Britmania
- Thread starter CastleOSullivan
- Start date
One of the first things we noticed. In true BGW fashion, the pre-show slides need a bit of spell check. At least we can make a game out of the slide show - how many spelling errors can you count?mtpelepele said:
They had the back roped off in all the shows we saw. One word to BGW. I WANT to sit where I WANT to sit. And that is past the handicap section where I can see the whole show. This is for MY entertainment and benefit. I'm NOT entertained in the slightest to be told where to sit. Why is this draconian practice still in place? But, yes the attendants where nicer, albeit different people than last year. We'll see how long they stay pleasant making people mad by the seating enforcement. BUT, even they hassled cast performers from other shows that wanted to sit incognito by the board to watch Britmania's cast. Boo BGW. Booooooooo.CastleOSullivan said:
I just noticed this while watching the video, the first preview ran over 30 minutes. Wasn't there supposed to be a 30-below minute limit put on the park shows?
Lord Robert said:
Last year a reliable park executive told me that a 30 minute limit is their rule of thumb. I wouldn't be too surprised if they cut it back a bit. Even the smallest changes can cut back on time immensely.
Apparently Katonga at BGT was 45-50 minutes until they trimmed it back to 38. Most of this is done during production, but one reason for previews is to gauge audience reactions so they can tweak the pacing and timing. Celtic Fyre had an entire song cut (Molly Malone) and shortened The Blessing by more than one minute once the show was already doing dress rehearsals.
In Britmania, my two favorite scenes, "Stairway to Heaven" and "Hello" are also the longest scenes (both three minutes), so I hope they don't cut back much there. Ironically, after all of that, they don't really have anything for 2017. They do an upbeat "Twist & Shout", which sounds very forced and a regular arrangement of "Crocodile Rock" to end the show. I really think they could cut back on "Crocodile Rock", as I don't see how or why they choose that to end the show in the year 2017. It also doesn't sound like a finale song the way "Hello" does.
The beginning and end are two of the most critical pieces in a show, and in my opinion, are the weakest parts of Britmania.
I was waiting to see if Zachary or others had a write up for preview weekend. I'll go ahead and throw my 2 cents in. As I said HERE previously, British Jukebox is what we needed. Though I didn't expect the park to seriously go there by way of hiring original producers. Why the park wants to hide the creators behind this is puzzling. They praise the team that did that LR garbage but hide this team. Odd.
DISCLAIMER please don't take this as bashing. This is only one opinion on how to make a better into great show, not to criticize. Opposing opinions are fine, but I am a performer and have a degree in Theatre before saying I have no idea of artistic value. I also have an opinion as the general public being entertained.
Briefly, there's lots of familiar faces in the cast. Lots of good shots for photo enthusiasts with nice cameras. Choreography is better, whether it's an improvement from the recent choreographer or rumored return of a previous choreographer.
I think others have established it gets rather weak when they hits the 80's. SO many better songs out there. Billy Ocean? Not on my playlist. Perhaps they went the cheap licensing route? The transitions feel awkward. I'm sure narration is a device for costume changes. But we don't need the story telling aspect. Be clever. Maybe a MTV type video clips with those huge projectors, or some solo performing.
My only suggestion to cast is less emoting while singing in a couple of songs. Dancers are absolutely fantastic. Given better choreography helps them shine. I feel bad for the band dealing with all the tech issues. They were being hit the worst all weekend. You can feel them fight the tracks in many songs which drains the dynamics. It makes the music feel anemic and lifeless in places. Love and kisses to the cast, really.
Leave the narration out of "Money for Nothing" so the drums don't have to have suddenly drop their volume, which kills the momentum. Another part talks about rocking out and starts with a heavy guitar riff which peters out into "Simply Irresistible". The key change in "Sweet Dreams" is not necessary and rough. Did I hear the narration state Bowie and Elton John started adding flair in early 90's? Ziggy and Capt. Fantastic are 90s? uh... no.
The gratuitous hint to groups with costumes then never do their songs? Chintzy. I'd rather hear a Spice Girls tune than some of the others. No Queen nor Bowie? BTW, many in the audience bangs their heads to Queen À la Wayne's World during the slide show. Why is "I Only Want to Be with You" now a slow song now? The Twist and Shout "update" totally loose me. Another good place for a real song. I'm with COS. Something in the vein of the Zepplin or Adele segment would make a finale. The length of the show doesn't bother me, if I'm entertained well.
The ONLY carry over I'd like to see from LR is more dynamic projections. Not the over the top psychedelic Monty Python graphics, but something less flat. Even the same graphics are used for several numbers. The lights are great. The giant 80's TV screen is a useless and cheap prop that can be burned now. It felt like Stonehenge flying in on Spinal Tap. Use the projectors at the beginning to make the "TV screen" behind the kids flicker with static. The Zepplin and Adele scenes are well done to me. The LR throwback ending is not. Photo examples are attached.
