← MickeyJoTheatre
MickeyJoTheatre
what's going on with LEGALLY BLONDE? | the truth behind the tabloid drama and the concert performance
00:20:31
Loading summary
Transcript10 lines
- [00:00]
A
Boost Mobile is now sending experts nationwide to deliver and set up customers new phones. Wait, we're going on tour? We're delivering and setting up customers phones. It's not a tour. Not with that attitude. Introducing store to door. Switch and get a new device with expert setup and delivery. Delivery available for select devices purchased@boostmobile.com time
- [00:16]
B
of your car insurance rate going up Even with a clean driving record, you're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI acast today.
- [01:01]
A
Cancer de colonos positivos de unacolonoscopia Puedos positivos y filso negativos La preva de Cologard nor Rem Plaza. La colonoscopia empacientes de alto. Riesgo. Nous es Cologard. Si as citienes. So a couple weeks ago, when I sat down here with my brand new little pink baseball cap, it was giving. Oh my God, you guys. But now the situation has changed, and my feelings are a little bit more, shall we say, oh, my God. Because the brand new tour of Legally Blonde currently finds itself at the center of. Of a mess. It is, shall we say, proverbially on fire, its flames fanned needlessly by the British gutter press, propagating falsehoods about a backstage feud between two of the show's cast members. And having had more than a basic amount of fire safety training, it ought to surprise none of you that I was a scout. I knew better than to provide this particular fire with any unnecessary oxygen, which is why I wasn't initially planning to talk about it. However, the situation has evolved somewhat, and there is now a sort of separate but not unrelated drama with the final performance of the show's most recent Talk Stop, having been presented in concert, with cast members from outside of the production joining those left standing so that the show might go on. And wildly impressive as this is, it has ushered in a conversation on social media about who has the right to be disappointed by this, all of which we're going to talk about today. Simply put, what is going on with the drama at Legally Blonde? I am going to tell you exactly what I think about this entire situation, but Before I do, an introduction to those meeting me for the very first time. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theatre. I'm also a critic, a content creator and a pundit here on social media. I saw this production of Legally Blonde on tour a couple of weeks ago, but for the last few years I have been seeing as much theatre as possible. I have seen hundreds of shows every year, and as many of you will I'm sure remember, I have covered backstage breakdowns far more dramatic than this. But I do have plenty of thoughts about everything that's been going on with this tour, as I'm sure many of you do as well. Please share your opinions in the comments section down below. If anyone had the experience of being a ticket holder for the performance last week in, I believe, Milton Keynes, that turned into a concert presentation of the show instead, please share your experience in the comments down below because I would love to hear about it. In the meantime though, while some of you get to typing, for those of you who have no idea what's been happening, let's talk about the drama at Legally Blonde. Now. I want to begin with the deluge of horrible tabloid pieces that have been written about this show. And generally speaking, whenever any theatre production gets talked about in the tabloids, it is almost always reported on with such misinformed ignorance, made all the more frustrating by the fact that stories in this particular arena seem to be published relentlessly. How many separate tabloid articles have been written about Amber Davis and Legally Blonde in the past week alone? Well, the answer is 175. That is both a reference and a not inaccurate estimation. But truly, there have been so many different pieces written and they have the nerve, the Daily Mail specifically has the nerve to publish this initial instigating piece spreading false rumors about a backstage feud and drama and unrest behind the scenes in Legally Blonde, only to then subsequently write up what I'm going to generously call a story about Amber Davis responding to audacious rumors that there's any kind of a backstage feud which they initiated in the first place. It's like trying to have their cake and also throw it at people. Now, before I get too carried away with myself, I should acknowledge the last time I sat down here to talk about Legally Blonde the Musical, I just embarked on that conversation, assuming that everyone already knew what this show was and what this story was. Apparently I was mistaken. And there are those among us who do not know Legally Blonde. My apologies to you and I will briefly summarize the plot of the show, which is of course a stage musical adaptation of the early 2000s film of the same name, by telling you that it depicts Elle Woods, a young woman needlessly judged and stereotyped by society as a result of generations of unresolved institutional misogyny, but who overcomes those barriers and exceeds expectations as a direct result of self confidence