Lee Mead Forum

Eagerly awaited and dreaded at the same time, the 30th came a lot sooner than I expected. Suddenly we found ourselves in Maiden Lane, with a bunch of cards to write, a step full of chocolate, and two great shows to look forward too. It was quiet when we arrived, but we were very early. From about noon onwards more and more people began to turn up. At first the usual suspects , then both old and new faces. Lee fans, there to support the cast, Gareth fans there to support Gareth (surprisingly ) and the cast. It wasn’t as manic as the 10th, but by all means it was still busy. And the atmosphere was once again great. Quite a few of the cast turned up early, as they had a last breakfast together. Almost everyone was there, and everyone seemed to be very excited!


Matinee
As opposed to Lee’s last show, the muck up matinee on Saturday wasn’t about a few big changes, but mostly small details throughout, more like other last mats I’ve seen. But that doesn’t mean that it was less funny, because it was hilarious! I still think the first two were the best. Will list them here in order of appearance. If I forget something, feel free to add! :-)
- Jacob and sons - The wives came on reading magazines, like Ideal Home and The Stage, and there were a few more wives than normal… But just as Pip makes a great brother, the swings (Johnny, Brad and Stuart) made great wives
- The brothers came on wearing each other’s costumes! Tom looked great in Neal’s! (Jenna took a real camera on stage, so hopefully she’ll upload the pic to her website!)
- Joseph’s Coat – While walking around Joseph the brothers lifted the coat instead of lowering it, so he was blocked from view the entire time
- Joseph’s Dreams – After lifting Jenna, she wasn’t put down so had to sing while being high above the brothers
- Instead of normal sunglassed, the brothers wore multicoloured ones (the slitty plastic things, dunno if they have a name).
- Craig kept hitting Gareth with Reggie’s tail.
- One More Angel – Right before the brothers came back on stage, Jacob was knitting in his chair
- Potiphar/CED – This time they left one of the socks on, and instead of throwing it back, Gareth kept it on and walked around the cell like that. Brill sight.
- Egypt/Pharaoh bits – Egyptians with 60s afro hair and scary looking blue faces!
- Canaan Days – Extra lift! Yay! :D
- Chicken! Er… winegums! Adam did share it with the others though! (And Derek picked up a trampled winegum at the megamix to eat it )
- Grovel Grovel – There were two Reggies hidden in the headdresses of the girls
- Benjamin Calypso – Jenna came on with a glass of Stella, and shared it with Craig and Gareth
- Megamix – Jenna wore very psychedelic legwarmers with her white dress


Evening
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the final performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat”. What a way to start the show! But it was, and spectacularly so! What to say? It was an amazing, amazing, amazing show. Everyone gave their all, and it’s one of the best shows I’ve seen. (Though October 18th is still my favourite – shoot me ) I can’t even give you highlights, cause the entire show was fab! I think we gave them a spectacular send-off though! Lots of cheering, for Gareth, for the brothers, the wives, Stephen, Dean (“Elvis has left the building!”), basically for everyone! The entire theatre was dancing along to the megamix, including all the swings on stage. A megamix like it should be! Even though the show was so emotional, I was enjoying it so much I didn’t cry as much as I thought I would. At Joseph all the time I got a bit teary, and the reprise of ADWD is always beautiful. Only when the curtain came down for the last time, and it was really, truly, over, WITHOUT SPEECH I should add *mad*, I cried. Because really, I’m so looking forward to seeing all of them shine in other shows, I will miss this show. In a lot of ways Joseph has changed my life, and it’ll always hold a special place in my heart as such.


Stage door
After the evening show the stage door was manic, including the traffic jams It was emotional, but great to be able to say “goodbye, good luck and see you soon”. And also “thank you”. The entire cast, crew, FOH, everyone at the Adelphi. Thank you, you’ve been brilliant!


Some unexpected extras
June 1st
And on Monday Christine and me found ourselves back in the Adelphi, after I realized I had left my scarf there. What started as an emotional morning, builders were already taking down the sign, and (de)construction of the stage had begun *sniff*, ended up being a great day. We first made our way to the box office, where Vereen and Sandrine were on duty, and where we met JulieB. My scarf wasn’t there, but we ended up chatting for ages. Del walked past a couple of times, looking very different in his builders outfit and all the more confused by seeing us there. I guess we ended up confusing quite a lot of people that day!
We went round to the stage door, to see if my scarf was there, but forgot all about the scarf part when we saw parts of the set in Maiden Lane And we couldn’t resist to…

It was fab! And that was why after collecting my scarf (yay, they had it! ) and doing what we had to do (Lush, Dress Circle, food… ) we found ourselves back in Maiden Lane for the rest of the afternoon. Therapeutic really!
It just got a bit surreal when cast members started to turn up…

Wow Marieke, thanks for that lovely review.

