A friend tweeted me the other day about a show she’d just seen: “That was probably my best night in the theatre ever!”
Since she has also seen the current Menier Chocolate Factory production of Merrily We Roll Along six or seven times already – to my mere two – I sought clarification: surely it isn’t better than Merrily? No, it wasn’t. “Not saying best show,” she replied, “but I had best night out!”
That’s a subtle distinction, of course, but I know the feeling. You can sometimes have the best time of something without it necessarily changing your life. And just in case you’re wondering, the show that had produced this ecstatic reaction was The Book of Mormon, which she’d just seen at its very first preview.
So if that’s anything to go by, word-of-mouth will already be transforming this show into the phenomenon it quickly bccame in New York. Last week I interviewed Brian May, whose own West End phenomenon with We Will Rock You is now in its 11th year and as he perceptively noted, “The secret of the show’s success is very simple — it’s word of mouth, the strongest force known to man.”
Getting people talking – and keeping them talking – is what’s necessary. Marketing is the first stage — and the blanket advertising coverage is certainly helping with that. (I saw a London bus advertising ‘now in previews’ the day before previews actually began). But it is the show itself that will keep people talking, and that will do the marketing job for them.
I’m not sure I could put my hand on my heart and choose just one evening from the numerous ones I’ve spent in theatres over my life to singe out the best I’ve ever spent in one. I’ll never forget the great rush of pleasure that the National’s Guys and Dolls gave me, on the numerous occasions I saw it in the 80s and then again at the end of the 90s, or the puddle of tears that Next to Normal reduced me to each and every time I saw it on Broadway a few years ago. But I’m more likely, if pressed, to single out moments; transforming (and transformative) scenes, perhaps mere seconds, in shows that have pressed themselves into my memory forever.
Just to cite two examples: there was a tiny moment at the end of the first act of the last Broadway revival of Nine, where Antonio Banderas’s Guido is on a beach with his younger self. The little boy is playing with sand,and as he pours it, Banderas rushes to catch it. The moment was so heartstoppingly beautiful and articulate about how life pours through your hands before you know it that it absolutely encapsulated the agony of the show as a man looks back on his life’s choices.
Again, at the end of The Baker’s Wife, Stephen Schwartz’s musical about a straying bride who leaves her devoted baker husband for a younger man but returns to him at the end of the show, there’s was a heartbreaking moment that closed Michael Strassen’s 2011 fringe revival at London’s Union Theatre, as they kneaded dough together silently – they were together again, but there was a chasm of hurt between them.
I could probably come up with a hundred more moments like this that have wounded and/or exhilarated me to burn themselves into my consciousness forever. The fact that it is wounding moments that usually do this to me probably says something about me, and even as I write those words, I am thinking of dozens of moments in Sondheim musicals that have done exactly that, from Judi Dench’s devastating ‘Send in the Clowns’ in the National’s production of A Little Night Music to Clare Foster’s current extraordinarily poignant ‘Not A Day Goes By’ in Merrily We Roll Along at the Menier.
But Sondheim also, of course, provided the ultimate line about how life has to be about more than moments: “Oh, if life were made of moments / Even now and then a bad one! / But if life were only moments, / Then you’d never know you had one.” So shows need to be more than the sum of their parts.
And seeing A Chorus Line again last week, in the pin-sharp revival at the London Palladium, I was reminded again of just how great this musical and production are to be just that, and how absolutely indelible Michael Bennett’s thrilling staging was and is. Other productions that feature in my personal pantheon of greatness include another Bennett directed musical Dreamgirls, Nicholas Hytner’s extraordinarily vivid and heartbreaking revival of Rodgers and Hanmmerstein’s Carousel at the National and the original brilliant production of Maury Yeston’s Titanic on Broadway.
But oddly enough, it’s easier to come up with the unforgettable duds than the shows that glow in the memory with fondness like those. As I previously wrote here,
Flop shows aren’t born; they are made. And mad as well as bad. But often truly unforgettable, in a way in which the merely mediocre erase themselves gently from the memory bank. No one who ever saw it, for instance, will ever forget The Fields of Ambrosia, and its immortal corresponding lyric, “Where everyone knows ya”.
