Nicole schreibt...

London May 2018

After a fairly crazy winter season with four trips to London in five months I had decided that I really needed to tone things down a bit and ordered myself a break of nearly four months. Bad idea. Even though there wasn't really much new on offer in spring, I soon found myself pining to return to my favourite city. Add to this the fact that Jim Steinman's "Bat out of Hell" was coming back to town, a show I had found myself starting to fangirl about throughout winter and was really keen on seeing again. Another thing announced for spring was a semi-staged short run of "Chess" at the Coliseum, for which I had initially had high hopes and kept Thursday open. While I have seen this show three times, including the muchly celebrated Stockholm run with the likes of Helen Sjöholm, I still kick myself for having missed the concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, where Josh Groban blew the roof off with his terrific Anthem. But when the Coliseum finally announced the cast it was mostly a damp squib with West End-stalwart Michael Ball and B-lister Alexandra Burke the only names and in my opinion not great enough to charge these ludicrous prices for. I also felt little pull to see "Chess" itself again with its bizarre tedious story and a handful of decent 80s pop tunes in which women are, as so often, reduced to bleating about a man. So once the cast was announced, I thought "sod that" and instead booked "Bat out of Hell" again to shorten the wait. No regrets. The trip to London was uneventful as always, except for an unscheduled longer stop at Verviers Station where I could see cops on the platform, who had been called in to haul someone off the train (note: Always make sure to have a ticket on the Belgian intercity!) but luckily I still had plenty of time to make the Eurostar in Brussels. Once in London I dropped my suitcase off at the hotel in Victoria, then went to the West End for a poke around the shops and dinner before it was time to head for the Dominion Theatre, where "Bat out of Hell" had settled in for an open-ended run after the first successful run at the Coliseum last summer (followed by a winter season in Toronto). The funny thing is that when I had seen it in Manchester last spring, I had very much enjoyed it, but didn't even feel a great desire to see it again. Only when the cast recording was finally released during the Toronto run, something inside me clicked and I found myself playing the bloody thing to death. I had also been fairly overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle on stage in Manchester, so I was really keen on seeing it again now that I was far more familiar with the songs and the story, Jim Steinman's take on the Peter Pan story set in a dystopian future New York City now called Obsidian. There are "The Lost", forever 18 year old mutants, living in what used to be the subway, on one side, and evil rich magnate Falco lording it over the town on the other side so predictably, Falco's pretty daughter Raven meets The Lost's leader Strat and they fall in love, but Daddy has conniptions and swears to destroy the mutants once and forever. Yea, right. Sure, the story is bonkers, but certainly not as bad or non-existent as some like to say and at least it's not as offensively racist and/or sexist as other shows I could name. In fact, I was pleased to realize that it's basically the females calling the shots throughout the show, especially Sloane, who starts out as Falco's bored and permanently drunk housewife, but then helps her daughter find love, sets the Lost free and leaves her husband. There's Zahara, being mooned over by Jagwire, who rejects him firmly (but hey, two out of three ain't bad) and even Raven is far from the typical damsel in distress in need of rescue by a dashing hero. We get all of Steinman's greatest hits from Meat Loaf's "Bat out of Hell" album and then some and it was such a joy to hear full-blown rock'n'roll Steinman again after the godawful castrated tunes in "Tanz der Vampire" with "Objects in the rearview mirror" still my overall favorite, performed by three terrific singers, Sloane and Falco blowing the roof off with their duet "What part of my body hurts the most" looking at the shattered debris of their marriage and of course the incredible spectacle that's "Bat out of Hell", surely one of the most demanding numbers ever on a musical stage. The same cast has stuck with the show since Manchester and it was a joy to see and hear them all again and even better than before, if that was possible with every song just being fantastic and not a dud among them. Christina Bennington (Raven) was the only one I hadn't really liked back then, but somewhere along the way she discovered facial expressions and now pretty much holds her own among the others even though Danielle Steers is still by far the best among the girls. There were two new faces among the boys, Wayne Robinson as Jagwire with a terrific soul voice and cute Alex Thomas-Smith as Tink, who gets to sing "Not allowed to love". The two leading men, Rob Fowler and Andrew Polec, are still out of this world vocally with incredible performances and inexhaustible energy, but ye Gods, someone tell young Andrew that that goggle-eyed open-mouthed mad-haired look is far more deranged clown than sexy young rock god we're supposed to believe everyone is in love with. There had been some negative buzz on the English forum how badly this was selling and how empty the theatre was midweek, so this being Thursday, I had braced myself for many empty rows - and was stunned to find that the whole huge barn of the Dominion was pretty much full except a few single seats here and there. Which was a big relief to me and if many people bought discounted tickets at short notice, it only goes to show that people do want to see this, they just don't want to pay the ridiculous prices producers are charging these days for most of the stalls. Now as you know I quite like to visit other places in the UK instead of just sitting around in London, so I was very happy when I realized that I could catch the UK Tour of Sting's musical "The Last Ship" in Cardiff of all places. The Welsh capital holds a special place in my heart because I have met such lovely people from there and I had actually visited once before, but just as a brief stop. I had purposely booked a hotel in Victoria, just across the road from Victoria Coach Station, so I could stumble over next morning to catch the early 8.00am coach to Wales. Why coach? Well, it was £18 for the return trip while the train had been around £80 - go figure. I knew I wouldn't be able to check into the hotel yet, so after arriving I just dropped my suitcase there, then went to visit the castle, which I hadn't seen back then. It isn't really all much, except for the ancient Norman keep and some splendidly faux-gothic rooms that were actually only created in late 19th century by the castle's then owner.

