Chess In Melbourne Picture Gallery
In February and March 1997, Chess, still my all-time favourite musical, was bought to Melbourne in a production which closely resembled the London original I had swooned over in 1989. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons which I've discussed elsewhere on Gusworld, the show ran for less than a month. Fortunately, I took a lot of photos, and now, two years later (we never promised speed), here are some of them to commemorate the event. Cameras were unfortunately forbidden in the show itself, but you do get a good idea what the theatre looks like . . . (There's also a picture of me hidden in this lot somewhere.)If you don't already know that Chess was co-written by Tim Rice, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, or why this matters, there's not much I can do to help you. Just enjoy the pictures. Click on the thumbnails for larger photos; use your Back button (or Alt + the left arrow key) to get back here. (And incidentally, I don't claim to be a great photographer, but I didn't do the scanning here and the originals are somewhat clearer.)
Chess was staged in Melbourne's Princess Theatre, and promotions for the show adorned its exterior.
Imported praise
All the banners outside showed praise not for the current production, but for the original London version of Chess.
Windows of the world
Scenes from the show were on display in the theatre windows.
Let's go shopping!
Although it closed quickly, Chess set records for merchandise sales in Australian theatres. I may have been partly responsible for this.
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