Customer Reviews

Busker Alley (2006 York Theatre Company Cast Recording)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Hurray for everybody who made this production and subsequent recording happen. I'm delighted to have The Sherman Brothers' marvelous score (legitimately) recorded. Previously, we only had poorer quality bootlegs to listen to, but now we have an in-studio recording. I was expecting this to be a live recording of the one-night-only concert event and was very pleasantly surprised to find that it's a studio recording. Jim Dale is always wonderful, and he's certainly much better suited to play Charlie the Busker than his predecessor was.

It's interesting to hear the show and score restored to what must have been closer to the original vision (before it became a big star vehicle). It feels more balanced now and I feel like I hate the character of Libby less than I did before.

Reuniting (sort of) Jim Dale and Glen Close was a brilliant bit of casting on Tony Walton's part. The entire cast is topnotch and deserving of kudos. I do miss the fuller orchestrations, but this is a minor quibble. (And nobody sings "Strays" as well as Richard Sherman does.)

Thanks to everybody who brought this show out of the shadows. Five stars. Hats off to you! Let's hope for a full scale Broadway version starring Jim Dale soon!

I'm glad that the York Theatre Company resurrected this show from its ill-fated out-of-town tryout. The score, though not as memorable as the Sherman Brothers' "Mary Poppins," certainly is as good a period piece as their 1970s Andrews Sisters tribute "Over Here." The lyrics are sharp, and the music, as my kids point out, is "catchy." But more to the point is the wonderful vocal performance of Jim Dale, who brings a great deal of intelligence, grace and not a little bitterness to the role of Charlie Baxter. I'd love to see him do it in person. Barnum (1980 Original Broadway Cast)

This show--which was almost lost when Tommy Tune broke his leg--has found a new life with this wonderful recording. Jim Dale is as perfect for this role as Tommy Tune was miscast. Enjoy this wonderful and touching recording until you can see the show itself when it makes its long overdue Broadway debut in 2008.

This album is the "real deal" folks... something Broadway could really use
instead of the mindless likes of Wicked, Legally Blond, Hairspray, Grease etc.
Of course "Busker Alley" will probably not appeal to those who have seen and liked the afore-mentioned shows that pass for "musicals" these days.
I haven't been so excited about a "concept" show since "Ragtime". This album is all the more amazing since it uses only minimal orchestrations and a small cast. I only hope that Tony Walton can pull it all together for a promised opening sometime in 2009.
I have always enjoyed the music of the Sherman brothers and this music is some of their best. The tracks "He Has a Way" and "Tin Whistle Tune" are perhaps some of the best "theatre" music that I have heard in quite a while.

Read the story in the liner notes and then just close your eyes.... settle back and let the show come alive in your head.... you won't be disappointed !!!

It's so great that they finally released this. I enjoyed it very much, but what made it even better was that it was a gift for my husband, and he adores it. Recommend this to anyone who has any level of interest in musical theater!

Let me say right up front that I am a BIG Sherman Brothers fan. I love the work they did for the Disney studios, Mary Poppins is possibly one of the greatest of all movie musicals. But, and this is a very big but, they can start to sound repetative after a time. They simply do not write great ballads, they are at their best with charm songs. This musical about London street performers begins to sound very repetative about half way through. It is very hard to delinate the characters, the lead man and his younger protege from the old busker couple who have been at it for years. Their music sounds almost the same. The fault is not with the performers, Jim Dale is absoluely magnificent, I don't know anyone else today who could put this part over with the panache he does. The rest of the cast is right up to his level. But the songs all begin to sound the same and its hard at the end to remember one from the other. I perform as a piano player/singer and was intending to learn at least one of these songs so as to have something new to offer, and the Sherman Bros always seem to go over well, but I have had to reconsider. The 3 stars are for the performers, the two missing stars are for the sameness of the songs.

I can see why it closed on the road. Tommie Tunes'ankle? Great excuse. Dull score, dull cast; even Jim Dale, if you can believe that. Very disappointing. See the old Chas. Laughton, Vivien Leigh film instead. Since the score is so poor and there is no show to look at, purchasing this CD offers nothing. Sorry.