What's the worst musical you have ever been to?

[Sonolanona]

I love musicals, and DS2 who has autism is obsessed so we go to as many as we can. We've seen Cats (not the film!) 7 times, JCSS 7 times, Blood Brothers, Les Mis, Evita, Chicago , Cabaret..and many others. (JCSS is my personal favourite)

Today we went to We Will Rock You.
OMG.
It was cringingly awful. Even if you love Queen, it was still so bad. Worst 'plot' and dialogue ever, the choreography was...interesting and it was played for cheap laughs and smutty out dated jokes, headed by Ben Elton who cannot..and should not..sing.
Never again!!!

Clare Foster, not Jennifer Ellis! I always get those two mixed up.

Cats! I had to google it at the interval to try and find out what was going on.
Unfortunately Wikipedia was not a lot of help. There were words, it just didn’t make any sense!

Phantom - fell asleep

Loved Wicked! Both times! I’m not sure when it clicked that I’d already seen it, couldn’t remember a thing!

Lion King- I did enjoy it, but everyone had raved about the costumes so I wasn’t expecting what I saw.

Aspects of love we almost left at the interval but didnt want to be rude

Chess was absolutely terrible. I was there to see someone who was in it so I couldn't even leave and it genuinely felt physically painful. And it went on and ON. It kept seeming to have an 'ending' and then set off on a new tangent while I wanted to cry.
Mama Mia was a load of shite as well. (Same writers - the guys from Abba co-wrote Chess.)

Loved: Jesus Christ Superstar, Chicago, Cabaret, Joseph, Matilda and absolutely adored Hamilton. The only thing about Hamilton though is that there's so much information in it - it's full on. You almost need to see it three times before you've really properly seen it (and that's a bit expensive). I think I'd recommend watching it on Disney, listening to the album a lot and THEN going. First time I saw it, I was so overloaded I didn't feel much emotion. Second time, I sobbed my heart out at a certain point and can't even listen to the song now without breaking down.

I left Wicked and Pretty Woman at the interval. That was fairly typical for me as I prefer straight plays to musicals. OTOH I have seen Sux many times and I love it.

I love musicals and tend to see at least one new show each month so seen a fair few flops in my time. Most have been mentioned already and some I loved but guess we can’t all have the same taste

WWRY was brilliant when it was first out about 20 years ago. Saw it just before lockdown and it had dated very badly. Was thinking of seeing the west end version as read that it had been updated, but might give it a miss now

Shrek - that’s our “it’s shit” baseline. Yet to find anything as bad as Shrek

Wedding Singer - someone needs to tell Kevin Clifton to stick with the dancing. He cannot act for toffee. Seen him in Strictly Ballroom too - just as bad, as was Tiffany from Eastenders

Big - agree with pp that it’s just meh

Bat out of Hell - maybe I am just thick but didn’t really get the story at all

I saw the original west end cast of Six and they were great. Nobody sings Heart of Stone like Natalie Paris. But the casts over the last two years have not been as good

Surprised someone said The Commitments. Went in with no expectations and absolutely loved it. The main guy was played that night by the understudy and he was phenomenal

Bake off - got amazing seats for £10 as it was a train strike day so they were selling them very cheap. Nice story and good way to spend a Saturday afternoon

Love: Les Mis, Cats, Moulin Rouge and Cabaret

All of them, but mostly Starlight Express (no story), Chicago (glorifying murder) and Matilda (singing, dancing kids, bleurgh).

I actually did like Les Mis and BOM. And years ago the old fashioned ones like Oklahoma and Singing in the Rain. But not the modern ones and not Lloyd Webber!

Wicked was awful. I hated every minute of it and would've walked out only I was there with my sister for her birthday. The best musical I've ever seen was in fact Angela's Ashes. I was surprised it was so good. The acting was great and the songs were fantastic as well. I saw it in Belfast before Covid so I'm not sure if it was ever performed outside Ireland. But if it is ever revived I would definitely recommend going to see it.

Mamma Mia was really poor and unnecessarily crude.
Grease dull as ditchwater.
Love Miss Saigon, Hamilton and Mary Poppins

Sister Act with Alexandra Burke. We went with the expectation of hearing the songs from the film with Whoopi Goldberg. It was all original music. No 'My God' or 'Hail Holy Queen'. The cast were trying to get people up dancing for the last song and failing miserably. We went to see Dirty Dancing and really enjoyed it but have to agree with earlier comments about hen parties spoiling it. There was a group of women with cock shaped flashing deely-boppers and pink tinsel screaming at the actors and responding to every fucking line that was said. It was beyond tedious. It must be so hard to deal with that as a cast member.

Aspects of Love - it does not translate into current times despite the actors, scenery, consumes etc all being great.

Six! Awful! Screechy and did not get the hype. We had seen Les Mis just a few weeks before though for the umpteenth time, which just sets the standard soo high.

Six the musical. Was a pile of crap.

My favourite out of them all was surprisingly War Horse. It was so good. I've seen Lion King, wicked, Joseph, cats, west side story plus loads more. Mousetrap was absolute utter garbage along with Six.

I'm seeing Six and Hamilton in a couple of weeks 😆

Saw Les Mis when I was 16 (so a while ago) and found it very dull. Watched it on film thinking perhaps I'd understand and appreciate it more, nope, still thought it was dull as dishwater. Generally enjoy live events whatever they are, especially after having been cooped up with Covid restrictions when I could never picture the day we would go out again!

I absolutely loved this version of Oklahoma (apart from the Y7 dancing after the interval).
It was so different and dark and Arthur Darvill was amazing.

WWRY has a truly dire storyline but I don’t care, I love it anyway. I’ve seen Les Mis six times at the theatre and cry from start to finish (I’ve also read the book). I love Six. I watch the film version of Hamilton twice a year.

I’ve only seen the film versions, but Grease bored me rigid and I couldn’t even finish West Side Story. Sorry!

The current production of Oklahoma. Felt like we'd missed the point, the only bit that felt like a proper musical was the last 10 minutes.
That said I've refused to go to several others because I know they wouldn't be enjoyable/worth the money to us and there's always more we do want to see!

Saw ‘We will rock you’ at its previous West End run a few years ago. Absolutely loved it. I’ve heard a few mixed reviews about this production though.

American in Paris - my dc weren’t impressed with this. I quite enjoyed it.

Hamilton - started watching the filmed version. Just didn’t get it and turned ir off.

La La lane - tried to watch this film several times and failed.

Hated Wicked.

Les Mis - too miserable

Phantom - too weird

Oh, and Six. Thought it rather dull!

Most musicals have bootlegs on YouTube. Lots are hidden under the title “slime tutorial” and then a few words relating to it. Means girls often has the word pink in, beetlejuice often has the word bug in. Dear Evan Hansen sometimes has the words boy and tree.

Apple TV has a proshoot of Come from away, youtube has a proshoot of legally blonde. Disney plus have proshoots of Newsies and Hamilton.

proshoots are much better quality than the bootlegs

Most definitely 'Wicked', omgoodness what a pile of crap, followed closely by 'Phantom of the opera,' I fell asleep.

My absolute favourite 'Les Miserables ' seen it 9 times.

It's great we are all different.