Did you sit on the chariot?? I'm amazed they are packing away so quickly. Did you ask what happens to the pieces?

Lovely photos and glad you found the scarf.

Thanks! Set's going to Toronto! And no, didn't sit on it, but I do have a pic standing beside it, will see if I can upload that at some point too! :)

Aw, lovely review, Marieke! And sums the whole day up very well! Did they say why the set is going to Toronto? Is it for another Joseph show over there?

And what cast did you see yesterday?! Do tell!

I'm assuming they'll do Jo there too, especially considering Ricky flew over in February to sign ADWD and CED there at some gala thing!

Gareth, with Suzanne and their beautiful little girl, Derek, and Nat.

Marieke, Jenna has that photo you mentioned on her facebook page. If the mods are happy, I could link it or post it via my photobucket for those that don't have facebook.

Yeah, I've seen it on there too! But with her profile not public I'm hesitant posting it somewhere else! But I guess most of us will have fb, so check it out!

Awwwwwwwwwwww

that was great to read =] fab review marieke.... help make me feel i was really there =]

did they make a speech at the end of the show?

Sad to see the stage outside of the theatre though.... how fab getting your picture taken with some of it!



glad you had a fab couple of days though =]

Stace
xxxx

Thanks Marieke

Thanks!



Nope, which I still think is really unfair! Tim Rice was in the audience, so he could easily have said something! There weren't even flowers or anything! Evilness!!

Awwww yeah that really is unfair..... they could have presented them with something.
That cast have worked their butt's off.

Oh FAB Review Marieke!!!

Glad you had a fab time & what a Bonus you had the next day!!! The pics of you with the props & set are great!!!

How odd that they didnt do speeches!!

I agree , it was a wonderful show and a very great success so why not have a proper final the cast deserved it they did a wonderful job for almost 2 years it is very odd indeed.
Oh I do miss that show and I hope we are going to see a bit more of Lee when he comes back this drought ain't nice!. alas no.

Brilliant review, love the pics :-)
xx

Enjoyed the day!
I love the show and the cast were as usual fantastic. particularly Steven Tate and Jenna.
I too wondered why no speeches.
But then it was all said on Lee's last day in my opinion

Glad you enjoyed the day too


Have to say, I don't agree with you there. The 10th was about Lee, and rightly so, but the show didn't end there. I know it did for a lot of Lee fans, but it didn't for the cast, it didn't for us, it didn't for a lot of people who only discovered the show after Lee left, and it shouldn't have done for the producers. This way the message that they sent out was that they didn't care any more either (or at least that's how quite a few people interpreted it) and I think that's just wholly unfair. The 30th should have been about Gareth, who did a great job taking over and especially about a cast that has worked so hard over the last year(s) and deserves to get that recognition (even flowers would have been a lot better than nothing).

That's just my two cents, but I do feel quite strongly about it cause I think they deserved better

Marieke, completely agree with you there. Gareth, the rest of the cast and the backstage people should've got some sort recognition! Such a shame they didn't get it from the bosses on 30th May!

Perhaps the cast didn't want to make a fuss. They'd had their leaving dos and said their goodbyes. Maybe they were happy to enjoy the applause of the audience and leave it at that. Gareth finds public speaking difficult - perhaps he asked not to say anything. If he (or any of the other cast members) had wanted to say something, they had the opportunity to do so. As they didn't, I'd hazard a guess that it was their choice not to say anything.

As for ALW/Tim Rice - it's unusual for TR to get up on stage and make a speech. He strikes me as someone who prefers to stay out of the limelight. He went on stage at Lee's opening night, but didn't do so on Lee's last night (though he was in the audience). It could be simply that he didn't want to take any focus from the cast (and he could have thanked them privately at some point during the evening).

At the end of the day, 'last nights' are handled in different ways by individual productions (apparently, there were no speeches at the last performance of 'Spring Awakening'). Some do the whole 'speeches and flowers' thing, some don't.

I do partly agree with you, but from what I could tell most cast members found the lack of speeches strange as well. Maybe Gareth didn't want to say anything, maybe it wasn't Tim Rice's job, and sure, different theatres have different approaches. But the thing is, there were speeches before, on the 7th of June (I know that it was a speech from the cast but to me that makes sense, as most of them were staying and were only saying goodbye to a few), and there were speeches on the 10th. Especially that contrast, between the 10th and the 30th was just too big. Like I said, the show didn't end when Lee left.
And it wasn't just us; the feeling that the producers had given up on the show after Lee left, came from the cast too and that's what bugs me most, because after all the hard work they did I think they deserved a bit better.