Last night I went to watch a stage version of The Full Monty at Manchester’s Opera House. The film is fantastic, so I was interested to see how well they pulled the stage version off.
The play was great, and such a lot of fun. It was really funny although maybe a little too foul mouthed in parts (I’m sure people from Sheffield don’t swear that much!), but highly entertaining. They used all of the songs and scenes from the original film, and some extra backing music that fit in with the rest. The plot was identical to the film so they haven’t really changed much, and the set design was quite good. They’ve pulled off a steel works well, however the only issue is that because of the steel works design, there wasn’t a lot of moveable set pieces and while they tried their best, some of the switches to none steel works scenes didn’t work as well. Cast wise, this is the first play I’ve seen where I actually recognised the majority of the main actors. Admittedly they weren’t Hollywood stars, but in the UK at least they’re fairly recognisable faces if you’ve ever seen soaps or sitcoms - Gary Lucy (Hollyoaks, Footballers Wives) , James Redmond (Hollyoaks), Louis Emerick (Brookside), Andrew Dunn (Dinnerladies) and Kai Owen (Torchwood) made it all the more enjoyable to watch. They all performed well too, although my only criticism is that there were some very dodgy Yorkshire accents from some. Maybe not something everyone would notice.
In all though this is hilarious and highly entertaining play, and a really fun night out. Definitely worth seeing if you liked the film 9/10
Andy K (10821 KP) Feb 23, 2019