REVIEW: “Blink! ...and you missed it”

It seems right to post about this as a follow-up to Too Close to the Sun. After all, there’s something about us theatre folk that craves, nay, demands an obsession with revisiting failures. And on the cabaret circuit, nothing draws out the hardcore like a concert of hits from everyone’s favourite flops.

Then again, if my experience (along with Mark Shenton’s) is anything to go by, there aren’t that many hardcore to go around. At least not for a month-long run at the Stag, which may be why these things are usually one-nighters.

But I digress.

Officially, any show which is commercially produced and fails to return turn a profit to its investors is a flop. For entry into Not Since Carrie, the flop-lover’s encyclopaedia, a show needed to fail financially AND run for under 250 performances (and run before 1988, though a second volume is long rumoured to be in the works.) The shows in Blink!...vary. Some are long running financial failures, some didn’t cross the pond well, and some are just, well, there.

At this point I should really just hand things over to Mr. Shenton, as his previously linked post on Blink! matches the majority of my thoughts almost word for word. A few other bits to bullet-point though...

-The narration was heavy on the Wikipedia (lots of dates and performance counts) and lacking in any sort of useful context for the songs. If you’re highlighting shows that nobody knows, then you have to give the audience some context lest the acting be completely lost. And yes, I have written better.

-The narrative delivery also came across as too casual and a last-minute concern. I liked that it was split amongst the cast, but it was thrown off and clearly not of much concern.

-”New Music” from Ragtime was well condensed from six characters to two, but played at a turbocharged tempo, which undermines the beauty of the song. Props for trying something different, but no.

-The two medley sequences, one on UK hits/US flops and one on actor-musos, despite being the most questionable in terms of merit in a piece like this, are the most entertaining parts of the evening.

I wish I could be more positive about Blink!, but the evening found itself squarely in the realm of decency, never falling too far or rising too high. It’s amusing and fairly cheap and the bar’s not too expensive for pre/post/interval drinks. And remember, it could always be worse.

Where: Above the Stag
When: Until 16 Aug, Tu-Fr @ 19:30, Sa @ 17:30 & 20:15, Su @ 18:30
How much: £10 unreserved
Concessions: None
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RZ Unofficial “Worth Paying”: £5 with an E for Effort.
RZ Other Notes: I’d give it the £10 if someone had the clever idea of including a drink with the ticket price.

REVIEW: The 1959 Broadway Songbook

When I first heard that The 1959 Broadway Songbook was being performed at a pizza restaurant, I immediately found myself questioning who would actually be performing that evening: The Rockafire Explosion? But no, my oblivious foreign self was subsequently educated that Pizza on the Park is, in fact, a respectable venue for jazz, cabaret, and other forms of evening entertainment like the hotel venues of old.

The 1959 Broadway Songbook is a cabaret, comprised of four performers (Nathan Martin on piano, West End standards Anna Bergman and Susannah Fellows, and American Jeff Harnar who compiled the piece). Over roughly 100 minutes, they attempt to encompass what was undoubtedly a high point in the golden age of Broadway, a year where over twenty new musicals (including The Music Man, Gypsy, West Side Story, and Flower Drum Song) by virtually all of the greats opened. The upside is that the show flows quickly, the performers are good, and the venue is surprisingly nice.

The downside is that there are SO many songs to clear and SO many major titles that virtually none of them are performed in their entirety: we hear a verse here, a chorus there, and even some of the biggest songs such as "Rose’s Turn" are reduced to a mere fragment in the interest of time. As such, it’s impossible to ever make a true connection with any of the material or performers, and it’s so frantic that it’s hard to classify as a nice night out. Amusing, but not nice.

Where: Pizza on the Park
When: Until 13 April, Sundays @15:00 & 19:00, Mondays @ 19:45
How Much: £25
Concessions: None
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RZ Unofficial “Worth Paying”: £10......
RZ Other Notes: ....but this being in a restaurant you will undoubtedly end up spending extra and feel extremely foolish if you don’t order something beforehand. Doors open 90 minutes before the show, so you can get your dinner (think Pizza Express or slightly better quality) and be on your coffee or wine by the time the show actually starts.