BTW - shirts? I might actually buy a Brtimania shirt instead of the LR shirt that where were immediately available. Hopefully, they are just waiting for the premier.
I look forward to you letters.
DISCLAIMER please don't take this as bashing. This is only one opinion on how to make a better into great show, not to criticize. Opposing opinions are fine, but I am a performer and have a degree in Theatre before saying I have no idea of artistic value. I also have an opinion as the general public being entertained.
Briefly, there's lots of familiar faces in the cast. Lots of good shots for photo enthusiasts with nice cameras. Choreography is better, whether it's an improvement from the recent choreographer or rumored return of a previous choreographer.
I think others have established it gets rather weak when they hits the 80's. SO many better songs out there. Billy Ocean? Not on my playlist. Perhaps they went the cheap licensing route? The transitions feel awkward. I'm sure narration is a device for costume changes. But we don't need the story telling aspect. Be clever. Maybe a MTV type video clips with those huge projectors, or some solo performing.
My only suggestion to cast is less emoting while singing in a couple of songs. Dancers are absolutely fantastic. Given better choreography helps them shine. I feel bad for the band dealing with all the tech issues. They were being hit the worst all weekend. You can feel them fight the tracks in many songs which drains the dynamics. It makes the music feel anemic and lifeless in places. Love and kisses to the cast, really.
Leave the narration out of "Money for Nothing" so the drums don't have to have suddenly drop their volume, which kills the momentum. Another part talks about rocking out and starts with a heavy guitar riff which peters out into "Simply Irresistible". The key change in "Sweet Dreams" is not necessary and rough. Did I hear the narration state Bowie and Elton John started adding flair in early 90's? Ziggy and Capt. Fantastic are 90s? uh... no.
The gratuitous hint to groups with costumes then never do their songs? Chintzy. I'd rather hear a Spice Girls tune than some of the others. No Queen nor Bowie? BTW, many in the audience bangs their heads to Queen À la Wayne's World during the slide show. Why is "I Only Want to Be with You" now a slow song now? The Twist and Shout "update" totally loose me. Another good place for a real song. I'm with COS. Something in the vein of the Zepplin or Adele segment would make a finale. The length of the show doesn't bother me, if I'm entertained well.
The ONLY carry over I'd like to see from LR is more dynamic projections. Not the over the top psychedelic Monty Python graphics, but something less flat. Even the same graphics are used for several numbers. The lights are great. The giant 80's TV screen is a useless and cheap prop that can be burned now. It felt like Stonehenge flying in on Spinal Tap. Use the projectors at the beginning to make the "TV screen" behind the kids flicker with static. The Zepplin and Adele scenes are well done to me. The LR throwback ending is not. Photo examples are attached.
BTW - shirts? I might actually buy a Brtimania shirt instead of the LR shirt that where were immediately available. Hopefully, they are just waiting for the premier.
I look forward to you letters.
Attachments
What!? Not a single Queen song on the Playlist!?!? Pssshhh bring back London Rocks and get this Britmania nonsense outta here....
All joking aside, I'm glad to hear positive early reviews of this show. With the way this heat has been lately this season, I'll be happy to have another good show to watch while cooling off.
All joking aside, I'm glad to hear positive early reviews of this show. With the way this heat has been lately this season, I'll be happy to have another good show to watch while cooling off.
Even though I would've loved a more recognizable playlist, I could see why the show would want to have a different one to separate itself from it's awful predecessor. That's part of the reason why "London Rocks" was so bad to me, it gave those great songs a terrible sense of injustice.
To add just a few notes, the park did advertise the creative team as the same team that did American Jukebox, they were never really hidden unless you didn't catch the posts in this forum or hadn't seen their Instagram.
When I most recently saw the show the other day, they did add in television static to the first song while the TV's were still there. There were some other changes I don't quite remember.
Overall, the show does seem solid. The playlist feels very heavy sided. You have like 7 or so songs from the 60's, a couple from the 70s and 80's, and then only one from within the last 17 years. I would really prefer them to even out the music from different time periods.
I agree, to mention Bowie or Elton John and not play their music immediately afterwards is really a letdown. Not to say I don't like the song they use, just don't lead me on to expect a certain artists songs and then play something different.
Continuing with music selection, it did bother me that "Simply Irresistible" by Robert Palmer and "Let Me Entertain You" by Robbie Williams were practically a decade apart yet somehow they were grouped together.
