The Great White Way

So I decided to catch some Broadway shows whilst here in Manhattan. Theatre in the US is very different to at home. Standing ovations seem to be obligatory and every 'star' gets a round of applause when they come onto the stage taking you out of the moment somewhat! The theatres are generally much smaller than at home, but climate controlled and more grandstand seating than at home, so much easier to see the stage for the most part. Tickets are also generally much more expensive than at home...

I took my friends to see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I hadn't seen it in London and hadn't read the book, but had heard good things from people who had seen it. 
The lead character is great and does what I think is a pretty convincing job of portraying autism and the play was pretty interesting, but it didn't blow me away. I thought the set was incredibly clever, and there were some funny moments, but it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would...

Finding Neverland is the musical version of the 2004 movie that starred Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. Gary Barlow wrote the music and Matthew Morrison of Glee fame and Kelsey Grammer star. I knew it was going to be 'sweet' but I didn't think it would be quite as saccharine as it was. The music was all 'meh' and very Gary Barlow, and not the wonderpop years of the 90s...I think Harvey Weinstein (producer) made a mistake firing his writing team who had track records in writing musicals and trusting it to a pop artist. The whole thing just wasn't particularly gripping and I found I was a bit bored a couple of times and wondering how much longer we had to go... There were some nice parts to it, including a lot of glitter and a wind tunnel, and Tinkerbell lights making numerous appearances. Kelsey was amusing in a very obvious way and sang like Rex Harrison. Matthew Morrison was very earnest and lost his Scottish accent a few times, but his singing was lovely. Just shame the material wasn't better. Overall I didn't really like it a huge amount and seeing the reviews today, I'm not alone...

On the Twentieth Century is a madcap caper set on a train in the 1930s. A Theatre impresario played by Peter Gallagher is broke after his latest play failed in Chicago. He has the time it takes the train to get back to New York to convince his former wife (now an Oscar winning movie star) to star in his latest play and save his bacon. The play was fun, slapstick and old fashioned (in a good way). The performances by the leads were solid - particularly Kristin Chenoweth  who was fab and a real firecracker. There were some tap dancing moments, and you know how much I love tap dancing. I would have been happy with a couple more tap numbers actually. The sets were art deco and rather lovely. The issue was again with the music. It was just not particularly catchy or memorable and I found myself coming out the theatre singing 'The Twentieth Century Fox Mambo' from the TV show Smash. I think the music may well be the reason it hasn't been on Broadway for almost 40 years...

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a pretty quirky cabaret type show with rock music in the style of David Bowie performed by Hedwig a gay male East German singer, played by the original writer and performer of the role John Cameron Mitchell.  I enjoyed it. It was fun. Not really what I was expecting, but I'm not sure what I was expecting. It was very rude and some of the audience seemed almost evangelical in their love of it. Interesting and eye opening.

So that is the end of my shows in NY for this trip. To be honest I preferred both Kinky Boots and Beautiful - musicals I saw the last time I was here. 

But I would recommend you catch a show if you are in town (and if you can afford it!). Just maybe not necessarily these ones...