I recall seeing dozens -- literally dozens -- of new threads being started on ATC over the winter praising this show to the heavens. It also got rave reviews from most critics. To me that says that it caught on just fine with the seasoned theatregoers and Broadway superfans who often make up the first couple of months of a production's box office, but hasn't caught on with the general public. I'm not quite sure why that is. You'd think that in the age of Downton Abbey's massive success, this show might be a bigger attraction.
Perhaps word of mouth with the general public isn't as strong? If the show were as funny as it thought it was, it might be able to attract bigger audiences. Those of us who don't connect with this work are, quite rudely, told that we don't appreciate adult, sophisticated work. I think that's hogwash. This was one of the most amateurish and unsophisticated things I've seen on Broadway. It feels like dinner theatre with a slightly bigger budget.
I'm afraid I'm in lonely company with the NY Post's Elizabeth Vincentelli (and a few others on here) in finding the show a monumental disappointment. When I first heard about the show last Autumn, it shot to the top of my must-see list for my winter NY trip. A sophisticated, adult, urbane, witty (and also silly) British music hall style farce with a new Broadway score composed for adults? No painfully bad attempts at power pop and what passes for "rock" music on Broadway, but instead and honest-to-goodness old fashioned Broadway score? Fabulous! It sounded great on paper, but I found the entire enterprise duller than dishwater -- including a merely serviceable score, a painfully unfunny book, and a ridiculously overpraised performance from Jefferson Mays. He's essentially doing one long, broad MAD TV-esque sketch after another. To me the true star and anchor of the show -- and really only reason to see it -- is Bryce Pinkham. Pinkham is dashing, sharply funny and devastatingly charismatic. I hope we see him in something a bit more substantial in the future. He's got the chops.
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