Musicals - Hello Dolly

Three in a row of our Post Christmas Leicester Curve Musical Trips took us to see Hello Dolly en masse again.

I had seen this once before at the Oxford New Theatre, not long after I had started my 4th Year of Chemistry at Uni. I had discovered that my mini supervisor who was doing a DPhil was as big if not bigger fan of musicals as I.  This was coming to Oxford we ended up getting buy one get one free tickets for the one of the first nights.  She lent me the DVD she had as I didn't know anything about it and I enjoyed watching it.  Put on your Sunday Clothes soon became one of my favourite songs and my new friend introduced watching it on youtube to me.  A bit of a stumbler when they rang to say they had cancelled the Monday and Tuesday nights shows, but we were able to rebook to later in the week with our deal.  Those first nights must have been going to be sooo empty as it still seemed practically deserted when we went.  That's not something I really enjoy - empty audiences.  It was advertised as staring Darren Day but we couldn't believe it was him when he came on stage - it sure looked like he had gone to seed and maybe had some drug problems!  The show was ok, as far as I remember - and I am not remembering much writing this 5 years later.  I can picture the scene where Darren Day came out for the first time from under the floor of Van Der Gelders Hay and Seed shop but that's it.  Think we both agreed we preferred the film!

I was excited to get to see a new production of it as I had fond memories of the music.  We all agreed that the storyline was rather incidental and ridiculous and I enjoyed the dance routines.  We all had good fun saying 'Mr Van Der Gelder' and 'Yonkers' plenty of times!  The set was good, but I did miss Louis Armstrong!

We had fun putting the three musicals in order afterwards and all had different favourites.  Think I liked Hello Dolly, King and I then 42nd Street.

Thanks for another good holiday outing!