Nicole schreibt...

If I thought my joyful (double) return to London last autumn had been the height of Covid drama... well, I hadn’t expected yet what the winter would bring in the shape of the new Omicron variant that led to Europe collectively flipping out and drawing up new travel barriers and cancelling shows. Up until the new year I really wasn’t sure if my very special January trip, to which I had been looking forward so much, could go ahead and at one point started looking up package tours to the Canary Islands as a Plan B. A big thank you to those at home, across the Channel and across the Atlantic who encouraged me to go ahead – you know who you are!
Since I had expected things to be "somewhat normal" again I had finally booked my beloved Eurostar last year and now found myself dealing with Belgian rules as well as British and German rules. But Britain once more took the biscuit with ludicrous arrival rules, adding a new stipulation that you had to remain in self-isolation until your PCR-Test-After-Arrival came back negative. Since even the speediest versions took some hours, I booked an additional night – wisely choosing the Premier Inn across the street from St. Pancras with its much bigger rooms instead of adding another night to my stay at the cheaper Hub with its tiny rooms. Travel itself felt almost normal, apart from an unexpected change in Brussels, where full Brexit has clearly encouraged them to transform half the waiting hall inside the Channel Terminal into a huge Duty Free Shop. On the upside, the (new?) E-Gates finally worked for my passport, so I’m not complaining.
After arriving I was one of the first to take the PCR-Test inside St. Pancras Station, then stocked up on food and drinks at M&S before heading to my chosen jail for the rest of the day, which came with a nice bathtub and access to the BBC iPlayer, so it didn’t get boring. In fact things got rather exciting, when I realized that I had booked the wrong kind of test and not the Premium version that promised results until midnight the same day but the regular one that could take much longer! Thankfully a phone call to their hotline by my friend the next morning scared them into sending my negative result within a minute, so I was free to move about. Not that there was much to do, apart from tracking down the free NHS antigen tests which I’d need for a show and figure out what test I’d need to get back into Belgium. And just as I thought I was done, Eurostar made things exciting again by mailing me that my train home on Sunday was cancelled! Since I was near St Pancras anyway, I went to their ticket counter and got my ticket changed to the next one departing two hours later. Oh well, it wasn’t that I had anything better to do as I had spent most of the morning working in my hotel room and after check-out curled up in a corner of Costa to watch Netflix until I could check into my regular Hub. And then finally my London trip could begin properly! I headed into the West End for a quick poke around my favourite shops and a meal, then for my first show: On the fourth attempt I FINALLY got to see the revamped version of Les Miserables at the Sondheim (formerly Queens) Theatre. My seat at the very corner of the dress circle turned out to be doubly brilliant. Not only was I as close to the stage as the front row of the stalls without neck crick, I also had no one beside me and in front of me, so could breathe moderately fresh (non-virusladen) air and had leg room galore. Sadly it also meant I missed bits of the right side of the stage, but not so much it bothered me.
Well, what I can say? I had seen Les Miserables several times across the years and in various places, but of course the earlier Cam Mack stipulations meant it was always the same cookie cutter version everywhere, so I lost interest eventually. When the new version (that had started life on a UK Tour) was announced to be moving into London, I had been curious but there was usually some brand-new show I was keener on seeing, so twice I returned my Les Mis ticket and twice things crashed and burnt on the rocks of Corona. Seeing the new version at last did feel very refreshing with me looking forward to each new scene and I didn’t miss the much lamented turntable one bit. In fact most things were improvents from the ship in Toulon at the beginning to Paris having actual houses. Though there was one exemption, the totally idiotic staging of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, which had neither chairs nor tables and thus completely missed the point of Marius re-visiting the cafe where the students used to hang out. But while I enjoyed the new sets and staging, the orchestra has been cut down so much, it was almost Stage Entertainment level of thin tinniness and definitely not worthy of this lush operatic score. It seriously ruined my enjoyment and also means I probably won't be returning.