But my favourite moment, quite possibly of any musical ever, was the song sung by the travelling executioner’s assistant after he’s been gang-raped in prison: “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”
That’s an all-time classic for me. No wonder that Paul Taylor, reviewing its short run in 1996, dubbed it “a reprehensibly enjoyable new musical”.
He also wrote, “The second half of the show left this critic weak with bliss as it trampled over good taste and political correctness like a herd of bullocks.”
What are your greatest nights in the theatre? And worst? Please share them below!


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Comments 12 comments
I saw the Book of Mormon on Monday night’s preview also and have told everyone who has asked me about it that it was the best night at the theatre I’ve ever experienced.
It may not be my favourite score or show (its certainly up there after Monday!) but the energy in the Prince of Wales that night was just incredible.
I also saw Merrily We Roll Along at the Menier the following night – being one of my favourite scores/shows. It was one of the best productions I’ve seen with outstanding performances and I’ve recommended it to everyone (all those who asked about Mormon too)
However, it don’t believe you can compare it on an ‘experience’ level to that of an auditorium filled with fans who had queued in the freezing cold for a minimum of 4 hours to get opening night tickets.
It was a rare occurrence – added to by the creators coming out before the opening and thanking everyone for being part of it.
I hope I get to experience a night like it again.
But I know I will continue to go to the theatre and have performances such as those of Clare Foster, Jenna Russell, Mark Umbers and Damian Humbley impressed on my memory in the meantime!Report comment
The end of act 1 of The Madness of George III, in its original run at the NT. “No, sir – you are the patient”, followed by the King being restrained while Zadok the Priest blasted at full volume. It was such a staggering moment, at lights up hardly anyone applauded, stunned into silence. As the interval started I left the building and began heading home, before realising it was only the end of Act 1. I was so disoriented, I thought the play had finished.
I’ll also never forget the ending of Jerusalem, and Mark Rylance’s extraordinary performance.
Best of all might be an Edinburgh Fringe production called The Battle of Pots & Pans, staged in a room in a church, with cardboard props, no lighting effects, and amateur performers. It was magical, and very moving.
The worst… Blood at the Royal Court. Two hours of unremitting tedium without the relief of an interval. My buttocks took root in the seat. I could feel myself aging. Also, a site-specific piece called Hysteria, staged in Bart’s Hospital in 2008. It wasn’t theatre; it was some people in a room, doing and saying stuff. An appalling mess with no sense of… well, anything, really.Report comment
two typos in your Sondheim lyric quote Mark… (Thanks, should be fixed now – Online Ed.)Report comment
I attended the last night of Parade at the Donmar and not only did the show get a standing ovation but the audience even resorted to stamping their feet in appreciation. I’d never seen a response to a show like that before and haven’t since.Report comment
Worst night has to be Chess. Two hours of unintelligible noise.
Best night would be Gypsy at Curve last year. Caroline Oconnors Roses
Turn was outstanding.Report comment
In terms of best night – well, afternoon – I’d have to say that seeing the sole understudy run of The King’s Speech at Wyndham’s was a definite highlight, if only because it meant seeing Adam Lilley playing Bertie: seeing your friend in the lead role on a West End stage is such a thrilling thing that it can overshadow any reservations you may have of the play itself.
In terms of worst moments, I remember seeing a musical at a best unnamed London fringe venue which made no sense at all. The only way you could work out what was going on was to read the synopsis in the programme – which then gave away what was supposed to be the pre-interval twist in the first sentence. If the music, songs and acting had been any good I might have overlooked that. Sadly, they weren’t.
