Funny Girl at Savoy Theatre was a triumph for Sheridan Smith

I last saw Sheridan Smith in a musical at the Savoy Theatre back in September 2010 when she was in Legally Blonde and while I had seen her a couple of times since then that was in serious plays, if you can count A Midsummer Night's Dream as serious that is, so it was good to have the opportunity to see her sing again.

I was tempted to get tickets for her run in Funny Girl at Menier Chocolate Factory but even though I was far more organised that usual they had sold out before I could get some. I was, therefore, delighted when it was announced that the show would transfer to the Savoy Theatre and I was in early to get front row seats in the Grand Circle (that's the top level). Other people had expressed an interest in going so I ended up buying four tickets, A18-20, for £39.50 each.

The view was reasonable, as the photo shows, and hearing was not a problem as the sound was amplified. Sadly the amplification was a little bit of a problem as the clarity was not always there and I could not hear some lines that people elsewhere in the theatre laughed at.

In some ways the story of Funny Girl is the same as Legally Blonde, a young woman faces setbacks at work but battles through to become a success. In Legally Blonde Elle's success comes near to the end when she shifts from what is expected of her to become shocking in pink but in Funny Girl ii happens almost immediately, Fanny is thrown out of the chorus for her bad looks (Sheridan!!) and poor dancing, resolves to become a star by exploiting her comedy and gets her opportunity straight away.

Of course it is not all as simple as that and there are some hiccoughs along the way, some of them very big, but essentially the story is about her success through individuality and effort.

Funny Girl is very much a one-woman story, more so than Legally Blonde, and Sheridan was absolutely brilliant as Fanny Brice. She sang well enough but it was her acting that dominated the show. She had all the familiar humorous touches learned in her early comedy career, e.g. Two Pints ..., plus she convincingly transformed herself into a dark-haired Jewish American. It was a magnificent performance that was widely applauded throughout the show and even more at the end.

Even though it was a one woman story it took a good cast of characters to tell it, there were other significant roles, like her husband and her mother, and a chorus of singers and dancers who supported Fanny in her stage performances. The card playing elderly relatives were a particular favourite with the audience, and rightly so.

The music was fairly standard musical fare with a mix of belters (Don't Rain on My Parade) and slow ballads (People) played by a small orchestra. The two songs mentioned were the only two that I knew and that was fine as the rest were in the same vein. Here the songs were more about Fanny's/Sheridan's performance of them that what they added to the narrative, and she sang in most of them.

Funny Girl fitted Sheridan so well that it could have been conceived as a star vehicle for her. She is not yet in the Imelda Staunton class but the fact that such a comparison is now possible shows just how far she has come as a stage performer. I hope that this is a portent for what she might do in the future and that I do not have to wait another six years to see her in another musical.

A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Noel Coward Theatre

It is easy to see that the twin billing of Sheridan Smith and David Walliams was designed to pull the punters in, and it worked.

I bought my ticket over a year ago in June 2012 which is how I managed to get a seat in the front row of the circle. That cost me around £55 against a normal ticket price for me in a small fringe theatre of £20. The cast and the price were enough to raise expectations and they were raised further by the play.

A Midsummer Night's Dream may not be Shakespeare's best, whatever that means, but it is one of the most approachable and one of the most played. I think everybody studies it at school at some point. And I think that is when I last saw it, unless two operatic versions at Glyndebourne count.

It is also a step-up from the last Smith/Walliams joint venture, Mr Stink.

The play is what it is and as everybody has studied it at school so there is no point saying much about it.

Sheridan Smith (Titania) and David Walliams (Bottom) play cameo roles and so the story relied on the four lesser mortal who played the crossed lovers Lysander, Hermia, Helena and Demetrius. Luckily they were all competent enough and I found Hermia particularly enchanting.

Smith and Walliams came to the fore in their comic love scene inspired by Oberon's potion. Smith played it rather like Smutty Janet (from Two Pints...) and Walliams went for the rounded speech of the posh cross-dressers from Little Britain. I found his voice the hardest to follow.

While there was nothing wrong with the acting the rest of the production felt a little tacky, especially when compared to what Glyndebourne had done with the same story. There was almost nothing to the set and clearly nothing had been spent on the odd collection of costumes either.

I went expecting, and having paid for, a special performance and what I got was a perfectly adequate but forgettable production. Once again I was reminded why I tend to avoid the West End.

