Nicole schreibt...

Well, the best-laid plans and all of that. This trip should have been the grand finale of the "Summer of Bat" before a bigger cast change I expected to happen at the end of October. Instead we got the leading man running off early to do the US Tour, forcing me to make one more very unexpected trip to the Batcave on Saturday 1 September, which got its own special trip report here, to say goodbye. Since the rest of the cast remained the same (for now) and I already knew I wasn't keen on the new leading man, I knew, I really didn't need to see "Bat" twice this weekend, so I ditched my Friday ticket and opted for "Eugenius" at The Other Palace instead. It's a new British musical by Ben Adams and Chris Wilkins that gained traction during a concert performance at the Palladium and a first run at The Other Palace at the beginning of this year, not least due to being co-produced by Warwick Davis, who got his old buddy Mark Hamill to voice Kevin the Robot.
Arriving in London on the late Eurostar, I only just had time for a coffee with a friend at the Theatre Cafe, before heading down to St. James for the show. Eugenius is very much a child of the present zeitgeist, the tale of a teenager called Eugene who writes comics about Tough Man, Super Hot Lady and Evil Lord Hector battling it out in outer space, while he himself is dealing with school bullies and his Dad, but has two great friends in Feris and Janey. One day Hollywood comes calling to adapt his comics for the screen and antics ensue as actors take over his beloved characters. Of course all ends well and the boy gets the girl in "A comic book kind of love" (the title of one of the best songs).
The whole thing is set in the 80s, bringing further delight to this 80s gal, with legwarmers, Gremlins, Indy and an Ewok on stage as well as a questionable band called Flock of Eagles. It's hard to describe the sheer crazy of this wonderful little show and if anything, I'd compare it to "Jamie" as a small show with a huge heart in which everyone was just incredibly likeable. Simon Thomas as perfect Superman clone Tough Man (and a dead ringer for Henry Cavill looks-wise), the hilarious Emily Tierney as Super Hot Woman and the wonderfully adorkable Neil McDermott as their nemesis Evil Lord Hector (who finally turns up in the real world) on the comic book/actor level and everyone in the real world. Who wouldn't want Daniel Buckley's Feris as their best friend fighting their corner or indeed want to be friends with shy sweet Eugene, played by Rob Houchen? Though if I'd have to name one stand-out, it's Laura Baldwin as Janey. I saw her in the same theatre in "Big Fish" last winter, where I didn't really notice her, but here she was so incredibly loveable, that I wanted to take her home and put her on the couch to brighten up the place.
"Eugenius" proves to me once again that Britain CAN do new, fresh, wonderful musicals - just not on Broadway-level scale and hype. Would "Eugenius" survive a West End run and build up steam like "Jamie" has? Possibly, but I couldn't tell. What I do know is that this show needs to be seen and while I normally roll my eyes at marketing blather, I do agree with them this time - I already need to see it again!
Sadly I had caught a cold earlier in the week and while I could just about keep it together on Friday, another bad night more or less finished me off. I spent some time in the West End in the morning, sorting another ticket-buying-mess and got seriously judged by a young staffer at HMV for buying the eclectic mix of Josh Groban, Loreena McKennitt and the Frozen OBC, before returning to the hotel for a break ahead of the matinee. "Heathers" is a strange one - when it was first announced at the Other Palace, I bought a ticket, then decided to sell it again when "Mean Girls" on Broadway rubbed me completely the wrong way and I got so annoyed by shows celebrating that vapid bitch culture of American high schools. Then I decided to give the original movie from 1989 with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater a go and realized what a brilliant satire of precisely that culture this is with misfits Veronica and JD running rampage at Westerberg High. I also liked the fact that at last we have a young female lead who takes matter into her own hands and is about so much more than chasing/finding/holding on to a man. Luckily the show had been such a success at the Other Palace that it transferred to the bigger Haymarket for a limited run and I got my chance to see it after all.
A lot of the hype in London had to do with Carrie Hope Fletcher playing Veronica. While I didn't know the young lady at all, she has amassed a huge following of mostly young female fans on Youtube, Instagram, etc. who are now buying the tickets - I've never felt so old in a London theatre before, but I'm pleased to see something and someone bring in a new generation of musical lovers. If I didn't enjoy "Heathers" as much as I had hoped to, I really don't blame the show itself but me being a physical wreck after two sleepless nights, the massive cold clogging up my head and an ever-growing headache. JD's solo "Freeze your brain" has been one of my favorites on the CD but when he sang it on stage, I was just thinking "hurry up, man, I need to cough so badly and I don't want to cough through your solo". Thankfully, an iffy nosebleed waited until the interval and after that, oddly, my head began to clear and I started to feel slightly better.
So what can I say about "Heathers" itself? Well, I loved both Jamie Muscato (JD) and Carrie Hope Fletcher (Veronica), who definitely proved to me she's a bonafide great young musical performer and not just a "social media celebrity". I also liked that she was a normal-sized young lady (and thus a great role model for the impressionable teenagers in the audience) and not the usual stick-thin leading lady. I was less impressed with the Heathers though - while it's perfectly standard for twenty-something performers to play teenagers and many get away with it easily, this can't be said for Jodie Steele (Heather McNamara) who looked at least in her 30s with very adult features to boot. So while she did some fabulously funny acting, she just didn't work for me and the other two, T'Shan Williams and Sophie Isaacs, weren't much better. Dominic Andersen and Christopher Chung fared better in the age-department as the two obnoxious jocks who get what they deserve and Jenny O'Leary sang a lovely version of my favorite song "Kindergarten Boyfriend" as suicidal Martha. If I had been in a better state of mind and body, I would probably have enjoyed the young fans' enthusiasm more, greeting the Heathers and Veronica with entrance applause and cheering loudly at certain bits in the story. Oh well, I'm still glad I went as the show is definitely worth seeing and should do well on the school/college circuit.
Then it was back to the Batcave once again as I had given a ticket to a friend as a birthday gift and could hardly send her alone now. Besides I WAS curious to see if I might like new leading man Jordan Luke Gage better now that I knew to expect him as Strat (and he with more performances under his belt). Sadly all I can say is that he used the interim time to grow some sort of bird nest on his head (come on, Andrew's clown hair was mad, but this is a whole other level of awful). Actually he got through the first act somewhat okay and I thought, maybe I had been too harsh on the lad, but then - once again - he buggered "Bat out of Hell" completely, lacking the voice, the energy and the charisma for that beast of a song. So while I guess he's okay for those who have no comparison, I just know that he annd I won't become friends anymore in this life. Ironically I could have seen one new cast member - the new Blake - but after Patrick Sullivan's impeccable track record, I now got the understudy Eric Hallengren instead of the new kid. Also absent was (once again) Danielle Steers and while Rhianne-Louise McCaulsky is decent enough, she just isn't blow-me-away-fabulous. Otherwise it was all first casts being their usual great selves and I was happy to see the Dominion pretty full. Will I go back? Well, probably once or twice before it shuts shop as it's still a great show overall and I can't see it settling into a never-ending run like WWRY.
My "Summer of Bat" is definitely over though and I look forward to a more regular schedule again with a few longer trips spaced out better. The more I've used Belgian Railways now, the more I've realized that they aren't perfect either, creating mayhem once again with construction on the line east, dumping passengers in a tiny place called Trooz in the Ardennes from where buses continued to the last three stops Verviers, Welkenraedt and Eupen. Oh well. More adventures await in winter and then Philly can't come fast enough... :)