Nonetheless it was a great way to spend the time. And you gotta love a town where they plonk a huge new stadium into the middle of the city without any thought for the traffic situation during big sports events or concerts. I strolled around a bit more until it was time to check in, chill a bit in the hotel room and then meet first one friend for coffee and a chinwag, before being picked up by another friend to see the show together at the new Wales Millennium Centre in spruced-up Cardiff Bay. Having heard about abysmal Welsh weather for years, I was pleased (and presumably lucky) to find myself enjoying the town basking in sunshine all day. Why ever Sting thought opening a show about working class British shipbuilders from Tyneside on Broadway was a good idea I do not know. But predictably it flopped badly in New York and not even Sting himself taking over the lead could save it. But I had really enjoyed the cast recording with its somewhat folksy tunes, so when an UK Tour was announced, I knew at once that I would try and see it. Sadly Cardiff didn't seem too keen on it as the large WMC was half-empty on a Friday evening. The book had been considerably reworked and overall I thought it was a really nice and touching show - the kind of tale about plucky strong working class communities nobody does as well as the Brits. And once more I enjoyed the slightly feminist slant that showed the women as the strong force behind the shipbuilders when their shipyard is closed by a fictional Thatcher stand-in. Sure, there's also the inevitable love story between returning Gideon (dashing Richard Fleeshman) and his first love Meg (Frances McNamee), but it was very well-done and sweet with some wonderful "typically Sting" songs. But while performances were great overall, the somewhat sedate music made it hard for me to keep my eyes open after the very long day. I also think it might probably sound better in smaller venues with more intimacy than the cavernous WMC. I wish this had done better on tour to enable it go into the West End at least for a limited run, because it's a show (and story) that deserves to be seen - if only for the terrific final image of the last ship going out to sea (that shouldn't leave a dry eye in the house). Oh and I was impressed to see that they actually printed bilingual programmes for the Cardiff run in both English and Welsh! My friend dropped me off at the hotel afterwards and next morning I made my way back to London by coach. When "42nd Street" had been announced for London, I really couldn't face seeing it again after sitting through the English-language version at the Châtelet in Paris, especially when I heard that this was the Stage Entertainment production that had been in the Netherlands, on Broadway and in Germany, where I had seen it (and where it duly flopped, because it's not a mega-musical full of over-the-top ballads and spectacular effects). But there was a lot of positive buzz around this London production that made me waver and then Ashley Day, who had already lured me back into "An American in Paris" joined the cast - so I was sold. Then of course the lovely Mr Day had to tweet that he would be on holiday that weekend, so I wondered about ditching my ticket, but there just wasn't anything else with enough allure to tempt me. So in the end I just decided to go - and good thing I did because it was absolutely terrific. The £25-seats in the corner of the front row are an utter steal for this price and while the plot is wafer-thin, it's all just such a marvellous spectacle. And I guess, as the much smaller version at the Châtelet proved, this is a show where you either have to go big or go home. "42nd Street" started as a movie musical in 1933 during the Great Depression as a way to cheer people up and its big show numbers are just wonderfully old-fashioned, jazzy and fabulous. The thin story follows young Peggy who's too late to audition for the chorus of a big new musical called "Funny Lady" but gets hired anyway (because of course). When leading lady Dorothy Brock breaks her ankle, she accuses Peggy of having pushed her and Peggy runs off, but of course it turns out Peggy is also the only one who could understudy the part (really?) so everyone falls over themselves to lure her back and she leads the show to success. There were plenty of understudies among the male ranks, but luckily both female leads were on: Claire Halse had received lots of praise for her Peggy and she's certainly a talent to look out for. 60s and 70s singer Lulu had taken over as Dorothy Brock and seemed to be giving a Marmite-performance. Now I don't really know her apart from her being referenced on "Absolutely Fabulous" several times and I thought she was perfectly okay. Not the strongest voice, but heavens, the woman is over 70 now, I don't think I'll have the stamina to do that kind of show at that age at all. I really had a surprisingly wonderful time at this and who knows, I might even try and see it again with Ashley. I used the break then to have a leisurely sit-down dinner at Byron Burger in St.Giles before it was time to return to the Batcave, aka the Dominion. I haven't done the whole "seeing the same show twice in one trip" since the glory days of "Cats" in Hamburg in the early 90s just to justify the long drive up north back then, but I didn't regret it for a single second. I actually loved the contrast between the glitzy glamour of "42nd Street" as a classic Broadway show with a high-stepping line of chorus girls and marvellous costumes and the all-out hard rock of "Bat" with its leather jackets, biker boots and motorbikes. It just proves how versatile the genre "musical" is, which was what made me fall in love with it in the first place. There's little to add to what I wrote further up, except that Seat A19 is really the best seat in the house IMHO and one I shall strive to occupy again because there will be plenty more Bats in the next months (so be warned and forgive me when these reports start sounding repetitive...).