Tieing for that is a (hopefully one-off) show at my local theatre which combined ballroom dancing and opera. The dancers were nothing special, the singers were a rather portly gentleman and his preteen daughter – and it was clear from quite early on that the whole event had been structured about what a prodigious talent her family thought she was. It was painful to watch, not least because if she were encouraged to learn her craft, rather than parade her talent before she had mastered the basics, she could well end up with a decent career and be far more entertaining to non-family.Report comment
Thought “Merrily” was absolutely outstanding and my favourite night out this year, until I saw Di and Viv and Rose a week later; such a funny, rude and poignant piece on friendship that I got up on my feet at the end, something I rarely do. As for “Mormon” not seen it and wont at their prices; however good it is, I don’t take kindly to being fleeced.Report comment
The moment in Carousel at the National when, just for a split second Joanna Riding’s Julie sees the ghost of Billy – the frozen look on her face is bringing my skin out in goosebumps still thinking of it now!
Patti LuPone’s emotional last night in Sunset Boulevard was electrically charged and pure theatre magic.
The audience reaction to every song and iconic moment on the first preview of Priscilla was like nothing i’ve known in 29 years of working on shows.
The moment that hooked me tho was, aged about 9, sitting in the back row of the stalls at the Wyndhams theatre for the original production of Godspell, when i looked across and a man in a crazy costume was standing there in the auditorium,not on the stage, but right there about 4 feet away, about to sing ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord’. It was Jeremy Irons, and i was lost to Musical Theatre!Report comment
i remember, also, a friend telling me about her best experience in a theatre; being in the audience for the first ever preview of Dreamgirls on Broadway. The end of Act 1, and Jennifer Holiday belting out ‘I’m Telling You’. She told me that no-one applauded! Then she realised that no-one was getting up to go to the bar!! Everyone was in shock at voice and emotion of what they had seen – then the place erupted!!
I have 2 worst times in the theatre, one because i almost died, and the other because it was just so bad that i walked out.
I left the production of Richard 111, starring Denzil Washington in the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, NY. Sparkling teeth, no hump, no limp, played for laughs (it is called ‘The Tragedy of Richard 111!!), Mad Margaret talking in Jamaican patois, the ensemble all running on in shocking pink and standing like street dudes in West side Story and almost no-one able to speak the Shakespeare verse with any thought to iambic pentameter – dreadful!!!!! i left after Act 1!
The time i almost died was actually one of the best nights i ever spent in the theatre. It was the King’s Head in Islington, the production – ‘Pageant’. An already hysterical evening of utmost joy and silly delight, when Miles Western as ‘Miss West Coast’ started his ‘sani-scent’ monologue, i was laughing sooo much that i couldn’t breathe – seriously, i couldn’t breathe in from laughing! it got to the point that i thought, this is it, i’m going to die. I was hitting the chair in front – poor Josefina Gabriel was in it – stamping my feet, anything to try and get breathing again, getting more and more panicky as i just couldn’t; eventually i gulped a huge breath and was able to start breathing properly, tho my heart was going crazy and i felt so dizzy and sick, i could hear the audience still roaring with laughter. Took me a good few minutes to feel ok again – so i guess that was the best AND worst night in the theatre for me!Report comment
I have been lucky enough to see some mind blowing theatre over the past 30 years and it is really difficult to pinpoint specifics – but I can honestly say that Patti LuPone’s final performance in Sunset Boulevard was the greatest and most emotional night I have ever spent in a theatre.Report comment
Last night at the Bristol Old Vic. “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Pure magic. Inventive, funny, tender. Visually amazing. I have never laughed so much before!Report comment
The extension of the imagination is the great promise of the theatre; it’s more than simply the “willing suspension of disbelief”; it’s the positive benefit of the work our minds do to imagine a world complete from the poor scraps put before us on the stage.
That was never clearer to me than at a moment in the British/Australian company DNA’s wonderful little show for very young children, Atishoo, which ran at the 2012 Perth Festival. A tiny girl near me was watching the show’s performer, Anne Marie Biagioni, and puppeteer, Adam Bennett, waving sheets on the floor and above an outsize tissue box while they swayed back and forth. She turned to her mum and asked, “Is that the sea?” There was a few seconds’ silence, and then she exclaimed, triumphantly, “It IS the sea!” What marvels had happened to her in those few seconds when she, maybe for the first time in her life, realised that something could be something else, if you imagined it. I later found out she was all of two and a half years old.
It felt like being at the birth of something marvellous.Report comment