Hedda Gabler at the Old Vic

The Old Vic has decided that Sheridan Smith is the big pull for the new Hedda Gabler and they are probably right. It is certainly one of the reasons that I went.

The other reasons were the Isben and Old Vic brands, both of which have stood me pretty well in the past (with some notable exceptions).

The evening got off to good start with a glass of champagne in the Pit Bar under the theatre and then a quick word with some of the cast of Benidorm who were there to see their former colleague (Sheridan was in Series 3).

Then it was time to settle in to my seat in the centre of the front row of the Dress Circle. This is my favourite position in large theatres.

Hedda Gabler covers familiar Ibsen territory, a married woman in some turmoil that include another man.

Hedda is married to a seriously boring but earnest academic (not sure how that happened) and they have returned to Oslo after their long honeymoon (which was more academic research than romance) to start their new life in a rather grand house. He has hopes of a professorship but she lacks any ambition for the future.

Add to the mix a former college friend who went off the rails but who has bounced back with a highly regarded book, a lecherous judge, an aunt who wants to bring Hedda firmly in to the extended family, a stubborn maid who has served the family for many years and another former colleague (a woman) who appears to have left her husband in Trondheim to be with the author having helped him to write his book over many months.

Hedda's life is full of options but none of them look that good.

Her husband wants to wallow in academia, the author wants to rekindle an earlier romance and the judge wants to call on her every day until she relents to his pursuit.

Hedda starts by trying to impose her will on everything from whether the curtains should be open and what to call her new auntie. She is brusque and deliberately insulting as she does this. It's a temper tantrum from a spoilt brat.

The story develops from there. You know it is going to be an unhappy ending but the suspense comes from not knowing which unhappy ending it will be. There are quite a few jokes along the way and the play is surprisingly light for most of the way but Hedda's position is always untenable and a denouement inevitable.

The cast are magnificent especially the husband and the errant wife. In one memorable scene when the possibility of babies is mentioned he goes right over the top moving quickly past choosing names for them to selecting which piano teacher to have.

Sheridan as Hedda I am less sure about and even less sure whether the lack of Hedda's gravitas was down to her acting, the direction she was given or the way the character is written in the play, i.e. perhaps it was meant to be like that.

I had no particular problems with the way Hedda was played but it did seem a little odd for Ibsen to name the play after this character and for the Old Vic to make such a fuss over Sheridan playing it when the role is not actually central to the play. It is as much about the husband and the author as it is about her.

Putting aside my unrealistic unmet expectations, this was an excellent production with a lot of rich characters interacting vibrantly with each other as the complex situation evolves. Everybody played their part well and the evening was definitely a big success if not quite a triumph.

Legally Blonde (the musical) is OK, but only OK

I don't do musicals. Which is a little odds as I do opera and theatre, I love all sorts of music and many years ago I regularly listened to a Radio 2 series on musicals that may have been presented by Ian Carmichael.

Some good reviews for Legally Blonde combined with the presence of Sheridan Smith (she's still Janet from Two Pints for me) and a fondness for the original film tempted me to give musicals a try.

I was glad to have an excuse to visit the Savoy Theatre as it is rich with period charm, even if some of it had to be remade following a fire in 1990. However, the period charm is a double-edged sword and with the beauty comes drab and uncomfortable seats, very few facilities (to prove this point I failed to get a beer before or during the performance) and deadening acoustics that would make Black Sabbath difficult to hear.

At least a top-price ticket (£60) got a seat at the front of the Dress Circle where the sound could travel easily and the view was perfect.

I was expecting a play with songs (which just goes to show how little I know musicals) but Legally Blonde is sung throughout which means paying attention all the time or losing the plot. And, yes, there is a plot.

In fact the story bounces along quite nicely accompanied by lots of exuberance, large smiles, sexy outfits, vigorous movements, acting that playfully toys with over acting, cameo roles for dogs, and some decent songs.

It's a feel-good show that does everything in its power to ensure that the feel-good promise is delivered and you would have to be pretty determined not to enjoy yourself to come out of the show without a smile on your face.

This much feel-goodness requires a fairly large and very active cast and while there are several key supporting roles the two that stood out for me were Elle's hairdresser friend, Paulette, and the defendant in her first case, Brooke Wyndham. Both enter the show with strong solo numbers that draw deserved applause from the audience. It's disappointing that after such strong starts they disappear in to the background.

My highlight of the show was Brooke's song and dance routine in the prison. Helping this along was a stark set with a simple image of large oppressive bars.