The cast was hit and miss – you definitely have a problem when Javert is by far the hottest guy on stage, though I was pleased to finally feast my eyes on Bradley Jaden live and he did not disappoint. Which is more than I can say for understudy Luke McCall’s Valjean, who seemed to phone it in and delivered the worst version of Bring Him Home I’ve ever been unfortunate to experience. On the plus side were the ladies with Fantine (Chanice Alexander-Burnett) and Eponine (understudy Jessie Hart) clearly being directed to bring far more anger and rage to their songs instead of playing endlessly suffering whiny dames, and the wonderfully sassy Josefina Gabrielle as Madame Thenardier. Cosette (Charlie Burn) is still drippy, but at least she gets to be drippy in a pretty dress now and the less said about the students, the better. I’ve never seen an uglier bunch on stage before and Marius especially had something about the budding psychopath about him that would make me run for the hills and not storm the barricades with him. So all in all I’ll say... I’m glad I’ve seen the revamped new version and might actually want to see it again, but not with this cheapskate tiny orchestra and certainly not until after a cast change.
I spent most of Thursday in my hotel room to do regular work as I really didn’t fancy mingling in Omicron-infested environments too much and hadn’t even considered any kind of trip to a museum, exhibition or even shopping. So I didn’t venture out until the afternoon to find very late lunch/very early dinner before meeting a friend, who’s been such a pillar of support in these last bizarre months with all things London, so it was great to catch up in person! And then it was time for the show that forced my hand into doing this trip: The Cabaret revival at the Playhouse Theatre (now masquerading as the Kit Kat Club) with Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne. I had seen Jessie live in A Little Night Music many years ago, but only truly fell in love with her when I saw her in the BBC’s War and Peace and subsequently in other TV shows and movies such as the brilliant Wild Rose. So her return to the stage in a great part would have been worthy of a ticket alone, but throw Eddie, for whom I always had a weakness, into the mix and the fact that I’ve actually never seen Cabaret in English on stage, and I was sold. When bookings opened I was able to nab a great seat in the stalls for £90, which seemed extortionate at the time but eventually became a huge bargain. When it looked like my trip wasn’t happening, I checked for other tickets and through the entire run (for which Jessie and Eddie were confirmed) there were only single seats left in the very last row of the circle… at £250. And even for the later run, for which no performers have been announced yet, my row in the stalls now retails at a measly £200. So basically it was now or never... and good thing I went (on Eddie’s birthday no less!).
To create the mood of a seedy 1920s club in Berlin, they lead the audience through a side entrance and the basement of the theatre into the lobby, where a "pre-show" was going on and (to my amusement) German Henkell bubbly and Radeberger beer was served. Considering how crammed it was, I was REALLY glad both for the fact that people had to show a negative Covid test to get in and for my hardcore FFP2 mask. Once inside I was baffled by the complete transformation of the theatre that really set an amazing mood. A round stage had been installed surrounded by some cabaret-style table seating and proper stalls and circles on both sides (thus in the regular auditorium and on stage). Add to that the priceless buzz of being in the "room where it happened" and I knew I had made the right call in raising heaven and hell to come to London and use my ticket in what was the first row of the regular stalls behind the tables. The show itself was pretty creative and interesting, too, with one fly in the ointment. It seems that directors are so desperate now to get away from Liza and the movie version that they stick Sally into idiotic costumes and try to find "new" ways to perform her hit songs, perhaps forgetting a little that people are flocking to revivals just to enjoy these famous songs live and not hear them done in some weird speak-sing / subdued or all-out screaming versions. Whenever Jessie was allowed to sing properly in "Maybe this time" and "Cabaret", she was brilliant, but I’d honestly wish she could have sung more traditional versions. I liked the transformations the Emcee went through as the show progressed, with a very physical performance by Eddie and a really decent singing voice. Though more than ever, Fräulein Schneider (the wonderful Liza Sadovy) proved to be the true heart and anchor of the show with "What would you do?", not apologizing for but explaining the mindset of the people who let Hitler happen – and in many ways a timely message even now when freedom of speech is under attack again and fake news are running rampant. All of that said though... as interesting, fun and original this version in the round is... I just don’t think it justifies ticket prices of £200 and beyond for decent seats, so count me out, no matter who they cast next.
