| Dec. 4th, 2009 @ 11:45 pm Q9 |
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Yes, after my 8th trip to Avenue Q was the absolutely last one ever, the show only went and reopened so this is the third (and, surely, final) annual trip for me and Evil Alex to the late Friday matinee. We've been going on or near my birthday ever since Daniel Boys joined the cast, our first trip together being in his first week in the role. Which means this week is the start of his third year as Princeton and Rod - no wonder he sometimes sounds fed up with the job on his Twitter.
Well I've not been since the show moved to the Gielgud, but most of the cast is as it was. Although the programme still lists Mark Goldthorp, the note inserted in it says that Nicky/Trekkie/Bear are "now played by" Tom Parsons, which suggests to me that he's not actually understudying it any more, and Goldthorp has actually left, presumably suddenly. We also had an understudy Brian - again probably due to a quick reshuffle I don't know his name, as he was announced over the tannoy but isn't actually listed in the programme. He's also the first-ever skinny Brian I've seen - not that any newcomers to the show would have found it odd, as I think there's only one quick reference to Brian being fat in the actual dialogue. Both actors were fine, although I didn't like them as much as their predecessors. But there's also a new (third) actress playing Kate/Lucy, and I'm afraid I really didn't like Cassidy Janson in the role. While all the other actors seem replaceable (yes, remember even D-Boys is a replacement cast member, and Jon Robyns before him was also fab) Julie Atherton really seems matchless as the female leads. Janson's Kate Monster speaks way too quickly - loads of gags were completely lost. Her Lucy The Slut is better at first, but in the second act also succumbs to the rapidfire delivery. One place where Janson does beat the second Kate is "There's a Fine, Fine Line" - Rebecca Lock could belt it but never get much emotion out of it, but Janson does a lot better in that regard. But overall I'd say she was the weakest of the three lead actresses I've seen.
The rest of the cast are as at the last time at the Noël Coward; in tonight's performance Joanna Ampil (who seems to be the only Christmas Eve to have lasted a significant amount of time) got a particularly good reception from a largely young crowd.
And of course there's D-Boys, who still looks like he's having great fun even if his tweets sometimes tell a different story, so nice bit of professionalism there. He's still ridiculously hot, obviously, and either he's done some creative combing or his hair isn't receding quite as rapidly as it was last year, when it appeared to be in some kind of race against itself. The last couple of times I was rather taken by his arms; they don't seem to be any more muscular than they were before, but I think he might have been working on his pecs as he was looking particularly good in the faded black T-shirt. There was also almost-permanent nipple erection on show, so there's lovely. Now something a bit contentious: Evil Alex claimed that at one point D-Boys' sleeve rolled up particularly high, and he spotted a tattoo. Now, having been looking at his arms for much of the time I saw no such thing, although sometimes there was a shadow cast that could be mistaken for a tat, so I'm guessing Alex was seeing things. Besides which, this is Daniel Boys we're talking about. He's been on Songs of Praise FFS. Twice. I'm just saying, he may be many things (and in my imagination he also does many, many things) but *rawk* \m/ is unlikely to be one of them.
Anyway, back to the show, and surely when it closes at the Gielgud in March (which yes, I'll be going to, making it an even 10) it'll be gone for good, in this original production at least. I'm sure in 10-15 years' time it'll be ripe for a reimagining (undoubtedly at the Menier) but although it's still funny it's starting to feel a tiny bit dated. Not just the "George Bush is only for now" line which both this and the Broadway production struggled to replace once Obama got in (the current version here is "Swine Flu is only for now," getting a fraction of the response the original did - there's really not an equivalent replacement for that line to be honest.) I also noticed that although the song "Mix Tape" is still called that, Princeton now holds a CD, and "Side A/Side B" in the dialogue is now "Disk 1/Disk 2." It still works but it's really a noughties show with noughties concerns: Probably for the best if it bows out gracefully before outstaying its welcome in the next decade. |
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