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RW & Guy Chambers - RSC - The Boy In The Dress (Musical)

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in Robbie Williams and Take That

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It's lovely to read the normally so calm Guy Chambers getting really excited. :yahoo:

 

Amazing reviews - it would be something if this got to London next year. Fingers crossed. :cheer:

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THE BOY IN THE DRESS AT THE RSC

 

Directed by Gregory Doran, book by Mark Ravenhill, music and lyrics by Robbie Williams, Guy Chambers and Chris Heath, based on the novel by David Walliams

 

 

 

A full-on musical about identity, The Boy in the Dress has arrived at The RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon and is playing until 8th March 2020. At first glance, the story is about 12-year-old Dennis (Jackson Laing), a passionate and talented footballer dealing with his mother seemingly abandoning him, his older brother John (Zachary Loonie) and his hardworking dad (Rufus Hound) who is gorging on food to cope.

 

Dennis’ dad tries to burn photos of his mother and Dennis becomes fixated with a yellow dress in one of the photos and hides the photo. At the local newsagents, Dennis buys a copy of Vogue with a yellow dress on the cover from Raj (Irvine Iqbal) saying it is for a friend’s birthday. At school, Dennis finds himself in detention talking to popular Lisa (Asha Banks) about fashion. Lisa gets Dennis to visit her house and encourages him to try on an orange dress she has. She then gets him to go to school and pose as a French exchange student – in a wig a French beret and the orange dress…

 

This is a beautifully created production with tonnes of heart and blistering energy. There is a more of a message than the previous David Walliams productions I’ve reviewed (Awful Auntie and more recently Billionaire Boy). Being yourself, expressing yourself and exploring what that means. Then sharing who you are with other people.

 

There are standout performances and vocals from the performers including Darvesh’s Mum (Natasha Lewis) and, the “school kids”. The football match choreography is fantastically realised with the football on a stick to ensure movements are consistent.

 

 

This is set in a grey identikit town, where on the surface, the people are all the same, The Boy in the Dress, makes great use of colour, from the moment we see Lisa’s bedroom into a fantastic dreamlike disco ball sequence. There are moments for the audience to cheer and ones where I wanted to boo panto-style. (This is a Stratford-upon-Avon audience so everyone seems rather polite!). BOO!

 

I’d liked to have seen even more diversity and gender role balance. In this, boys don’t cry and play football, while girls stand on the side of the pitch as St John Ambulance types. This reinforces ideas about gender roles. It is also fairly blurred what year this is set, but there are no smartphones and people read magazines and newspapers. Plus the corner shop is full of jars of sweets like the 60s to mid-late 1980s.

 

 

The golden musical partnership of Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers can be heard throughout, but it never dilutes the authentic and direct storytelling of David Walliams.

 

I loved every second of this vibrant and utterly charming musical and can’t wait to own (stream) the soundtrack. Well worth a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon.

 

The Boy in the Dress is at The RSC’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 8th March 2020. Book tickets here: rsc.org.uk/the-boy-in-the-dress-musical

 

By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour

 

https://www.brumhour.co.uk/review-the-boy-i...ford-upon-avon/

 

 

Love the fantastic reviews this is getting.

 

What a month he's had - number one album, five star reviews for The Boy in the Dress and a homecoming gig. B-)

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The reviews have been fantastic, & we get to see it next weekend Laura :)
The reviews have been fantastic, & we get to see it next weekend Laura :)

 

Really looking forward to it Tess B-)

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BBC Podcast - review of The Boy in The Dress

 

The Boy in the Dress, Turner Prize Shortlisted Artists, The First Nowell

 

The Boy in the Dress comes to the stage of the RSC with songs by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers, Turner Prize nominees on their work, Zeb Soanes on new Vaughan Williams libretto

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bs50

 

The Podcast can be downloaded via https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000bs50

 

 

 

Tess and I went to see this together tonight. ^_^

 

It's absolutely gorgeous.

 

A very touching story - great cast and beautiful songs.

 

It's very joyous but also very poignant.

 

If it doesn't win awards and get to London - I'll eat my hat. ;)

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Superb show, lovely storytelling,beautiful songs, great music, brilliant cast & delighted to meet in person the lovely Laura.

We had a lovely time together yesterday and watching the play was the icing on the cake. ^_^

 

As I was watching the play I thought - even if I wasn't "biased" towards liking the songs I would have noticed their poignancy and vibrancy. They were such beautiful songs. A couple of them were funny. I could hear some "Robbieisms" in them.

