For those who attend theatre, stay up to date on the news or just follow some of the cast of Legally Blonde: The Musical on social media, you may have heard of some strange happenings recently.
Maybe — like me — you have even been…lucky (?) enough to attend the show itself and witnessed it firsthand.
At some point in the run, the production seems have to become plagued with an illness that had managed to wipe out half of the cast. But that’s not the only thing plaguing the show. Reports of back stage feuds, bad production planning *side-eye* and cast members with ego issues have followed the show this week like a bad smell.
Main Character Energy
My performance saw Hannah Lowther step into the pink, high heeled shoes of Elle.
I will admit I wasn’t a fan of Lowther going into the show. I had seen her on social media plenty and I just didn’t really gel with her personality on-screen — which is fine, not everybody is for everybody and she clearly has a large following besides little old me — but I will admit that seeing her perform has converted me. Her voice and acting were great and I was happy to see her in the role.
I have seen other outlets pitting the two women against each other and claiming that a feud is happening backstage, with Hannah having a huge ego and being upset that she is thrust into the main role and then taken out again so frequently. I haven’t seen Amber Davies perform to compare the two, but I can imagine being switched in and out of the lead role so much to be a bit of a rug pull. To perform the lead so much but to have another actor being billed as the lead publicly would make me a smidge sad.
Aside from the matinee I saw, there have been performances where Davies came off mid-show, letting the understudy take the role, only to then decide she is coming back on again a little while later, which doesn’t seem the most professional of behaviours.
Davies’ social media now shows her posting about her illnesses, after seemingly stepping down from the role c. 12-13th March 2026.
Davies is seen to say she has been ill for months and that performing is harming her recovery. She even stated that her body is clearly “fighting for its life.”
By the time I attended on the 14th March, she was no longer performing in the role at all, not that we would be told that!
Which brings us neatly to my experience…
My Experience at Legally Blonde
I attend a lot of shows at the Milton Keynes Theatre. It’s close enough to my home to be convenient, ticket prices are generally fair and they get a lot of top-end shows. I even pay to be an ATG member as it saves processing fees — which when you attend as much as I do, tend to build up.
When I saw Legally Blonde coming I booked straight away, which was in the first week of March 2025. Over a year ago. I haven’t seen the musical before, but I adore the film and honestly always take the opportunity of booking West End shows without having to travel to London.
A year goes by and it is Saturday 14th March 2026. Finally the day to attend. Curtain up is at 2.30PM and I my normal email and ATG app notifications in the morning to pre-book my snacks and drinks. The app that they ask us to have now for tickets is another issue altogether, especially considering they didn’t use it at all to let us know about the issues with the show we had paid to see.
As we are about to leave the house, at 1.15PM (bearing in mind they tell us to get there for 1.30-2.00PM) a generic email is sent out to tell us that the performances of that day were going to be “concert” performances. There would be no set changes, no costume changes and some of the cast were going to be missing.
I am including the email I got here because I have seen reports stating that the venue offered refunds. If they did it wasn’t publicly stated or communicated via the email, text or in person. Quite the opposite, it was all framed as almost a positive turn of events. A special, once-in-a-liftime treat. I have since emailed the theatre and ATG about their quotes stating people were offered refunds and have not — as of yet — heard anything back.
FYI: clicking the Help Centre link takes you to a generic FAQ page where none of these topics are covered and you can speak to a robot. Needless to say the robot was useless. We were then sent a text message telling us to check our inboxes for an URGENT update to the show. So urgent they left it until an hour before the show was due to begin to tell us.
Arriving at the theatre it was clear very little people attending had actually seen the updates. People were dressed up in pink, splurging on the merch, taking selfies at the photo op starring the lead we weren’t even going to see perform. It was only when you made it up the stairs and stood outside the doors that people began to notice the tiny A4 piece of paper taped up under the other cast info.
Late Starts and No Explanations
Those doors, which normally open at 2.00PM, stayed shut until 2.20PM. Ten minutes before the show was supposed to begin. Staff members had no idea what was happening and crowds began to gather around the doors and stairways, with people sitting on the floor amongst them.