and female allyship. And it feels like as good a time as any to remind you that that is in fact what the show is about, even as many of you shamelessly take to social media comment sections in order to declare which of these two young women you think is better at their job. Now, I'm not planning to read the original Daily Mail article to you verbatim for fear of the deteriorating effect that it may have on my own iq, but I can tell you that the title begins with a quote she has quite an ego. It but Hannah is a million times better, which I think we can tell immediately was said by a teenager, or quite possibly someone who simply hasn't advanced intellectually since that time of their life. Speaking of which, this hit piece has been written, disappointingly, I might add, by Olivia Kemp, who it would seem is a young woman herself. And obviously journalism such as this, which it in fact isn't, only ever exists in order to gain clicks and earn money. And all of this is of course only happening to the Legally Blonde tour because Amber Davis is in the starring role. Amber, who already had public recognition after her time on Love island, but who recently became even more of a household name after competing on the most recent series of Strictly Come Dancing as a celebrity contestant. And she did attain some slight backlash during her appearance on this show, both because the nation has very specific expectations about the kind of dance training that you ought to have before going on this program, which generally speaking and in hindsight is almost always a gender based double standard. I don't remember half as many people getting this flustered about West End star Danny Mac. But additionally, and lest we forget, Amber is a young woman who also critically expressed opinions, something which the nation navel world historically does not care for. Fine for you to have the audacity to be a woman. Fine for you to express opinions. But brave of you indeed to want to do those things simultaneously. Obviously I'm being incredibly tongue in cheek when I say all of this, which I would hope is evident, but you never know these days. Perhaps I'm AI which for the avoidance of doubt? I'm not. But what we're really seeing here is the tabloid press continuing to extrapolate an image that they have already helped to shape and craft. And once they already know that they can sell headlines around a personality, particularly controversial ones, they will only continue to do so. Historically, this is exactly what we've seen happen time and time again, either until public opinion shifts in a big way, or until the individual at the center of all this press attention dies as a direct result of relentless scrutiny. And the misogynists among you, because they do walk the streets, may be wondering what right I have to declare that this is all gender based and that a leading man wouldn't be talked about similarly if he also had to withdraw from a performance due to ill health. Well, it may or may not surprise you to know that that situation did in fact happen almost at exactly the same time, because there is another musical tour the UK right now at the same time. And unlike the Daily Mail, I will not exact upon this particular performer the indignity of exposure. But last week a leading man in a male led musical was absent from the show's press night performance, which is almost always the first show of the week in a week long run at a new venue. I only know this because friends of mine were there and I saw on social media that the understudy was performing, notably without a whole firework display of outrage and press attention. And while this person isn't necessarily as topical as Amber Davis right now, theirs is definitely a name that individuals from beyond the musical theatre bubble would recognize. And more to the point, I have met and spoken with Amber Davis on multiple occasions. She is incredibly charming, she is brilliantly talented, she's fantastic in the show, and the only reason that she is absent from it, as she herself has disclosed on social media, is because she is currently affected by illness and attempting to return to the show while she is too unwell to perform. It is only going to make that worse. She needs to take the adequate time to recover. We all know how illness and recovery works. If you keep going back to work before you're 100% recuperated, then it isn't going to go away properly. And a lot of people admittedly don't have the luxury of taking an extended number of sick days. Teachers, I'm looking at you. I know exactly what you go through, but there are certain jobs that you are able to do in ill health and there are others that you simply aren't. And as I mentioned, when I saw this production of Legally Blonde, the role of Elle is an incredibly demanding one. The amount that she dances in this production, the vocal range on this role, the belting that she is doing, the amount of time that she spends on stage, the number of costume changes that she has to do in the limited moments off stage. I would say it's a marathon, not a sprint, but really it's a marathon made up of a series of sprints between which people in the dark take off your clothes and put you in new ones, which, invasive as it sounds, is actually a much