Guys and Dolls

My wife and I went with some friends to Hull New Theatre last night to see another local theatre company, Beverley Musical Theatre, perform their production of Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls. I really wanted to take something positive away from this production, but I couldn't.
Last year they performed Anything Goes, which apparently was not very good, and I have heard that the management at the New Theatre had told Beverley Musical Theatre that if this production was not better that they would be able to perform at the venue again. This is a real shame and I was really rooting for them.
However, within 10 minutes I was bored. The whole production was dull, the vocals were weak and the acting weaker. It was everything that gives amateur dramatics a bad name. Two people singing to each other (allegedly) from opposite sides of the stage and facing the audience, giving you no impression of passion. Then we had a group of six young girls who were supposed to be sexy samba dancers in a Havana bar, doing some strange ballet dancing, and all of them were out of time with each other!
The only saving grace was a guy playing the character of Nicely Nicely, who had a very nice voice and was quite funny.
There was probably around 200 people there, if that, in a 1100 seat theatre. If I had been on that stage I'd have been devastated seeing all those empty seats.
I really did feel for them, but if they had the threat of losing the venue for future performances surely they should have tried harder.
(And apparently their production of Anything Goes last year was worse!!!!)