I don’t need to tell anyone how much Bat out of Hell has come to mean to me in the last years… so once the UK Tour was announced I knew I would have to catch it sooner rather than later. As luck would have it, one of the people whose ears I chewed off about the show was a friend living near Birmingham who had kept saying that we should go together when the tour came to town. And as further luck would have it… the tour stop in Birmingham did actually coincide with this long-planned trip (and us already having tickets to Moulin Rouge together). So on Friday noon I was off to the Midlands from Euston to a small station in the middle of nowhere, where my friend picked me up and took me home first. She’s an excellent cook, so had suggested she should cook for us rather than eat out in Brum, which suited me fine as it meant less time out in public among Omicron. On asking me what I’d like to eat, I had rather carelessly said "well you’re Scottish, so how about something Scottish?" and yes, that went exactly where you think it would go. She did make haggis! But in the form of Chicken Balmoral, which is basically chicken breast with a haggis filling, wrapped in prosciutto and served in a delicious whisky sauce. I wouldn’t need to have it again, but the spicey haggis certainly doesn't warrant the "eww!" its mention usually provokes. After the meal we drove into Birmingham (she had also dragged her boyfriend along which made me extra antsy about having TWO people who might hate it in tow) and to the Alexandra Theatre. I visited Birmingham many years ago when a friend of mine starred in panto there at the Hippodrome (also my first and only experience of British panto!) and also went to the Alexandra Theatre for a musical, but had been reliably told that they tore down the building and this is now a new one. The lobby/foyer definitely looked new, but the actual auditorium seemed a typical old-fashioned English theatre to me. Most of the changes for the UK Tour were the ones I already knew from New York, such as having got rid of the two most spectacular effects (the pool and the car being pushed into the orchestra pit), but they also reduced Falco Towers further with no living room and Raven’s bedroom hardly being used. There was also yet another change of plot in that Tink survives... which I can take or leave. This and dropping the awful "In the land of the pig" at the beginning of Act 2 just adds to a lighter mood overall with not much of the initial darkness left now. As for the cast, Rob and Sharon were back as Falco and Sloane and seeing them jarred a bit with the otherwise all-new cast. Much to my relief Glenn Adamson proved that he wasn’t just a worthy successor of my boy Andrew in the goldilocks department but also a decent rocker, singer and actor and definitely better than the Strats that haunted London later. The one I really liked though was Martha Kirby as Raven. I could never really warm to Christina Bennington’s bland performance and Martha was somehow edgier, sassier and had a really interesting look about her, not to mention a fabulous rock voice. Sadly the same can’t be said for Joelle Moses, stepping into Danielle Steers’ almighty boots and failing, not just in terms of voice but also stage presence (certainly not helped by the fact that I had only just seen Danielle’s concert in a stream). Never mind, the show was still greatly entertaining with all those fabulous old rock songs and left me walking out with a big smile on my face and two happy companions who were also thoroughly entertained. But I think in terms of downscaling this is as far as they can and should take the show. So I’ll try and catch this tour one or two more times before it starts becoming a shadow of itself like Priscilla and other shows that have been toured to death.
Next morning I got a taste of how the locals do London when they don’t actually live in the orbit of the Big Smoke: We took the car down to Watford Junction through truly abysmal English winter weather and parked there, then the train into Euston. After checking (back) into my hotel at King’s Cross my friend took me to a lovely little cafe and introduced me to cilbir, then it was time for the last biggie: Moulin Rouge.