better alternative to having to do it yourself. And the other thing I will say about Amber Davis, if you only know her from her social media presence, is her podcast, which you should check out if you haven't already, is based entirely around interviewing other performers. And the way in which she does it, the way in which she approaches it, the range of performers that she has on that podcast. It is so much about uplifting fellow actors and she approaches it as a fellow actor. There is so much camaraderie and the way that she has these conversations. She has chats with people, she gets stories and she asks them things that I couldn't possibly because I'm not of that world. I don't have that sort of shared classification. But there's something really wonderful about the conversations that she is able to have and the fact that this is what she's using her platform for when objectively, you know, coming off Love Island. There are a lot of more lucrative things that she could have chosen to do with her life than musical theater. So it really sucks. It does. When baseless accusations like these are leveled against this kind of a personality. Meanwhile, I also know the incredibly talented Hannah Lowther, who understudies the role of Elle woods, as well as performing the role of Margot in the Legally Blonde tour, who is also very popular online. She has a huge social media presence that she has worked incredibly hard to attain as well as to maintain. I know few individuals who work as hard as Hannah Lowther does because she has for the majority of the last few years been sustaining two full time jobs, putting out the amount of influencer content that you would expect from someone who has nothing else to do in their day, not someone who is touring around the country doing musical theater. And you want to know who I'm guessing doesn't want these false stories to be printed in the tabloids? Hannah Lowther. It doesn't make her day any easier, even if they're saying, like sources believe that she's a much better and she should have got the role if there wasn't any backstage tension beforehand, as I suspect there wasn't. There might be as a result of the lies being printed about these two women in the Daily Mail. Because society doesn't know how to compute two young talents who like each other, we have to turn it into a dramatic rivalry. So as far as all of this tabloid drama goes from the likes of Olivia Kemp, it is absolute trash. And those were my very frustrated feelings at the beginning of the show's performances in Milton Keynes. By the end of the week, the situation had evolved somewhat.
- [12:11]
C
Looking for soccer analysis more knowing than a Carlo Ancelotti eyebrow raise with the World cup around the corner, Join me, Max Rushton and the Guardian's expert soccer journalist on Football Weekly for all the latest soccer action and news throughout the week. We'll cover more ground than Jude Bellingham in a Champions League final with conversations sharper than an Arsenal set piece for fine margins, fun debates and full blooded tackles. Football Weekly Listen wherever you get your podcasts and watch the full episodes on YouTube.
- [13:28]
A
Cancer de colon pidela Preva de cologarda to medico paramas informacion en espanol Visita cologuardpun. Com Diagonal Preva. So here is the part where we talk about what happened at the end of the week in Milton Keynes, when the show was so low on cast members that they actually had to do a concert version of it instead, without staging, without choreography, and without costume changes, but with music stands and with two additional unexpected cast members. And by the way, emergency swings had been going on all week. What I mean by an emergency swing is somebody who doesn't usually cover that role going on at very late notice and having to in almost no time learn an entire part in a musical that they're not normally responsible for playing and they haven't learned beforehand. It's basically a stress dream. You may have had it before. You walk into a workplace, only it isn't yours, and you're expected to do something that you haven't been trained to do. Maybe you're handed a scalpel, maybe you're, you know, trying to put out a fire in a burning building. And admittedly, both of those things are slightly more high stakes than performing an ensemble track in Legally Blonde to the Musical, but you get the idea. It is still wildly impressive, and this had been happening throughout the week because more and more of the cast were becoming unwell and obviously their tabloid headlines are only talking about Amber. But by the end of the week, I believe it was the best part of a dozen cast members who were absent from the show due to illness. And not for the first time, because a bunch of them had also been hit by this during the Leicester Curve round. And previously. Other contemporary musicals like Heather's have been criticized for not hiring enough swings to cover cast illness. And I have seen some people beginning to level the same criticism at Legally Blonde. And I dare say, like, a couple more swings would help in certain situations, but at a certain point the show is just gonna go down. I cannot think of many shows that would be able to withstand nine simultaneously ill cast members. Most shows in