But, once the artificial high has died down, the show's promise reveals itself to be modest with no great songs (a day later I can remember none of the tunes), no great performances (sorry, Sheridan) and no great drama either.

Legally Blonde is still a fine night out but it does not do enough to make me want to do it again.

Piggy Goes Oink (yet again)

I first wrote about Piggy Goes Oink, one of my very favourite episodes of Two Pints ... a couple of years ago and I am pleased to say that BBC Three still has the good sense to carry on repeating Two Pints ... endlessly and I still watch it whenever I can.

I watched it again last night.

Piggy Goes Oink is episode 2 of series 4 which is in the middle of what I think of the golden period of Two Pints ... that goes from near the end of series 3 through to episode 6 of series 4, Mate Date, which is my absolute favourite episode.

Now BBC Three is being very frustrating because they are not showing the rest of series 4 but, instead, are jumping to the beginning of series 5!? But the good news is that there are strong rumours of an eighth series :-)

Two Pints ... live and kicking!

Series 7 of Two Pints ... got off to a great start on Sunday night with a live broadcast in front of a studio audience, including me! I am directly above the word "Johnny" on the first line and behind the lady in green.

We were not sure how popular a recording of the show on a windy Sunday night would be but we left here at 4:45pm and got to BBC Television Centre in White City and hour later and an hour and a half before the doors to the site were due to open. We seemed to be in our usual place in the queue which I estimated at the time to be around 120th.

A cold and not particularly pleasant 90 minutes later they started to let people into the site but they only had one security x-ray machine working (they had two last time) so it took us another 30 minutes to get on to site.

At that time we were allocated ticket numbers 140 and 141. I guess that we were slightly lower than expected due to the larger number of guests that had been invited.

The good news was that we were given a voucher for a free drink in the bar the bad news was that there was a long queue and we only had 20 minutes before the doors to the studio opened. In the end I managed to get and gurgle a bottle of Carling (?!) and chomp a cheese, tomato and mushroom panini.

We were then led into the studio and as there were only two of us we were squeezed into a couple of seats in the central block. The warm-up guy did his stuff and before we realized it, it was time for the show.

If you are a fan then you'll have seen the show and if you are not then there is no point telling you the plot, so here are a couple of observations instead. Firstly, it rally was all live, apart from one very short clip of Corinthina tied up in his cot. The set was layed out as usual with Janet's house on the left, the Archer on the left and Gaz's flat at the back in the middle. The difference was that they had lots of cameras in place to cover all the sets at the same time, rather than using fewer cameras and moving them around.

Clearly the script had been designed to be recorded in one take with few costume changes and no outside sequences but I was impressed with the risks they took with things that could have gone wrong, such as Gaz's fire eating and Janet catching a peanut in her mouth. I suspect that Donna was meant to catch the beer mat first time though!

There must have been a few other glitches that I did not spot at the time as the show over ran by a few minutes. This was corrected quickly and the repeat later that evening (which I watched, of course) had a few minor cuts. If you taped the first broadcast then keep the tape, it will never be shown again!

The excellent show made all the waiting worthwhile and the evening was rounded off nicely with a couple of quick pints before closing time in Richmond!

Two Pints is back on Sunday and I'll be there!!

Series 7 of the fabulous Two Pints of Lager and ... starts this Sunday on BBC Three at 9pm.

The first episode is being shown live and I am delighted to say that my tickets arrived this morning so I'll be there.

What fun!

The rest of the series has already been filmed and I went to a recording of one of the episodes in early December. On the evidence of that episode the new series is going to be as good as it ever was.

Two Pints Series 7 is coming soon

It has been a little while but it looks as though Two Pints Series 7 is going to be worth the wait judging by the episode that I saw being recorded last night.

There are some cast changes this time, as can be seen from the cover of the programme shown here. Johnny has gone, Munch is back and there's a new barman at The Archer. There have been some major changes to some of the characters' lives but that does not really change things, it's the characters themselves and their interactions that make the humour.

Watching show recordings is always fun because of the insights it gives you on the actors and their characters. Gaz/Will messed up and play-acted the most (as usual), Louise/Kathryn was flawless and Donna/Natalie called us all something very rude beginning with "c" for sympathising with Gaz's wish to see more of Corinthian!

There were quite a few retakes last night and little pre-recorded material (only one short scene was shot on location) so the 1/2 hour show took over 2 hours to record, which meant all the more fun for us the audience. I just hope that I get tickets to go again in January.

