Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

I have to say that Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is not my favourite musical, with a couple of exceptions the songs are easy to forget and the storyline itself doesn't bear too much thought - but I put this aside and set off with high expectations of a good evening.

Wow, was I disappointed.

From the opening number this production just did not work. The sound was muffled, words in the songs were hard to make out and it was way too quiet for such a large space as the Bristol Hippodrome. There is a mass of set which slides in and out almost continuously and wobbles quite a bit, it made me feel somewhat seasick. Dance routines are at best messy and of the "kitchen sink" variety - let's throw everything we've got into this (thank goodness no one had "stilt walker" on their CV) . At several points the flow of the production seemed to stutter as they rushed to create some arbitrary visual image on stage instead of letting it flow from the movement. The cast worked hard, but as individuals with no real connection between them - especially the brothers and brides who each seemed to be in a world of their own. I shall assume that Sam Attawater was having feedback problems as his performance was, at best, lacklustre - at least helena Blackman's voice was in fine fettle.

I know this is a musical and not a drama but really, treat the audience with some respect! Had this been an amateur production I would have said "could try harder", in fact I dop not belive that BLOC, who do amateur productions at this venue, would ever have allowed something so poor to come to stage .... I better stop now or I'll argue myself out of the second star I have given ...