For those not stood by the doors or checking their inboxes, the producer coming on stage when we were all finally seated was the first they heard of the show not going ahead as planned. And this is where it gets even more frustrating.
He stated that the show had been having issues all week and that they had been “up all night” trying to work out a show for us to see. They had even had time to get some replacements in, one of them being Jodie Steele who I was thrilled to see personally — even if she did miss her lines a few times due to not knowing the show.
So if they had been aware long before that afternoon, why weren’t we told until an hour before the show?
Now, in hindsight, we know that Davies had already stopped performing under doctor’s orders days before. Which makes the lack of communication so much worse.
Too Busy Vlogging?
As mentioned earlier, I was already aware of Lowther’s social media presence before seeing the show. However, since the show I went to check it for the first time wondering if she would post anything about the performances. A weekly vlog has been uploaded for each week of the Legally blonde tour so far.
I wanted to wait until Lowther had posted the Milton Keynes week to see what she would say before I made a post, and a yesterday (at time of writing) I realised she had. Within the vlog you can clearly see things unravelling fairly quickly behind the scenes but the part I found most interesting was the part that covered the Saturday.
Earlier in my experience I described how the doors were opened very late, leaving us all to be seated long after the show was already due to begin. With everything running fairly late and absolutely no communication to the paying audiences, I was expecting to see some kind of commotion or rush happening backstage. Something that would explain why we were all sat waiting for so long, seated so late and why they had no time to give us any notice.
After all, the production manger made it sound like it had been chaos. Panic. Bedlam!
However, the vlog shows Lowther calmly doing her makeup as usual, with the call to come to stage being played over the sound system. Then, as she makes her way backstage introducing all of the guest stars and laughing with her co-stars about how odd the experience was, you can hear the audience in the background. We are all sat there, waiting for a show we had paid to see that was already going to not be what was promised and was already starting late…. and the stars were busy vlogging.
Who Was to Blame?
I don’t think one person or group is to blame for the absolute mess of a show that I experienced. The cast were trying their best but with no set changes, props or dogs to help tell the story it was a bit of a confusing mess. And showing themselves on social media taking their time to vlog while we are sat waiting for a late show doesn’t look great.
The production likely did what they could with the situation but didn’t really seem to be in charge of anything or taking control. Everyone just seemed to be waiting for the last minute to take any action and letting everything happen to them, as opposed to managing it.
ATG/Milton Keynes Theatre may have been waiting for the show to confirm what was happening, but they also should have had somebody in charge who was in continuous communication with the production manager. There was no reason for their staff to be so unaware of what was happening behind the scenes of their own theatre curtains. It is their responsibility to run their theatre in the correct way and give their customers the best visit experience possible. There was also ample opportunity to make customers aware of the show change before they got to the door/seats. People could have been offered alternatives.
But then they wouldn’t have everyone buying snacks and merchandise would they…
This is actually the second bad experience I have had in a row at Milton Keynes Theatre. I took my twins to see Horrible Histories: The Concert a few weeks before and we left before intermission. The audio was far too loud, and the lighting was set up in such a way that a neon pink light shone directly into our seating area for long periods of time, blinding us so badly that we could not even watch the stage.
It’s just another experience that leads me to believe nobody form the theatre is testing or signing off on anything that happens. From the outside it would see that they are booking shows and leaving everything to the production manager without checking anything off themselves. Leaving feedback or sending emails results in absolutely nothing.
I wasn’t going to blog about Legally Blonde. Although I have spoken before about my love for visiting the theatre, I haven’t posted about any specific shows or events. But I have seen this one show up in more and more outlets and hardly any of the people making videos or articles about it had actually seen or experienced it.
So there it is, my experience with the Saturday 14th March “Concert Production” of Legally Blonde at the Milton Keynes Theatre.
If ATG or the theatre respond, I will update the post, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. I’m not holding mine.