the West End or on tour would be taken down by the wrong three people getting ill at the same time. How many musicals actually have third covers? Hell, there are some shows whose entire company size is less than nine. So to have nine people ill and to find a way of still doing the performance is wildly impressive. That doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with the way that the show went on. I think the entire show must go on. Fantasy is something of a problem that needs to be unpacked for a variety of reasons, because I think it gives way to an awful lot of toxicity under the label of, you know, the glamour of show business. And to a certain extent that was also true on this occasion. In the run up to the end of the week, we had a member of the cast who doesn't normally play Margot go on for the role of Margot. I think the next night the associate choreographer went on for the role of Margot. This because the understudy for Margot was unwell. The usual Margot, Hannah Lowther was going on for Elle. It's this domino effect throughout the cast. By the final performance of the week, they were unable to present the show with its usual staging and choreogr choreography, so instead performed a concert version with some all star support drafted in. Namely Jody Steele, who I believe has been in Legally Blonde before, but not for an awfully long time. She is perhaps better known to audiences more recently for playing the role of Heather Chandler in Heathers. She was brought in to perform Paulette's material, one of the biggest supporting roles in the show. And Grace Moat, who played Pilar in the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre revival of the show, quite recently came to play Serena, a completely different delta new alongside those members of the cast still standing. And like I said, so much about this is brilliant and impressive. The problem to my mind is when you revert to something like this and when you do what is admittedly and undeniably an Altered, reduced version of the show, and it's happened to other shows before, and Juliet has done a concert version. There were productions on Broadway recently which had been affected by the blizzards, the snowstorms. They had to do concert versions instead. Buena Vista Social Club, I think, is the one that I'm thinking of. But when you do this, it's a lovely thing to be able to do for the audience because they get to enjoy some kind of a performance. But there is really no justification for declaring that that performance has parity with what they were expecting and what they had originally paid for. So it is only fair and it is only right as producers, that you offer a partial or full refund or the opportunity to exchange for a further date. And by end of the week in a touring venue. That in and of itself is quite tricky because a lot of people simply won't be able to go and see the show elsewhere around the country. And the problem here, the thing which I can't defend, and I know some of the producers of the Legally Blonde tour, I know some of them quite well, is that audience members allegedly, and I've heard this from multiple sources, were denied a full or partial refund at the box office. Some people also didn't find out that this was happening until they saw it on social media or until they arrived at the theat. To deny people a refund while doing the show, sat on chairs with music stands in a semicircle is a problem, especially given that over the last few years, touring ticket prices have risen to the extent that they have. And obviously this is not the fault of the actors for becoming unwell. None of this blame ought to be laid at the feet of Amber Davis or any other absent company member whose name isn't getting talked about online. It may, in fact, be an indication of the challenge of touring these contemporary musicals that are very demanding, that require an extraordinary amount of stamina. And you know how grueling it is to do a touring show, to do a touring schedule while booking your own digs, potentially being in substandard accommodation, not getting enough sleep, having to travel around the country like, it's a very challenging thing. And actors have spoken multiple times about the difficulties of touring. Combine that with a show like Legally Blonde, which has so many supporting characters, so many individual solo lines, and just so much room for error, and you are going to encounter problems the likes of which we are seeing right now. And I mentioned also when I saw this show, that it has been, in a couple of ways, streamlined. The performer who plays Brooke Windham, a principal role in the second act, also plays the store manager in the first. That isn't usually something that you would see. And hypothetically, you might have in a different version of the show, the store manager being an ensemble track with a couple of little solo lines who understudies a principal role like Brook? So if Brooke were to become unwell, that ensemble member could still do their act one, but could then also absorb Brook's role. We call it a split track. But when everything is already a little bit streamlined and you have basically split tracks built into the show and that performer goes down, you suddenly have two problems. And the producers