Kiss Me Kate thoughts?

[Bob30]

I am new to these boards so im really sorry if should of posted this in the Kiss Me Kate Coming to town thread! Be nice

I have just booked tickets to the 16th August matinee of Kiss Me Kate at Chichester Festival Theatre (£7.50) Love Chichesters pricing!

Has anyone been to see it yet and have any thoughts on it? Really curious as to how they achieve the show within a show aspect on the Thrust with little use of flys :)

[Princeton Returns]

Welcome, seeing it this week, the video trailer looks great

[Bob30]

Let me know what you think! I agree the trailer looks great, and Stephen Mears work is always a delight :) Never seen a Nunn directed show though although ive heard great things :)

[Bob30]

Let me know what you think! I agree the trailer looks great, and Stephen Mears work is always a delight :) Never seen a Nunn directed show though although ive heard great things :)

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Yep, there is already a Kiss Me Kate thread going!

http://westend.broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?thread=1046723&dt=13&boardid=3

[Princeton Returns]

Daily Mail
5 Star Rating

Tough old game, showbiz. William Shakespeare should surely have front-of-house playbill status alongside Cole Porter and writers Sam and Bella Spewack whenever the 1948 musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate is revived.

Yet the Bard never receives a sniff of a byline. That lad needs a new agent.

Kiss Me, Kate is the one which builds a cheerfully farcical plot round Shakespeare’s Taming Of The Shrew, inserting Hollywood gags and showstoppers such as I Hate Men and Too Darn Hot.

This Sir Trevor Nunn production, an almost complete belter, is vividly staged and has a tight (I do not mean tiddly) band.

It also, ooooh boy, has Hannah Waddingham.

Where do you start with heavenly Hannah? She’s a bodice-burster built like Boudicca.

She has the height of an English lineout jumper but slenderer legs, perfect pitch and a full-pearled smile. Ping! Those teeth are an altar to British dentistry. Big-hearted Miss Waddingham plays Lilli Vanessi, a grumpy film star reduced to a rep production of Shrew The Musical in Baltimore.

Shakespeare’s tale has been souped up to meet commercial demands. Bachelor Petruchio enters singing the zingy I’ve Come To Wive It Wealthily In Padua. Cue Tudor tap dancing, tombstone grins, and rhymes that match ‘Padua’ with ‘cad you are’.

Lilli, as the shrew, co-stars in this codpiece epic with ex-husband Fred (Alex Bourne), whom she still loves. He is having it off with ditzy Lois Lane (Holly Dale Spencer). Fred sends some flowers to Lois but they are delivered to Lilli.

When Lilli discovers the mistake, she exacts revenge onstage during an increasingly chaotic Shrew The Musical.

Mr Bourne, a burly presence and a powerful voice, is perfect. This Fred could be from a silent movie-era Robin Hood. Disaster unfolds but Fred flashes insistent smiles at his audience – even while giving Lilli’s bottom a spanking.

Things start brightly with Another Op’nin, Another Show, the hoofers flashing tonsils and more. Grrrr. The old chaps of Chichester do love a long-thighed chorus line. Defibrillators on standby, house manager.

Miss Waddingham’s entrance: Marlene Dietrich glamour, curls of cigarette smoke, the pout of a Latin nanny. I didn’t like her blonde barnet much – the wigs she wears at first are a bit dodgy – but she is all heart.

Her voice can switch in an instant from warbly knees-up (Wunderbar) to husky ballad (So In Love).

Her speaking voice loses its initially uncomfortable echo and she gives a full-throttle commitment to the laughter, repeatedly at the expense of her dignity. Irresistible.

Add two terrific mobsters (David Burt and Clive Rowe) and a genuinely touching denouement which puts Shakespeare in his place, and you have a beaut of a show.

It heads to London’s Old Vic in the autumn, by which time Miss Waddingham should have more suitors than the Old Bailey.

[Princeton Returns]

The Times
5 Star Rating

It’s one of theatre’s great love songs to itself: to onstage energy and backstage bickering, song and dance and break-a-leg , egos and ensemble, sweaty tights and Shakespeare. Add to that director Trevor Nunn’s long love affair with both the American musical and the Bard, the swoonably brilliant Cole Porter songs, the perennial theme of warring couples, and Chichester’s talent for pizzazz on the big stage, and it could hardly fail.

It certainly doesn’t. For a start, Hannah Waddingham is Lilli Vanessi, the diva who must play Katharina in the fictional musical-within-a-play of the Taming of the Shrew. She is always a force of nature whether in Spamalot or Sondheim, and here the full range of her brilliance has scope. She deploys a roundedly beautiful voice in lyrical moments, the lower register having the ability to make the sparsest male hair grow on end; yet will roar, growl, and at one point even burb, sprawl akimbo and temporarily suspend all feminine dignity. She is mesmerising. She could make most leading men look faded, but Alex Bourne is Fred Graham / Petruchio, and he is all man; sonorous and macho-basso. Terry King, the fight director, has them hurling, punching, slapping, spanking and suffering painful half-nelsons in kick-me-Kate battles – their first dressing-room spat melting into a happily reminiscent Wunderbar. The chemistry is all there: that magnetic, Noël Coward-like fizz that Porter recognised in the authors of the book, the equally fiery ex-couple Sam and Bella Spewack.

Holly Dale Spencer as Lois is a bubbly delight in her Broadway moments and deliberately, beautifully lousy delivering Shakespeare lines, Mark Heenehan a fine American-Eagle caricature as General Harrison Howell, and David Burt and Clive Rowe hysterical as the gangsters who, with charming menace, gradually become stagestruck. It is all you can do not to sing along with Brush up your Shakespeare.

