Guys and Dolls

After another satisfyingly busy weekend (I finally got a haircut, woo!), I'm back to yet another slow working week. I literally haven't done any work in about two hours. I'm sure I'm going to be for a rude shock when I have to start doing proper work when I get home.

To alleviate my boredom I thought I'd write up a review of my night of Ewanspotting at Guys and Dolls a couple of weeks ago.

We arrived at Piccadilly Theatre with much anticipation, mostly on my part, to see Mr McGregor. Even though we were in the cheap seats, the theatre wasn't too big so we had a fairly decent view of the stage. We took our seats only to be confronted by The Worse FeMullet Ever, worn by some woman who obviously was not worried about her own appearance, or the eyesight of any poor soul in her vicinity. Once we got over our initial shock we settled down to watch the show.

The show itself was really good. Guys and Dolls isn’t one of the showier musicals but more of a character piece, so it was the charisma of the actors and their performances which were more central to our enjoyment than any elaborate dance numbers. Having subsequently seen the 1955 film version, I can’t help comparing with the West End version. Some of the performers are dead ringers for the 1955 cast, the man who played Nicely, Nicely Johnson being one of them. Jane Krakowski was brilliant and she pulled off Adelaide note perfect to Vivian Blake's original performance.

Not to spoil it for you, but Sky Masterson is practically the last character to be introduced so it seemed like I was waiting ages to finally get a glimpse of Ewan. Which was obscured by his large fedora hat. Damn those early 20th century dress codes! But I did finally get to see Ewan in (almost) all his glory. (Unfortunately, they haven’t yet found a way to work in a nude scene into Guys and Dolls. But if there were you know he’d do it.)
Now Ewan is a good actor but not so much of a singer, sorry to say. Luckily Sky’s musical numbers are fairly limited and it was mostly down to Ewan to be as charming as possible as Sky. Which he pulled off wonderfully. That Jenna Russell was one lucky woman, getting to snog Mr McGregor several times.

I do wish I’d been slightly closer or at least had rented the binoculars for a better view of Ewan. Otherwise though I had an extremely enjoyable night and now I can say I was in the same (very big) room with Ewan McGregor. Heh.