I invited myself along to this with Grant and Jon when they said they were planning to try get tickets for it in their final week in the country.
We headed into London and met Dianne from NZ at the Paddington Station (which incidently was having a fire incident so we couldn't use the tube to get to). Having got her belongings back to Canrary Wharf we went Leicester Square and successfully got 4 halfprice tickets in the dress circle. Yay!
After a very wet day we made it over to Shaftebury Avenue and ate the Lyric Pub where Katy joined us for a drink, Lizzie joined us up from Epsom then we headed to the Theatre.
I had seen Les Miserables once on stage before at it's old theatre (Palace?) with Mum in June 2002. It was the day of the England Denmark World Cup match and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to see it as it was due to finish just before the show started. We headed into London earlier and met Dianne (what a coincidence!) for lunch and were looking for a pub to watch the match in but they were all full. Hanging around Leicester Square we spotted people heading into the Odeon and Dianne persuaded us to go over and find out and it turned out that they were giving out free tickets to watch the match on the big screen!!! Can you believe our luck?! Anyway it was a brilliant win; I remember after each goal Dianne kept saying just one more would be good.
Mum and I hot-footed it over to the theatre and it was an amazing experience watching it. I was fairly well acquainted with the musical having watched the 10th Anniversary Concert Video quite a few times. But it was like seeing it all anew with emotion. I liked to cry at the ends of musicals, but this one I was crying in the first half which told me it was a powerful one! Think I cried four times in total ;-) Songs that I didn't really know before totally hit me, 'On My Own' being the primary one. I now know that it is considered a rather cliché song from the show that everyone sings but I like to think I discovered it then 'on my own'. I wrote to the lady playing Eponine and got a reply.
So, this hasn't really been about my most recent experience so far!!! the most noticeable thing for me this time was that i didn't cry! maybe i had given myself too big a build up. valjean and eponine were both understudies. Lizzie liked the voice of one of them and i did the other. still thought that 'One Day More' is such an amazing number and surely far to grand to end the first half - should be the whole ending. Lizzie said that she thought it could as well just be the first half and I gotta say I agree with her, well, if On My Own was added to the first half! I was mega impressed with the guy who waved the huge flag! I was also struck by just how huge Mme Thenardier was. Couldn't see any spare seats from where we were - pretty impressive for 25 years! I don't think I had been to the Queen's Theatre before. (hehe, just thought it would be funny if that was where We Will Rock You was on).
Good times overall - I think everyone enjoyed. Though I don't think I will be rushing back purposefully to see it again myself. Ooh, maybe I should make a list on here of the musicals I do want to see next. In fact, I want to do a whole musicals post!
Thanks for letting me come along boys!
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