Jersey Heads.

What? Jersey Boys
Where?  Prince Edward Theatre, London
When?  Wednesday 20th April 2011.

Well, well, well. We have just read back our New Year post on our planned show viewings for 2011, and you know what? We ain't doing too bad for 2 skint fairies!  So far, we have seen: Love Never Dies, (no surprise there...), The Lion King, Chess,  Jersey Boys and continental Drew.  We are all booked up for Sweeney Todd in September, and Much Ado in May and cant't friggin' wait. An evening with Josh Groban awaits us in October.   If that were't enough, we also went to 2 unplanned award shows. Yay! 
So, not too shabby.  Admittedly, we do search high and low for our tickets (All credit to Tamsin here - she is Queen of bargain hunting and research - Karina), wee bargain hunters that we are, and if we will insist on theatre visits to the continent which involve planes, hotels and spending money, we must economise in other ways.  We therefore firmly blame Drew Sarich (sigh) for the fact that we were forced to endure the restricted view £20 front row seats for our inaugural visit to Jersey Boys.  (Last mention of the Sarich-God in this post, honest. Well, maybe.) Big girls really do cry...

So. Jersey Boys. 
We had heard tell of the legendary JB front row, and if we are completely honest, it put us off.  Images of ladies of a certain age clutching JB carrier bags and singing along to 60s hits intimidated us slightly, as did the strange woman who tried to befriend us in the scariest way possible at last years West End Live, whilst simultaneously dancing enthusiastically to the boys in the sparkly suits.  The nice woman in the box office was concerned we may not know these seats were restricted view.... but we assured her we had gone for them deliberately on economic grounds. There's a recession on you know. 
Her concern was justified.  The seats are RIDICULOUS. Good for leg room though. We fairies are different heights ranging from 5'2 to 5'8 but found the view (or lack of) equally hilarious.  There is nowt quite like looking up the nostrils of a West End leading man to set us off.  Rest assured, we were well behaved........we always are. 
We have experienced too many of the horrors to be found here
http://www.whatsonstage.com/board/index.php?/topic/22065-bad-behaviour-at-a-show/ to be otherwise.

But it took monumental willpower. Such is the giggle potential of watching a show where for at least 70% of it you can see either:
a)  Nothing or
b) 4 jiggling hairdos.
For the other 30% , and at the other extreme we were sharing the spotlight with the performers.  Sadly this was probably the closest either of us will get to the West End Stage, so we should have made the most of it, but we found ourselves sinking further down in our seats instead of embracing our close ups. 
A missed opportunity? Possibly.

The hits came thick and fast. 'Sherry', Big Girls Don't Cry', 'Walk Like a Man' (we luuuurve the little dance moves and head wiggles to this one!), 'December 1963', 'Beggin''...the temptation WAS there to sing along...! BUT. This musical is surprisingly wordy. Some would say verbose. So much dialogue! And, in our humble fairy opinion, to the detriment of the songs. We wanted to hear good, lengthy songs, not constant chopping and changing. Not helped, granted, by the fact that we had to fill in the blanks and sometimes the context of the songs/dialogue was lost on us because we COULDN'T SEE THE BLOODY STAGE. And then, frequently, when we did get a glimpse of the action, it was of an actors back. They spent a lot of time with their backs to the audience...! Grumble over.

The cast. All four leads did well, Jon Boydon was particularly good as he played the role of Tommy DeVito as an arrogrant, slightly unlikable sod, but who still kind of had the best interests of the group at heart...or did he...? Ryan Molloy does the required high singing well. Eugene McCoy was lovely, as was Matthew Wycliffe. Our favourite was Wayne Smith (Bob Crewe), whom we know as Baby Pharoah who was marvellously camp. And has a great nose. In all honesty, it's difficult to really comment in more detail on the cast because they sounded good (and looked good when we did see them and weren't blinded by spotlights) but we were concentrating so hard on not getting permanent nerve damage in our necks we don't think we experienced the show at it's best. It was enjoyable though.

We would have joined in the standing ovation had it not meant our faces being directly opposite (and about 5" away) from the four leading mens groins. We're not prudes but it didn't feel appropriate. We figured we might try to see the show again but further, much further back. And maybe then we can write a proper review without having to mention counting nostril hairs or singing wigs.