"Hello" by Adele was a good ending point. The extra "Twist and Shout" and other song that they tried to add new age flair to had me lost and it sounded really bad. I didn't mind "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John. It felt like a decent send off, but in keeping with a timeline they should have just ended with a song from within the last five years.
I have no major issues with the show besides the arrangement of the songs really. I did like the more obscure song selection over the already popular hits that everybody and their brother knows. The monologue also felt weird with it being a "personal story". I would much rather him just monologue about the decade's music directly.
If the show returns year after year for awhile the only major changes I would prefer to see are song selection and playlist order. I would not mind a long show as long as it is a good one. As others have said, it is a solid show. You can sit through it and actually enjoy it for the most part. It's loads better than London Rocks.
I know this was posted a bit back about the standing ovation, but could that have just been employees or cast members from other shows? From what I've read here they do like to see other shows sometimes.
When I most recently saw the show the other day, they did add in television static to the first song while the TV's were still there. There were some other changes I don't quite remember.
Overall, the show does seem solid. The playlist feels very heavy sided. You have like 7 or so songs from the 60's, a couple from the 70s and 80's, and then only one from within the last 17 years. I would really prefer them to even out the music from different time periods.
I agree, to mention Bowie or Elton John and not play their music immediately afterwards is really a letdown. Not to say I don't like the song they use, just don't lead me on to expect a certain artists songs and then play something different.
Continuing with music selection, it did bother me that "Simply Irresistible" by Robert Palmer and "Let Me Entertain You" by Robbie Williams were practically a decade apart yet somehow they were grouped together.
"Hello" by Adele was a good ending point. The extra "Twist and Shout" and other song that they tried to add new age flair to had me lost and it sounded really bad. I didn't mind "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John. It felt like a decent send off, but in keeping with a timeline they should have just ended with a song from within the last five years.
I have no major issues with the show besides the arrangement of the songs really. I did like the more obscure song selection over the already popular hits that everybody and their brother knows. The monologue also felt weird with it being a "personal story". I would much rather him just monologue about the decade's music directly.
If the show returns year after year for awhile the only major changes I would prefer to see are song selection and playlist order. I would not mind a long show as long as it is a good one. As others have said, it is a solid show. You can sit through it and actually enjoy it for the most part. It's loads better than London Rocks.
I know this was posted a bit back about the standing ovation, but could that have just been employees or cast members from other shows? From what I've read here they do like to see other shows sometimes.
The best thing about those monologues is that they can be changed pretty easily from being a "personal story about his dad growing up to British rock" to "A history of British music from the 60's to today". It's probably going to be the most simple of any changes the show will have in the future.
[With them starting out with the Beatles I think they should end the show with Let It Be . The opening could have used different opening songs that The Beatles had early hits with gonna be intersting to see what the finished product looks like.
I just noticed this while watching the video, the first preview ran over 30 minutes. Wasn't there supposed to be a 30-below minute limit put on the park shows?
[/quote]
Last year a reliable park executive told me that a 30 minute limit is their rule of thumb. I wouldn't be too surprised if they cut it back a bit. Even the smallest changes can cut back on time immensely.
Apparently Katonga at BGT was 45-50 minutes until they trimmed it back to 38. Most of this is done during production, but one reason for previews is to gauge audience reactions so they can tweak the pacing and timing. Celtic Fyre had an entire song cut (Molly Malone) and shortened The Blessing by more than one minute once the show was already doing dress rehearsals.
In Britmania, my two favorite scenes, "Stairway to Heaven" and "Hello" are also the longest scenes (both three minutes), so I hope they don't cut back much there. Ironically, after all of that, they don't really have anything for 2017. They do an upbeat "Twist & Shout", which sounds very forced and a regular arrangement of "Crocodile Rock" to end the show. I really think they could cut back on "Crocodile Rock", as I don't see how or why they choose that to end the show in the year 2017. It also doesn't sound like a finale song the way "Hello" does.
The beginning and end are two of the most critical pieces in a show, and in my opinion, are the weakest parts of Britmania.
[/quote]
I just noticed this while watching the video, the first preview ran over 30 minutes. Wasn't there supposed to be a 30-below minute limit put on the park shows?
[/quote]
Last year a reliable park executive told me that a 30 minute limit is their rule of thumb. I wouldn't be too surprised if they cut it back a bit. Even the smallest changes can cut back on time immensely.
Apparently Katonga at BGT was 45-50 minutes until they trimmed it back to 38. Most of this is done during production, but one reason for previews is to gauge audience reactions so they can tweak the pacing and timing. Celtic Fyre had an entire song cut (Molly Malone) and shortened The Blessing by more than one minute once the show was already doing dress rehearsals.
