She may have just been sick when I saw it but I saw Chicago with this cast and she sounded hoarse in the show but she could’ve been sick or not taking care off her voice properly between shows. I really didn’t like her in it because she always sounded so scratchy.

I've seen her twice now and I absolutely love her interpretation of the character! Velma is definitely a more gravelly character and she brings some of that in but I would certainly not describe her as scratchy...

There is lack of understanding there I'm afraid. If I mic goes out like that it's going to be because of a technical issue, that is proving troublesome to resolve. West End live has no sound check time. Miss are fitted and on you go. Sometimes things go wrong. You honestly think a technician just didn't notice this? Of course not. There was an issue. And Ms Gabrielle does not sound 'hoarse' because she is compensating for lack of sound. Half the time at an event like that you can't even tell if the audience can hear you, when you have enough holdback on stage. If she was aware then no professional performer worth their salt is going to try to sing louder to compensate. You would be an untrained idiot to try to sing about the backing track and vocals in an outdoor event when your un-amplified voice will carry less than a metre. You equally wouldn't do it on stage with a live orchestra. If the mic drops out, the mic drops out. You do not destroy your destroy your focal folds trying to do something impossible.

Zach T Sound person is getting a lot of flack but they’re only wearing single mic’s not the usual double so any issues can’t be fixed mid performance, unfortunately. I’m going to assume the same mikes are being used by dozens of people on the same day too, so faults are pretty likely to happen for whatever reason. She cooed very well and tbh I quite liked the growly Velma - the original 1997 understudy Vanessa Leagh-Hicks sounded a bit like that if she’d been on 2 weeks and it suited the character tbh.

They don't get a sound check.

All the music from Westend Live! are audio tape, only the vocals are live

tmasquerade 7

not trying to make u jealous or anything ;) but im actually good friends with Lily, her daughter :)

Maisie Feek what? Omg lucky! I’ve met Ruthie 6 times now and always have a lovely catch up every time for a good 10 - 15 minutes :)

That's so cool! Funnily enough, I've never met Ruthie haha. just her daughters and Tim (their dad) :))

Maisie Feek what a load of BS

I saw her and she was amazing - singing outside is an absolute nightmare, and the mic was awful. So no, she sounds nothing like that during the show :)

Thank you for saying this because I thought it was very scratchy in this recording...

Poor her, trying to belt out across Trafalgar Square as the sound guy failed to do his job...

@@herebemaddy150 Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. That's utter am dram thinking and just nonsense.

Marie-Anna Caufour I must be one of the black people missing the radar which alerts me to notice the lack of colour in these things 🙄 I mean, just watch the video. Not everything has to be about race.

bit weird that youre actively hunting for black people, weird of you to also assume that there must be a black person in a musical set partially in a prison/jail... obviously that's not what you did but what If you think what I said is retarded then you think what you said is too :)

What does it matter?! Unless you've got a race issue of course.

Maybe no people of colour auditioned it doesn't matter what colour you are you need talent not race

Not everything has to be a race issue people!!

Hícaro Nicolai still a good cast though lol

expkeegan I’m gonna watch it as soon as I can.

Hícaro Nicolai And young. And thin. Back in 1996/1997 when Chicago revival first opened in NYC and London, the choruses were more diverse in age and body shape etc but as those older Fosse dancers gradually moved into choreography or retired, they had to start casting graduates and so it got younger and thinner. Used to be more diverse on so many levels. I miss when the cast had some “normal every day person” shaped people in it ;)

You do realise Josefina is 54? And Ruthie is 50? And Sarah is 40? I don't know about the chorus but none of them are fresh graduates. And Billy Flynn is black.

The chorus are the yuong ones, not the principles - has been this way since about 2000 on the last run of it - in the very early years of it, about half the chorus were well over 40. It's happening all over the West End - choruses are far younger now than in the 80s or 90s - not 100% sure of why - the US is not quite so bad but the bodyshapes issue is still there - we had a lot more diversity of that regard in the early part of the revival.