Welcome to today’s edition of ShentonSTAGE Daily.

The excitement of first previews…..

I used to attend first nights up to three or four times a week; the system has partly changed since I first started doing this, with critics often now invited to a range of authorised previews ahead of the opening, but partly because living outside London, it’s easier to go on my schedule, not a PR one.

But also, frankly, I know that now I’m no longer writing for a national, I’ll sometimes be shunted down to the “second night” list, which also suits me just fine: I’d rather not have to deal with the first night scrum, jostling with Amanda Holden and Christopher Biggins to get into the theatre — then waiting for all the air-kissing to subside before the performance can actually begin, usually at least ten minutes after the advertised start time.  

But while “first nights” are still considered somehow “glamorous” — and therefore aren’t often on public sale, as the seats are kept back for critics, celebrities, investors and (increasingly) “influencers” — there’s nothing to stop anyone buying a ticket to a first preview, which is an all together more exciting occasion anyway.

This is the make or break moment: where the show meets a paying audience for the first time, and finds out whether it “lands” or not — and what needs fixing (if possible).

The press agent for the Bridge’s new Guys and Dolls turned me down for the opening night on March 14 (putting me in for a single ticket the next night) — but last Friday I bought myself a ticket to the first preview. It’s my all-time favourite musical — seriously, the greatest one ever written, in my opinion — and I just couldn’t wait to see it.

Especially as this is no ordinary production, but an immersive one — with a chunk of the audience promenading around its version of Times Square, with rising platforms coming out of the floor in different configurations to provide the different locales, from the Save a Soul MIssion at 409 West 49th Street to the subterranean sewers where the climactic ‘crap game’ plays out.

I ran into the Bridge’s executive director Nick Starr on the way in, who expressed surprise I was there. I pointed out that I’d bought my ticket; he replied that he was delighted I was that keen! And I ran into Celinde Shoenmaker, who is playing Sister Sarah, on the way out, who was delighted I’d seen it already — and that it had all gone as smoothly as it had. 

Although I won’t review it  formally until I am officially allowed to, I can report that it’s absolutely STUNNING.

After London’s current revivals of CABARET (at the Playhouse) and last week’s transfer of OKLAHOMA! (to Wyndham’s), both of which seek to create ‘immersive’ environments related to the shows but still keep the audience seated, this is a TRULY immersive joy, integrating a mobile audience directly into the heart of the action (though there’s also static seating if you need it, which I do).

Be warned: If you’re the floor, you will be regularly kept on the move; the stage, stage management and audience are each as intricately choreographed as Arlene Phillips’s dynamic dancers, keeping the changing locations in constant motion; but the drive of Frank Loesser’s immortal score is superbly maintained, too, by a brassy band perched on a platform above the action.

I’ll withhold comment on technical matters or the casting for now, but I already can’t wait to see it again (on the night after the formal opening).

Derren Brown: A showman amongst Showmen

I was also a paying customer for Derren Brown’s new show, SHOWMAN, at the Apollo, on Saturday night, which as he recently tweeted, has now played over 300 performances to audiences of over half a million people!

I took my partner as a belated Christmas present for him — he can take or leave most theatre (I think I exposed him to too much of it too soon in the earlier parts of our relationship when we first met 15 years ago), but LOVES Derren.

As with all of his shows, Brown asks us “keep the secrets”— just like The Mousetrap does. And the secrets here are worth keeping. But it is also a moving meditation on loss and memories we hold of people close to us in specific objects we associate with them.

I’ve written a lot about my own irretrievably damaged relationship with my father, so I was particularly moved by a part of the show in which a father and his young son were brought on stage, and the father had written three things that he most loved about his son — I never got any such affirmations from my narcissistic father, who expected affirmations to travel in one direction only.

BOOTYCANDY: an abrasive sketch show

On Saturday I also took in the London premiere of Robert O’Hara’s BOOTYCANDY at London’s Gate Theatre, now newly homed as one of the resident companies at Camden’s Theatro Technis. This abrasive piece of queer theatre is deliberately provocative, even alienating, as it follows a gay black youth from his earliest sexual awakenings to their emergence as a budding theatre maker. Its roots are clearly autobiographical, and I’m not sure that I — a white, middle-aged cis gay man — is truly qualified to comment on it. (“Stay in your lane”, as people keen on saying, and I feel that it may be safer to do exactly that).

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But there’s no denying the theatrical vivacity of Tristan Fynn-Aiduena’s production, which frequently plays out like a meta-theatrical sketch show, or the extraordinary quintet of actors, with Prince Kudai and Roly Botha (pictured above) making particularly vivid impressions.

SHOWS AHEAD IN LONDON, SELECTED REGIONAL THEATRES AND ON BROADWAY

My regularly updated feature on shows in London, selected regional theatres and on Broadway is here: https://shentonstage.com/theatre-openings-from-w-c-march-6/

This week sees the West End opening of THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE-OFF MUSICAL at the Noel Coward tonight, the first transfer from Cheltenham’s Everyman since Mark Goucher took over as chief executive there; and a second West End run for Frank Wildhorn’s BONNIE & CLYDE, opening at the Garrick on Wednesday, after its success at the Arts just up the road last summer

And on Broadway, Jamie Lloyd opens his new production of A DOLL’S HOUSE that was originally booked into London’s Playhouse in 2020, in a new version by Amy Herzog, but was cancelled by the pandemic. (LLoyd, Chastain and Herzog are pictured above). 

See you here on Friday

I will be back on Friday. If you can’t wait that long, I may also be found on Twitter (for the moment) here: https://twitter.com/ShentonStage/ (though not as regularly on weekends)