It had been a show I had always looked forward to very much because I loved the movie and I thought it would lend itself well to a live spectacle. So I was surprised when first reports from New York were meh, though many seemed to blame the cast. Then similar reactions came from London, again with many blaming the cast and others calling it style over substance… well, yea, that IS the Moulin Rouge in a nutshell. People go there for boobs and booze, not profound thinking. I think you need to be aware that it’s impossible to recreate Baz Luhrmann’s unique cinematography on stage (though we did get buried under a confetti cannon) and that both Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor had been as perfect as can be in their respective parts. Personally I was wowed from the big opening number onwards and the sheer spectacle of amazing costumes and fabulous dancers. Of course it helped that we had fantastic seats smack in the middle of the second regular row of the stalls (behind the Can-Can-Tables), where we felt really immersed in the spectacle all around us. I really wouldn’t want to see this from a cheap seat somewhere near the roof. As for the cast, I was surprised by how much I liked poor maligned Jamie Bogyo, the fresh-out-of-stage-school Christian (so much I had hoped for the understudy to be on), because I thought he was great with a bit more of an edge than MacGregor in the movie. I can’t really say the same for Liisi LaFontaine though, who couldn’t match Kidman’s ice maiden/breakable porcelain doll thing and came across too much of the nice girl next door and not enough highly desirable revue superstar (if you cast Satine with a POC, please go find a Beyonce, I’m sure there are some out there and has anyone called Danielle’s agent yet?). I don’t often run hot for ladies, but I was far more taken with Sophie Carmen-Jones’s gorgeous sassy Nini and her amazing stage presence. Everyone else was fine too with Clive Carter running the show as Zidler, Simon Bailey as a suitably creepy Duke and Jason Pennycooke, so miscast and wrong in Hamilton, finding a perfect part for him with Toulouse-Lautrec. So yea, on the whole I don’t know what’s bugging the nay-sayers – too high expectations based on the movie, bad seats too far away from the spectacle, personal taste? Personally I was absolutely blown away by this show and really loved it (and if they have the good sense to do cheap last minute single seats in Cologne and don’t mess up the casting too badly, I’m now actually rather pleased to get this show plonked at my door step).
After saying goodbye to my friend and grabbing a sandwich from Pret, I made it to my last destination, although I already had a sense that this wouldn’t go well after the colourful joy of Moulin Rouge: The Almeida Theatre’s new production of Spring Awakening based on Frank Wedekind's depressing play about repressed turn of the century Germany. The cast album with music by Duncan Sheik and smart lyrics by Steven Sater is one of my all-time favourites and by some curious turn of events I saw the original production three times in New York, San Francisco and Vienna. It’s another one I feel where proximity matters, because I liked it far more in San Francisco (where we had front stalls seats) than in New York (back of the circle) and Vienna (middle of the hardly raked stalls). So at least this time I was in the front row of a small theatre and yet I just didn’t feel much in the mood for two hours of teenage angst. The new staging involving the very clever use of a staircase throughout and Rupert Goold’s direction were decent enough, as was the cast, led by Laurie Kynaston as Melchior, Amara Okereke as Wendla and Stuart Thompson as Moritz. Personally I was pleased to see Asha Banks in the cast, as I had seen her as Pandora in the Adrian Mole musical some years ago and thought "that girl is gonna go far" and clearly she is! The first act dragged on sluggishly, with all the good songs coming hard and fast in the second act. My personal favourite was "Totally Fucked" in which they didn’t shy away from bringing up all the issues that are presently getting the youth hot under their collective collars such as climate change and various -isms. At the end the young cast lined up and stared directly at the audience as if to challenge us, so I found myself in a staring contest with Amara Okereke and just sat there thinking, "girl, I may be one of the grown-ups now, but I’m on your side, you know that?" - but it was still cleverly done, facing today’s angry youth this directly and it would probably have had even more impact if the audience couldn’t hide behind their face masks. Overall it was a very clever interesting new version and good to see again, but just kinda the wrong show to follow Moulin Rouge, but you never know these things in advance!
And of course after all my fretting about the negative test required and Belgium's extremely opaque rules in general, the journey home was as easy as always (albeit two hours later than normal on the later train) and it felt good to be back on the railways. And now it will be another long four months...