in the show in which she assures him of her love. There was also this universal appeal to acceptance (in a nice mirroring of the matinee, which was also about accepting people who weren't all that ordinary) and to live life as you see fit. Needless to say that there wasn't a dry eye in the house when father and son finally made up before older Edward died. This isn't a perfect musical with some clunky bits and too few memorable tunes, but it packed just the right emotional punch and was presented by a nearly perfect cast. Kelsey Grammer didn't get much good press in his recent stage endeavours (and I still thank him kindly for stepping back in "Finding Neverland" so I could have a big dream come true in seeing Anthony Warlow live on stage), but to me he was simply perfect as Edward, carrying the show easily. My Thursday began - for the first time in a longer while - in a queue for day seats, this time for "Kinky Boots", another show I had hoped to revisit for a long time. With the weather being just above freezing point, it turned into a very cold two hours before scooting back to the hotel to defrost in the bath tub and chill before heading to Victoria and Hype Central: New York's juggernaut "Hamilton" had come to town in the freshly renovated Victoria Palace Theatre. Now I allow myself a hint of smugness, having been in New York at the right time to catch it there after opening, when prices were still on the right side of sanity and the full original cast including creator Lin-Manuel Miranda were on. But of course I would also want to see the London version and what's more, when I saw Hamilton in NY, there was no cast recording out yet and the incredibly dense lyrics just bowled me over. While I had tried to prepare by reading Ron Chernow's massive biography about the Founding Father That Got Away (and which inspired Miranda so much that Chernow is even listed in the programme), the staid book just can't prepare for all the stuff happening on stage and richness of the music and the prose. So I was glad to see it again now that I know the cast recording inside out and didn't have to spend all the time just focusing on what they were singing and instead noticed tons of other little things. Overall I thought the London cast stood up very well to "the originals" from Broadway, with Jamael Westman a very tall strapping Hamilton with great stage presence and Giles Terera as his nemesis Aaron Burr just as good as Leslie Odom Jr. across the pond, perhaps even a tad better in showing us Burr's constant pain and frustration at being overshadowed by Hamilton in whatever he did. The only one I couldn't warm to was Jason Pennycooke as Lafayette/Jefferson, since his Broadway equivalent Daveed Diggs had simply blown me away with his massive charisma and stage presence. Pennycooke was super-short and especially in the Jefferson get-up of purple velvet suit looked like a Prince tribute act. Which looked almost ridiculous in the rap battles, where super tall Hamilton could basically just glower Jefferson into the stage floor. Not his fault though and I'm sure most people will enjoy his performance if they have no one to compare him to. Michael Jibson milked King George for what it was worth and then some and earned himself massive rounds of applause. I'm in two minds about the ladies. Rachelle Ann Go thoroughly irritated me as Eliza in the first act, being all toothy smile and little personality, but then knocked "Burn" out of the park in the second act and broke everyone's heart. Rachel John's Angelica could/should have had a lot more sass, but was still decent enough, while Marsha Songcome (the only understudy I saw) was a utterly gorgeous Maria Reynolds, making you understand why Hamilton lost his head. I stand by my opinion that Hamilton is not the second coming of musical theatre, but it still feels so massively fresh, different, daring and so much smarter than so many run-of-the-mill shows (especially when seen from a German perspective, where musicals never developed beyond the blockbusters of the 80s with their weepy ballads). The New York version now has a very strong cousin back in the Homeland and the beautifully refurbished Victoria Palace Theatre should have a show in residence for a long time to come. And yes, that was my view from row D in the stalls for £90, weep, New Yorkers. From Victoria it was back to the West End for a nice Italian dinner and then once more to the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand. When "Kinky Boots" had opened in London I had already fallen in love with the cast recording from New York and was very much looking forward to it, but sadly I had been dealing with a headache and travel-fatigue that evening and couldn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped. I also didn't really warm to Killian Donnelly's somewhat greasy Charlie, so I always meant to revisit this show too and now was finally my chance - from my £20 front-row dayseat. I did enjoy it a lot more this time being awake and rested (somewhat) and David Hunter was pretty much the perfect Charlie I had always hoped for, while new Lola Simon-Anthony Rhodes was just as wonderful as Matt Henry had been, offering a particularly touching "Not my father's son". I noticed a lot more details this time and of course the front row makes for prime viewing of all those fabulous boots (gimme!). Fun tidbit: Next to me sat another German lady from near Cologne, who also ranted on prices and quality in Germany (with a view to the German production of Kinky Boots that has just opened in Hamburg) and how she much prefers to go to London to see shows. I really wonder how many potential visitors Stage Entertainment has driven across the Channel by now by their mix of ludicrous pricing and bad quality shows. Me? I'll be back in London next month to see the rest of the new shows this season I couldn't cram into this trip!