After the last crazy summer this felt like a return to normal... or somewhat normal. In fact my first show for this trip felt like coming full circle after nearly 30 years of travelling to London for musicals. Back in 1991 when "Joseph" opened at the London Palladium with then-hearthrob Jason Donovan, I was watching Neighbours religiously every day and would have given my left arm to see him live, but before the days of the internet, it was quite impossible to get super-hot tickets from abroad... and by the time I was finally able to see Joseph, Philip Schofield (whose name meant nothing to me) had taken over. Fast-forward to the present: When this revival was announced without a single name in the cast, I leapt at the chance for a £15 seat front row Upper Circle, figuring that if they'd throw someone I'd really like to see as Joseph my way (cough... Harry Styles... cough), I could still fork out for a better seat. But they didn't - Joseph would be played by newcomer Jac Yarrow fresh from stage school with the biggest names Sheridan Smith as the Narrator and... Jason Donovan himself as Pharaoh. So I stayed put in my cheap seat and good thing I did, because this Joseph Revival became a rather bizarre kind of car crash.
I don't even know where to begin. Clearly there was meant to be some vibe of "we're in school where the dotty school teacher is narrating this show and she and the kids step into parts" but it became a strange uneasy mix of Sheridan putting on a fake beard to pretend being Jacob and seven adult brothers and eight adult wives being joined by a bunch of kids. And while I didn't mind the cheap-looking stage sets (we're in the desert after all), I did mind the lack of full adult cast, especially in the Potiphar scenes where Sheridan now moved to play Mrs Potiphar and one kid appeared as Potiphar himself, followed by two more kids as the Butler and Baker in jail. Considering these scenes are as dramatic as Joseph gets, it killed any tension stone dead and this kind of "twee cute kiddie" stuff makes me want to set fire to the stage. By the time Jason Donovan appeared in the second act, by now clearly past his prime, which didn't stop his (many) fans going absolutely crazy, the whole thing had really begun to feel like some crazy amateur show, the likes of which you see as a show-in-show in farces like "Noises Off" and "The Play That Goes Wrong". I wish they had had the guts to run with that idea and made it a show on two planes of reality rather than this strange mix. So the positive bits? Fresh-faced Jac Yarrow is clearly a star in the making, who knocked "Close every door" out of the park and will hopefully get better chances to shine. I also admit that the whole party atmosphere, with a whole group singing songs from the show throughout the interval and going crazy for Sheridan and Jason, was irresistible and I found myself enjoying the whole evening far more than it deserved. The problem is just... this would be fine as some summer theatre thing in a seaside resort, but most definitely not in the West End at West End prices. So while I didn't mind the £15 I spent on this, I do think "Joseph" had deserved a much more dignified revival.
Next day I was finally able to go on a daytrip I had been hoping to do for a long time: The hike from the charming seaside town Eastbourne to Beachy Head, at 162 metres the highest of the famous white cliffs on England's south coast (and also England's no.1 suicide spot...). I had braced for the usual lousy English weather, when I optimistically booked my train ticket ahead, but NOT for bright sunshine, the fact that there wasn't even a cooling breeze on the coast and that to get up there, it was a drawn-out steep climb uphill that left me knackered. All the same it was fabulous and here are some pictures from Beachy Head and quaint Eastbourne itself:
Above the view towards the cliffs and finally Beachy Head and the Lighthouse itself. Below the beach of Eastbourne with the pier in the distance and the view from the pier back to the beaches:
I returned to the hotel just in time for a shower and a quick break before heading out again, this time to the Royal Festival Hall where I was just about able to catch the last performance of "Light in the Piazza" (for which I even dumped my ticket to say goodbye to the original version of Les Mis). And I wasn't the only one there, so I ended up playing a nice game of "Find the friend" to have a chat and catch up on news separately with three people before the show and in the interval.
"The Light in the Piazza" started life in 1960 as a novella by Elizabeth Spencer, was filmed in 1962 and finally turned into a musical by Adam Guettel (Music & Lyrics) and Craig Lucas (Book) in 2003. It's the rather weird story of American mother and daughter Margaret and Clara who travel to Italy, where Clara meets local boy Fabrizio and it's love at first sight. Except that Clara isn't quite as young as she seems and a few toppings short of a pizza. Her mother first doesn't want to let her go, thinking that her mentally unstable daughter can't do without her (and relishing in being needed). But finally, with some nudging by Fabrizio's Dad, accepts that she must let Clara go and make her own way. Which is fair enough, but it just seemed weird to me that Clara would find happiness in a foreign country with a boy of 20 years she met about five minutes ago. I couldn't help thinking that it would have made much more sense in the end, when the truth came out and things threatened to fall apart, they would have fallen apart indeed and Margaret and Clara had gone home "sadder and wiser" (and learnt a lot about themselves) than this nonsensical treacly happy end of the wedding, but oh well.