 

I've seen bits written about Disco Symphony and it is a lovely joyeous song.

 

The very first song is called "Ordinary" which becomes "Extraordinary" by the end. It reminded me of something straight out of Mary Poppins. Very empowering lyrics. B-)

 

The best song for me is a song called "If I don't cry". Dennis sings it near the start after his Mum leaves them. I did wonder if Robbie based the lyrics on his Dad leaving him when he was a little boy. Near the end of the play Dennis sings that same song with his Dad (Rufus Hound). It was such a poignant moment. I was sat there :snif:

 

The whole cast did so well. Ten out of ten. :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

 

Also - the girl in the class that all the boys love is called Lisa James. I'm fairly sure that is the name of the girl that Robbie has mentioned several times was his first love at school. ;)

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Maybe he couldn't call her Lisa Parks because of copyright :P

 

Rufus Hound is lovely, we met him at the end of the show, he was holding a bucket making a collection :) , he has lovely eyes -_-

Would recommend the play to anyone. it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL :wub:
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REVIEW: THE BOY IN THE DRESS AT THE RSC, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

 

BrumHour was invited to see the official opening night performance of The Boy in the Dress by The RSC.

 

By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour

 

Directed by Gregory Doran, book by Mark Ravenhill, music and lyrics by Robbie Williams, Guy Chambers and Chris Heath, based on the novel by David Walliams

 

 

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The dog was amazing :)

 

A full-on musical about identity, The Boy in the Dress has arrived at The RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon and is playing until 8th March 2020. At first glance, the story is about 12-year-old Dennis (Jackson Laing), a passionate and talented footballer dealing with his mother seemingly abandoning him, his older brother John (Zachary Loonie) and his hardworking dad (Rufus Hound) who is gorging on food to cope.

 

Dennis’ dad tries to burn photos of his mother and Dennis becomes fixated with a yellow dress in one of the photos and hides the photo. At the local newsagents, Dennis buys a copy of Vogue with a yellow dress on the cover from Raj (Irvine Iqbal) saying it is for a friend’s birthday. At school, Dennis finds himself in detention talking to popular Lisa (Asha Banks) about fashion. Lisa gets Dennis to visit her house and encourages him to try on an orange dress she has. She then gets him to go to school and pose as a French exchange student – in a wig a French beret and the orange dress…

 

 

 

This is a beautifully created production with tonnes of heart and blistering energy. There is a more of a message than the previous David Walliams productions I’ve reviewed (Awful Auntie and more recently Billionaire Boy). Being yourself, expressing yourself and exploring what that means. Then sharing who you are with other people.

 

There are standout performances and vocals from the performers including Darvesh’s Mum (Natasha Lewis) and, the “school kids”. The football match choreography is fantastically realised with the football on a stick to ensure movements are consistent.

 

 

This is set in a grey identikit town, where on the surface, the people are all the same, The Boy in the Dress, makes great use of colour, from the moment we see Lisa’s bedroom into a fantastic dreamlike disco ball sequence. There are moments for the audience to cheer and ones where I wanted to boo panto-style. (This is a Stratford-upon-Avon audience so everyone seems rather polite!). BOO!

 

I’d liked to have seen even more diversity and gender role balance. In this, boys don’t cry and play football, while girls stand on the side of the pitch as St John Ambulance types. This reinforces ideas about gender roles. It is also fairly blurred what year this is set, but there are no smartphones and people read magazines and newspapers. Plus the corner shop is full of jars of sweets like the 60s to mid-late 1980s.

 

 

 

The golden musical partnership of Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers can be heard throughout, but it never dilutes the authentic and direct storytelling of David Walliams.

 

I loved every second of this vibrant and utterly charming musical and can’t wait to own (stream) the soundtrack. Well worth a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon.

 

The Boy in the Dress is at The RSC’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 8th March 2020. Book tickets here: rsc.org.uk/the-boy-in-the-dress-musical

 

https://www.brumhour.co.uk/review-the-boy-i...ford-upon-avon/

 

  • 2 weeks later...
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Do you have an idea if this was a visitor's success? Was it sold out during the months?

 

 

I do not know Elisabeth, it seems to be doing well, no idea of numbers though. I hope it gets to the West End

 

 

Do you have an idea if this was a visitor's success? Was it sold out during the months?

 

No - it's definitely not sold out elisabeth.

 

I only know that because David Walliams tweeted a link to the play this last week so I had a look to see how ticket sales were going.

 

Weekends it said there were limited available tickets but week days there were loads.

 

I'm not sure that's unusual though.

 

It's on until March.

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