The Full Monty

At its heart, The Full Monty is a poignant story of unemployed men fighting hard to maintain their dignity and their failies, even if it means losing their personal dignity by becoming strippers. A sad enough story but one which, like Calendar Girls, gets overtaken by its faux-nudity element and is consequently lost. Curiously I have seen amateur and professional productions of both of these plays and the amateur ones shine out as being more sympathetic to the stories and the characters, therefore more engaging for the audiences - the professional productions tend to go to the spectacle.

The set for this show is quite fabulous and it is great to see such a full theatre which leads me to my first observation; I am not the target audience for this show, I am a male theatre lover and the target is so obviously (and successfully) female outings who want the titillation of seeing near naked men without being so obvious as to go to a Chippendales (or similar) show. As such, this tour does well, it quite clearly appeals to its target and pulls people in who would normally not go to the theatre. There, for me, end the positives. 

The production was mostly shouted rather than projected - ok so its a huge venue and the audience was never really quiet but shouting is very difficult to listen to and some of the actors could project so why not all? There were also some trully ham moments, turning to face front to speak even when talking to the person next to you, the female stripper's comedy walk exit, the grand reveal at the end of Act 1 ... do we need these? I mean, I know they get an audience reaction but really. 

Like I say, this was not aimed at me and much of the audience had a great time ...