I had booked chiefly for the music, because lush operatic scores are so rare these days and this one delivered gorgeous songs in spades. While I had expected nothing less of opera superstar Renee Fleming as Margaret, I had been highly doubtful about Disney poppet Dove Cameron (whose name I had never heard before), but she did act and sing well and made me feel for Clara. Rob Houchen, last seen as adorable superhero Eugenius, played her local suitor Fabrizio and while he didn't look Italian at all, he sang like an angel and all was instantly forgiven. Alex Jennings, the man they cast when they need a very English toff anywhere on telly, was just as little Italian, but still fab to see live. Completing the leads where former dreamboat Enjolras Liam Tamne as Fabrizio's greasy brother and Dutch Celinde Schoenmakers in some young-Sophia-Loren-getup as his suffering wife. The show didn't leave a single Italian cliche out (someone driving across the stage on a Vespa? Check. Eating gelato in the piazza? Check. Sipping Espresso? Check.) and overall felt like the typical idealized American view of Italy (and Europe) as some sort of Disneyland, but with such a lovely score and fabulous singing, it was so easy to forgive and I enjoyed the show very much.
Saturday I could take it easy in the morning and ran a few errands, before waiting for a friend near the Savoy Theatre and gawk at the fabulous outfits of those arriving for the Pride parade, wandering along the Strand (which was closed for cars). She had declared she loved currywurst, so it was an excuse to at last try that Herman Ze German place that had tickled my curiosity for years. Sad to say, it's really not representative of the awesomeness of proper currywurst, but oh well. At least we could gawk some more at people arriving for Pride from our window seats in Villiers Street.
No Pride for us but "9 to 5" at the Savoy Theatre. In an extraordinary stroke of luck I had seen this show on its first pre-Broadway tryout in Los Angeles with no less than a future Oscar winner (Alison Janney) and a future Tony winner (Stephanie J. Block). So when this production was announced for London starring a WAG/pop star and a Love Island contestant in the same roles, my first reaction was "hell no!". But I kept hearing good things about the production and in the end curiosity won, helped by the fact that Natalie McQueen played Dolly Parton's part Doralee and she's one of the few West End performers I like following. Of course my usual luck was in and Natalie out on vacation that week, her role played by understudy Natasha Mould. That aside, I was really lucky as the WAG/pop star had left the week before, allowing bona fide musical star Caroline Sheen to return to the role of Violet (which she had already covered early in the run when the WAG/pop star was injured) and instead of the Love Island contestant we got understudy Rhiane Drummond as Judy, who knocked the best song in the score "Get out and stay out" out of the park.
The show itself, based on Dolly's movie of the same name, was still fabulously entertaining and beyond the charming facade a truly feminist show about sexism in the workplace, when the three leading ladies gang up to get their revenge on evil boss Franklin Hart (Brian Conley, spending half the interval dangling from the stage ceiling in a harness). Extra mention goes to Bonnie Langford, last being seen fabulous in "42nd Street" and now again as Hart's loyal secretary Roz, dancing up a storm that makes younger women weep with envy (me for example). So a wonderful afternoon was had and I kinda wish the show hadn't cheapened itself early on with its questionable stunt casting, establishing itself on the strength of the material alone.
Having said goodbye to my friend, I took the tube to the Barbican (not without TfL throwing a spanner in the works by chucking everyone out of the tube at Aldgate East and declaring the station closed) to meet up with another friend for dinner and to see the "new" production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" which had opened at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to great acclaim in 2016 and 2018 and was now returning for another short season at the Barbican with a new cast. Director Timothy Sheader had gone for the movie's idea of having a troupe of young players arrive (now looking very 21st century hipsters) to stage the show, with the lines between their performance and the actual story of Jesus' last days blurring further and further as things progressed and it did admittedly feel very cathartic after the intensity of the crucifixion when "Jesus" finally climbed off the cross to join the others in walking out. There was much bizarre modern choreography by Drew McOnie, some very clever ideas in the staging and all-around terrific vocals including Ricardo Afonso's Judas, Sallay Garnett's soft-voiced Mary Magdalene and Aussie dreamboat Robert Tripolino's Jesus who sang a breathtaking version of "Gethsemane" that was worth the admission price alone. And of course it made me smile to see Georgia Carling in the cast, even though she didn't have a single solo line to sing. Overall it was crazy, insane and, as the critics like to say, "high octane" in a way that simply blew the socks off. Not sure I'd want to see this particular version if it was my first visit to JCS, but I really liked what they've done here (far more than what they've done with Joseph!) and I'm glad I got a chance to see this.
And so a very busy and delightful summer trip ended and now there'll be another big break until November as I have to pay a certain show in another city one final visit first...