Stephen Mear’s genius as a choreographer (remember Crazy for You) blends authentically silly period showbiz moves with modern edge. Less tap here, but when it comes it blows your head off. Nunn’s finicky theatre-maker’s care achieves the tricky dual vision of the “onstage” sequences, as what should be happening at all and must be covered up with a quavering “I know not what to say” from Paul Grunert’s Bapista. And Robert Jones’s design (within and before a showy proscenium arch, for this is an Old Vic collaboration due to go up there later) uses an unexpected simple trick: various rooms and a great tree all made of flimsy muslin are drawn aloft out of boxes by the cast, as if in a conjuring trick, Theatre magic, see?

[devonian.t]

I'm really in two minds about this production: have I seen enough Kiss Me Kates in my life?

And it's about time Stephen Mear raised his game- he has been repeating himself, and over-using his assistants in recent times.

[Princeton Returns]

Seeing it tomorrow, looking forward to it more now. The trailer looks brilliant. Never seen a production of it before though so maybe thats why.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

The RSC/Old Vic production is the one to beat and sadly this coming from Chichester won't reach that level. I'm sure it will be great tho!

[Princeton Returns]

@bon30.

Saw it on friday. It's not a favourite of mine as a musical, but this is a brilliant production none the less. To be honest Chichester are leading the way with revivals these days. Brilliantly staged with great costumes and set design, some stunning choreography (especially too darn hot)

The cast are on the whole very strong. Alex Bourne was perfection, and Hannah Waddingham is, well Hannah Waddingham. She does however shine in I hate Men. Adam Garcia is so underused in too small a role but when he is onstage he owns it, and the guy never ages! Holly Dale Spencer is a very good Lois Lane. The gangsters for me weren't anything special, not bad in anyway, but not remarkable either. The entire ensemble are incredibly sharpe. Special mention to Wendy Mae Brown and Jason pennycoate.

I wouldn't say it's as good as last years Singin in The Rain, but that maybe because as a piece I'm less of a fan. Either way it's still one of the best things I've seen so far this year.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

I was with Stephen Mear there other night and Chichester are up for 'Annie' in 2013!

[Bob30]

Princeton - sounds like overall you enjoyed it and it's a good first production of Kiss Me Kate to see

Mama- would Annie be in the proposed tent structure or is that a backup plan if they don't raise the required funds and the theatre is open ? And did he say anything about Barnum? :)

[Princeton Returns]

Yep, I cant fault the production and I enjoyed it more than the movie. It's definitely worth making the trip and some parts of it are truly brilliant. Go see!

[MusicalBoy]

Saw it this afternoon, thought it was great!

The set was a little bit basic, not that what they did with the thrust stage and the cloth etc. wasn't very innovative, it's just that Sweeney Todd was much more emerging, so I was expecting something more in front of the proscenium.

Hannah and Alex were absolutely perfect, though I made the mistake of watching the Howard Keel version beforehand and his shownmanship is difficult to match. 'I hate men' got an unprecedentedly strong audience response and she looked stunning.

Holly Dale Spencer as Bianca was a real star, but was performing perhaps a bit 'big' for those of use who weren't at the back of the theatre, not a problem with Adam Garcia, though, (and I didn't mind that he was 'underused') who didn't seem to be worrying about acting.

Loved the gangsters, so did the rest of the audience.

[jamiekennywicked]

Got to see this the other day and loved it! Easily one of my favourite shows I've seen. Hannah was fantastic as was Wendy Mae Brown. I never really thought of Hattie as a particulary funny character but Wendy really was. I thought Holly was terrific as Lois and what a voice!

[Bob30]

Sounds like my £7.50 was well spent! Can't wait to see this production now

[FrontRowDress]

You are in for a treat Bob. Mind you, Cole Porter, Shakespeare and Hannah Waddingham, what's not to like? The highlight for me was Jason Pennycooke's second act opener Too Darn Hot, thrillin' and sizzlin'. I loved the etched fabric scenery too, really clever. I expect this will be a huge Christmas hit for the Old Vic. I have rambled more in my blog for those with tough constitutions.
Kiss Me Kate

[AnythingGoes23]

Surprised by Annie, with the new Broadway show I would have thoughts rights for a Pro show would be withdrawn.

Barnum last I heard was a cert with Pajama Game in the Minerva.

[Jonwo]

I wonder if West End and regional rights to Annie are not held by the same producers as the Broadway Annie revival? I would have assumed if Annie is a success then it'll transfer. TBH I'd rather Chichester do Barnum as Annie's been done to death both on tour and last Christmas at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

[Bob30]

*Bump* Bringing this back onto topic as i am now seeing Kiss Me Kate this coming mondaya s well as in August, have any more of you seen it and would like to share your thoughts?

[ClapYo'Hands]

Hope you enjoy :) Have you been to Chichester before?

[jamiekennywicked]

I know I already contributed but.. it's a fantastic, fantastic production! The opening number is easily one of the best staged I've seen in a while

[Bob30]

Clap - I saw She Loves Me in the Minerva at year. easily one of the best musicals ive ever seen and deserves more credit than it gets!

Also i saw Sweeney last year, i adore chichesters work!

[Musicaldudepeter]

Does it have a chance at 2013 Olivier awards?

Remember the 2001 revival got like 11 nominations or something

[jamiekennywicked]

I imagine the set will get nominated along with Hannah.