know this, and they understand the financial reality of touring this show better than I do and better also than the ticket buyers who are bringing their disappointment to the Internet Now. I completely understand that disappointment, and I do think that this entire situation would have been a really good and really impressive fix if it had been coupled with the opportunity for people to get full and or partial refunds. That really is the missing piece of the whole puzzle. And I will say, because I've seen a little bit of discussion about this, and I don't entirely disagree, that while it's completely understandable that people were disappointed that they weren't getting a fully staged, fully costumed, fully choreographed production of Legally Blonde as they were expecting, as they had paid for, did I consider abandoning my entire day of plans to go to Milton Keynes in order to see this specific performance? Yes. Yes, I did. That doesn't make me a truer theater fan. As some people are saying in comments, that is gatekeeping nonsense. We're not going to do that. It's also very easy for me to want to have that experience because I'd already seen the proper version of Legally Blonde. I also see, however, many other plays and musicals every night of the week. And you have to imagine that some members of the audience for this particular performance may only have been seeing this one performance of Legally Blonde and that's their theatre for the entire year. I also think that the conclusions of all of this are pretty obvious and don't merit the number of days of ongoing discourse that we have been seeing on the social media. Obviously, people are allowed to be disappointed. Obviously they should have been offered refunds. Obviously, it is very impressive that the cast were able to pull this together and rally. Obviously, it's not the fault of the ones who became unwell. Obviously, none of this gets resolved by forcing two of the show's cast members into opposition. This much we know. And we don't need to keep debating it. As they say in the show, it is time to get serious. Most all in one HR systems are a patchwork of disconnected and manual tools. Rippling is totally automated. If you promote an employee, Rippling can automatically handle necessary updates from payroll taxes and provisioning new app permissions to assigning required manager training. That's why Rippling is the 1 rated human capital management suite on G2 TrustRadius and Gartner. If you're ready to run the backbone of your business on one unified platform, head to rippling.com acastbiz and sign up up today. That's R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G.com acastbiz to sign up. Now as I share all of these thoughts online. It is a brand new week for the company of Legally Blonde and I wish them all good health and prosperity moving forwards. I wish also for them to be supported and uplifted by the theatre online. When the initial tabloid articles were happening, we saw this brilliant sort of coming together from the community who knew to recognize this for the nonsense that it was. And I would love to see that sense of theatrical community continuing as this production navigates ongoing challenges. And even as I say that, let us all manifest right here, right now that this is the last we hear about Legally Blonde UK tour drama. If it isn't, and there is anything else that actually merits conversation, perhaps I will be back here wearing this baseball cap once more. More. But more than anything else, I hope that I don't have to. For now, that is absolutely everything that I have to say about the UK tour of Legally Blonde. I dare say that you have thoughts of your own. Please share them in the comments section down below with a reminder to please be respectful to the performers in this show as well as to each other. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other theatrical topics that I will be discussing this week. If you don't want to miss any of those conversations, then make sure you're subscribed right here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. And if you want to stay up to date with everything that I say on the Internet and find out everything that I have been seeing at the theater, then you can sign up my free weekly substack newsletter. It is new for 2026 and you can find it at the link in the description. I have been Mickey Jo and as always I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe
- [25:36]
B
when you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they. More Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [26:58]
A
Familiar de cancer de colon PI de la preva de cologarda tu medico paramas informacion. Enjoy.
- [27:09]
C
Do you want your soccer analysis more direct than an Arsenal set piece? Join me, Max Rushton and the Guardian's expert soccer journalist for the latest action and news from the Premier League to the Champions League and all the way
- [27:18]
A
to the World cup.
- [27:19]
C
We'll have chat more out of the box than a Dominik Szobozlai Free Kick. More panelists than Chelsea have players and unlike var, we know where to draw the line for fine margins, fun debates and full blooded tackles. Football Weekly Listen wherever you get your podcasts and watch the full episodes on YouTube.