{"id":3881,"date":"2018-05-06T13:41:35","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T20:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2018-05-06T13:41:35","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T20:41:35","slug":"billy-london-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2018\/05\/06\/billy-london-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy London Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baby Bunton got a new lease on life due to Absolutely Fabulous<\/em><\/strong>.  Someone else who benefited from Patsy and Edina\u2019s attention is Lulu<\/strong>.  The singer has been a staple in the UK since she was a tot, but in the States she\u2019s best known for acting in and singing the title song from To Sir With Love<\/em><\/strong>.  Since AbFab<\/em>, you can go into any gay bar in the world and exclaim, \u201cChampagne for Lulu\u201d, and people know exactly who you\u2019re talking about.  In March, Lulu went into the smash London production of the musical 42nd<\/sup> Street<\/em><\/strong> replacing another Scottish songbird \u2013 Sheena Easton<\/strong>.  Since I\u2019m spending some time here, I decided to check it out \u2013 especially since this is Lulu\u2019s first West End<\/em> show in three decades!  No matter how many times I see 42nd<\/sup> Street<\/em>, I am always taken with how engaging and entertaining it is.  Yes, it\u2019s an old-fashioned, creaky musical, but I just can\u2019t resist those dancing feet.  The production is really flawless from top to bottom with a hard-working, talented cast.  Lulu is just the icing on the cake \u2013 but, oh, what icing it is.  Everything she does is delicious.  She sings, she dances, she poses, she snipes.  She\u2019s Lulu, and she\u2019s a national treasure.<\/p>\n

I was told Lulu was waiting for me backstage, so off I went.  I was barely in the stage door when I heard her unmistakable voice yell, \u201cHello, gorgeous!\u201d  I always forget she\u2019s a little bit of a thing.  But, my God, what energy and star power.  She had just come offstage and was dashing out to see the fans waiting for her, but I asked her to pose for a quick photo with me.  As I looked around for someone to take the picture, Lulu snatched the phone out of my hand and said, \u201cOh, I\u2019ve got loads of experience taking selfies \u2013 smile!\u201d  And, just like that, she took the snap.  If you want to see her in the show, act quickly \u2013 she\u2019s only there until the middle of June.<\/p>\n

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I also went to the opening night of Chess<\/em><\/strong> at the London Coliseum<\/em>.  The English National Opera <\/em>has made an annual tradition of presenting a semi-staged musical in the spring, and this marked the first West End <\/em>revival of Chess<\/em> in over 30 years (no, Lulu wasn\u2019t in it).  To hear this glorious score played by a full symphonic orchestra is something I\u2019ll never forget.  While the music was great, the story is as problematic as ever.  This is the third production of Chess<\/em> I\u2019ve seen in the past two years \u2013 and each time I swear I\u2019ve seen a different show.  It\u2019s as if I\u2019m seeing a musical version of Clue<\/em>!  Characters change nationality, locations change, motivations are different, even the endings can change.  Of all the versions, I believe Seth Rudetsky<\/strong>\u2019s from the 2003 Actors Fund <\/em>benefit came closest to solving the problems.<\/p>\n

Back to the ENO <\/em>\u2013 this was also quite a night.  Things kicked off brilliantly when the press documented the arrival of the original female lead, Elaine Paige<\/strong>.  Her counterpart onstage in this production was the remarkable Cassidy Janson<\/strong>.  As Freddy, Tim Howar <\/strong>really ripped into the role.  Side note \u2013 he had to leave the first preview during intermission because his wife went into labor!  Alexandra Burke <\/strong>played Svetlana \u2013 and, once again, the show surprised us by giving her a new song!  If you don\u2019t know Burke, she won Britain\u2019s X Factor<\/em><\/strong>, and previously appeared in West End<\/em> productions of The Bodyguard<\/em><\/strong> and Sister Act: The Musical<\/em><\/strong>.  I knew she could sing, but she can really act, too.  As far as I was concerned, the weakest link in the cast was Michael Ball<\/strong>.  Yes, he\u2019s a West End<\/em> icon and I usually love him, but in this he seemed stiff, awkward, and just out of sync with the rest of the cast (and completely implausible as Burke\u2019s husband).  But was he bad?  No.  Ultimately, the star of the evening was the show itself \u2013 presented more-or-less in its original version.  And how wonderful it was that creators Benny <\/strong>and Bj\u00f6rn <\/strong>(from ABBA<\/em><\/strong>) and Tim Rice <\/strong>were together to celebrate the event.  If you are a fan, do not wait for a transfer or an extension.  See it before it closes on June 2nd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baby Bunton got a new lease on life due to Absolutely Fabulous.  Someone else who benefited from Patsy and Edina\u2019s attention is Lulu.  The singer has been a staple in the UK since she was a tot, but in the States she\u2019s best known for acting in and singing the title song from To Sir With Love.  Since AbFab,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3882,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}