In Britmania, my two favorite scenes, "Stairway to Heaven" and "Hello" are also the longest scenes (both three minutes), so I hope they don't cut back much there. Ironically, after all of that, they don't really have anything for 2017. They do an upbeat "Twist & Shout", which sounds very forced and a regular arrangement of "Crocodile Rock" to end the show. I really think they could cut back on "Crocodile Rock", as I don't see how or why they choose that to end the show in the year 2017. It also doesn't sound like a finale song the way "Hello" does.
The beginning and end are two of the most critical pieces in a show, and in my opinion, are the weakest parts of Britmania.
[/quote]
Finally saw the show live and in person, the energy and good vibes this very good show brings is ridiculous! Going to see the show again and see "All For One" next weekend.
I'm just so happy that we finally have a very solid show in the Globe Theater for the main season alongside "Monster Stomp on Ripper Row" during Halloween and "Scrooge No More" for Christmas. It took them three years but better late than never.
I'm just so happy that we finally have a very solid show in the Globe Theater for the main season alongside "Monster Stomp on Ripper Row" during Halloween and "Scrooge No More" for Christmas. It took them three years but better late than never.
Saw the 5:00 showing of the preview yesterday and I definitely enjoyed it. Maybe because I am an avid guitarist/guitar enthusiast/concert enthusiast, who knows, I seemed to like it more than the group I was with.
I thought the lighting/visuals were spectacular, I wasn't expecting that big of an upgrade at all. I wonder if anything will be affected in the Globe for Christmas Town this year. Once I saw those Adele books a couple weeks ago at Busch, I knew "Hello" was going to be in Britmania, but I was NOT expecting 3 minutes of it. Maybe cut that in half or get rid of the end reprises and add 90 seconds of something by some more British Invasion bands or something... (The Who even have books next to Adele's so I'm assuming BG has copyright and licensing to play their songs too).
Rock and roll.
I thought the lighting/visuals were spectacular, I wasn't expecting that big of an upgrade at all. I wonder if anything will be affected in the Globe for Christmas Town this year. Once I saw those Adele books a couple weeks ago at Busch, I knew "Hello" was going to be in Britmania, but I was NOT expecting 3 minutes of it. Maybe cut that in half or get rid of the end reprises and add 90 seconds of something by some more British Invasion bands or something... (The Who even have books next to Adele's so I'm assuming BG has copyright and licensing to play their songs too).
Rock and roll.
I just saw this show twice today and I will have to say overall this is a great production with great talent and some familiar faces. It's an impressive show. Some great choreography although there are some parts of the show with no dancing. Great lighting effects too.
This show corrected one of the major flaws of London Rocks. London Rocks had too many snippets of songs and didn't really let the vocalist showcase their talent. I always left that show wishing I could have heard the performers really sing to their full potential. You could hear the talent was there but the content of the show didn't allow it to shine.
In Britmania, the playlist and the length of the songs really seems to let all the vocalist showcase their ability. There are just a couple instances of snippets.
There are seven vocalist in this show, five male and only two female. So the typical balance of male and female vocalist doesn't exist in this show. But all seven of the vocalist are strong as well as the dancers.
The strong moments of the show include Staircase to Heaven, Simply Irresistible/Let Me Entertain You, and Hello. Staircase to Heavens choreography is stunning.
The playlist will never please everyone. But I will agree with one other statement.
Having Twist and Shout in the show a second time comma especially as the ending song is anti-climactic. With all the vocal and dancing talent in this show, it could have finished in a much bigger way.
It's an overall great experience and definitely a show to see over and over. Big applause for all of the performers.
This show corrected one of the major flaws of London Rocks. London Rocks had too many snippets of songs and didn't really let the vocalist showcase their talent. I always left that show wishing I could have heard the performers really sing to their full potential. You could hear the talent was there but the content of the show didn't allow it to shine.
In Britmania, the playlist and the length of the songs really seems to let all the vocalist showcase their ability. There are just a couple instances of snippets.
There are seven vocalist in this show, five male and only two female. So the typical balance of male and female vocalist doesn't exist in this show. But all seven of the vocalist are strong as well as the dancers.
The strong moments of the show include Staircase to Heaven, Simply Irresistible/Let Me Entertain You, and Hello. Staircase to Heavens choreography is stunning.
The playlist will never please everyone. But I will agree with one other statement.
Having Twist and Shout in the show a second time comma especially as the ending song is anti-climactic. With all the vocal and dancing talent in this show, it could have finished in a much bigger way.
It's an overall great experience and definitely a show to see over and over. Big applause for all of the performers.
VonDerrick said:
I am very aware of Matt Davenport Productions. Who would be the choreographer then.