Mixed feelings about Grownups

I went to see Grownups being recorded again on Sunday and came away happy but not delighted. (This is what I thought last time)

The show was a little confusing in that the episode I saw was earlier in the series than the one that I saw last week. So people who were engaged last week had hardly met this. The plot seemed rather thin (Michelle getting married just so that her new flatmate would think she was mature) as did the characterisation, only Michelle and Grant seemed like remotely believable people.

There was a little less slapstick this time but some of the main jokes were visual, e.g. Michelle's favourite teddy bear getting shot and Claire wearing a "I do anal" sign. From this you will also guess that the humour is unsubtle and not very clever.

Sheridan Smith must also be wondering how many times Susan Nickson is going to make her wear a wedding dress without her actually getting married (that's 3 times in Two Pints and now also in Grownups).

The warm-up man, Patrick Monahan, stole the show, again. It was almost like watching two shows in the same place at the same time. The floor manager frequently had to tell Patrick to be quiet as he was still doing his stuff while they were ready to record (or re-record) the next scene.

Due to a mixture of retakes and overruns by the warm-up man, it took three hours to record a 1/2 hour programme, some of which had been recorded outside and was already completed. Sadly this meant getting back to Ealing too late for a drink which did not help.

I guess the bottom line is that I am glad I went to see the show but I am not trying to et tickets for any of the other recordings. I will probably watch it on TV though to see if the edited version is better.

Grownups is like Two Pints without the jokes

As a big fan of Two Pints I should like Grownups too as both are written by Susan Nickson and feature Sheridan Smith but the first series did not grab me that much. But then the first series of Two Pints was a bit weak too and is usually dropped from the continuous repeats on BBC3 so I was happy to give Grownups a second chance and so I went to the recording of the second episode of series two on Sunday evening. I was not impressed.

The second series is quite a change from the first with two of the three main characters gone (Michelle's brother Mike and her boyfriend Dean) to be replaced by Michelle's new flatmate Chris, her boss Rachel, and the frequently topless barman Alex.

The "frequently topless barman" is a clue that the characterisation and snappy dialogue that makes Two Pints so good has been largely replaced by visual humour. In the episode I watched being recorded this included man falls over sofa, man falls and breaks table, woman smacks bottom of blow-up doll and man gets set up with fat girl. Lame. Lame. Lame.

As if to prove that Grownups has no ideas, it featured a scene where Michelle (played by Sheridan Smith) gets sacked by her scatty, black, female boss and one of the two episodes of Two Pints that I watched on BBC3 after I came back from the recording (Homeless and Horny) featured Janet (also played by Sheridan Smith) being sacked by her scatty, black, female boss. Only in Two Pints her boss is Louise (played by the wonderful Kathryn Drysdale) a much better defined character.

Luckily the evening was rescued by the presence of Sheridan Smith and by the warm up man who had us all laughing out loud throughout. I'm going again next week, more for the warm-up man than for the programme itself and this time I'll try and remember his name; he deserves recognition.

Piggy Goes Oink

When I started this blog I thought that I would be writing lots of stuff about being a school governor, Knowledge Management, politics, architecture, travel, etc., but here's another post on Two Pints...!

It's Sunday evening and I've got back from the pub just in time to catch the double bill on BBC Three, it's the start of series 4 and I'm about to watch the mega-classic "Piggy Goes Oink". Wicked!

I am very pleased that somebody very senior at the BBC is reading this blog; obviously they have read my last entry on Two Pints ... so the last episode of series 6 has been followed by the first episode of series 3, which I said was the high point of the six series.

More pints ...

The Guardian cartoon "Clare in the community" has recognised Two Pints' domination of BBC 3. I think that this is a good thing because I do not have to buy the DVDs :-)

Read more of the excellent Clare in the community here.

Two Pints ...

Two Pints .... may well be the most often broadcast programme on BBC ever! I'm not sure why that is but I'm not complaining and have been known to watch four episodes in an evening.

Why watch it?

Well, to be simplistic, it's very funny.

Most of the humour comes from the characters and the very rich dialogue, there's something funny in almost every line - and there are lots of lines!

I just like the little throw-aways that litter the scripts, e.g. "I'm so happy I could kick a puppy".

It's hard to pick out favourite bits because there are just so many but I can possibly narrow it down a little to the end of Series 3 and the start of Series 4. I can watch any of these episodes anytime, which is just as well given the bizarre way that the BBC repeats them.

Full details of the cast and summaries of all 54 episodes across 6 series can be found here.