Murkskis wrote:Excellent review Liberavieve! Are you a professional critic in the real life?
Don't I wish?
But thanks!
Yorkie wrote:Nice write up Liberavieve, enjoyed reading that. Maybe I'm the one out of whack but I don't tend to favour any of the Libera boys (although I will champion those I think get unfairly overlooked) and I wouldn't do the same with a Billy. I think if you have favourites you leave yourself open to disappointment when they leave or miss a show.
Thanks, Yorkie. You mention not having a favourite performer/chorister and the possibility, in having a favourite, of being set up for disappointment. I can't speak to the disappointment of growing attached to a particular favourite only to be sad when they leave or miss a show, but I think that whole setting-oneself-up-for-disappointment bit might have actually gone the other way for me when I saw Dean on as Billy.
Before the show, there was a bit of muttering amongst regulars in the queue about Dean's pushiness, over-aggression, and lack of vulnerability/sensitivity in the role, and if I remember, a few people expressed the hope that he wouldn't be on, as they generally just didn't enjoy his take quite as much as they would have liked. There's no accounting for taste, of course, but listening to that, I did brace myself to be disappointed. But at the show, of course, I was bowled over and very, very pleasantly surprised!
(It's worth noting that with
Wicked, it
did go as you've said; having heard countless raves about how the flight sequence had to be seen to be believed and how
universally brilliant, super-fantastic, and outstanding(!!) the show as a whole was, I went in prepared to be stunned and was fairly disappointed. You can see the giant, chunky mechanism for the lift!
)
Yorkie wrote:And on to Dean CC - the only member of BETM to have appeared in the very first show in London on 31st March 2005 and still appearing in the show today.
When you consider that Dean's probably only twelve or thirteen (fourteen?), that's really a feat. When it finally comes time for him to leave the show, the Company ought to send him and his parents on a well-deserved holiday.