Musicals - Radio Times

On Friday 23rd November, we headed to High Wycombe after school to see Radio Times.  This was something Mum had seen in Malvern and I had missed in Oxford but Mum had looked up for me for where I could see it again.  I hadn't heard of it before but it is another Noel Gay musical like Me and My Girl and this production had been produced by Alexander Armitage with some help from his daughter (Lizzie's friend) and this one also starred Gary Wilmot.

The Wycombe Swan Theatre was a lovely venue (I'd been once before to see a Matthew Bourne dance thing - not my cup of tea) and we enjoyed a meal at the theatre beforehand.  While we were eating, that nights ushers started to arrive and were collecting war time helmets and arm bands before taking up their positions.  

The theatre was again depressive in it's emptiness.  It seemed each person had an entire row to themselves and it was a huge theatre.  I did feel sorry for the cast but they put on a great show and Gary mentioned at the ending about something to do with being grateful we were there.  It was a good set, a radio studio theatre, but mainly instruments and props.  About 10 mins before the start a man walked on and rested his head on the piano and put a jacket over his head and then I was still surprised when the show opened and characters walked on stage and he 'woke up' surprising them and us! It was a fun storyline about producing the slightly risque radio show in war time and during an air raid.  My absolute favourite number involved ukuleles and it was such a surprise as more and more of the cast starting playing them picking them out of things on stage - very clever!

Just found this trailer on youtube which I think is great!  The ukulele bit is there and it reminded me that I quite liked the run rabbit run number and that we all went away singing the 'polishing the sun' number - definite pleaser.  There is also a snapshot of the sound guy and it was really funny when he did all the sound effects!

Thanks all for a good show!

Musicals - Cabaret

John surprised me big time for my birthday - my 28th.  On Friday 12th October we headed to London after school, to the Reubens Hotel opposite Buckingham Palace!  And wow what an experience it was!

It was such a swanky hotel with doormen that made us feel real posh!  After checking in to our room, that I really liked as it had a view out the front including of the Union Jack on the front of the building, we went down to the restaurant for the buffet roast - could anything be any more perfect for me!!!  I was able to get as many roast potatoes as I liked! The only funny thing was that although they let you serve yourself the waiters insisted on carrying your plate back to your table while you followed - slightly embarrassing as my second and third plates had a rather unusual selection of food!  We had good fun beryling about the other guests in the restaurant!

We then headed over to the Savoy Theatre.  I was excited to go here as I had not been before and was interested how it worked with the Hotel.  Having just wikipedia'ed have found that the theatre came first and was the first public building lit entirely by electricity - interesting!  It was funny that we sort of went in at the side off the road and we were on the top tier, but that was street level!  So the stage was a long way underground!

We were there to see a production of Cabaret which had only just opened.  I had not seen it before but have got the dvd.  It is certainly an odd show - very dark most of the time, both literally and storyline!  But it has lots of great songs that we came away singing!  Will Young was playing the emcee and did it really well - lots of creepy make-up!

Thank you John for a great birthday!

Musicals - Rent

On Tuesday 28th August we went to see Look Theatre's Production of Rent in Wantage.  They are a young amateur group and it was directed by and starred a fellow teacher from school.  Lots of us went that night to cheer on - at least a dozen!  I first came into contact with Rent when I was at a Michael Ball show when he and cast sang 'Seasons of Love' and I totally fell in love with it, so I was excited to see the show and here more like it.  It is described as a Rock Opera and by far and away Seasons of Love was my favourite song from it. It is certainly an odd gritty story line, not my favourite.  The cast were impressive and could tell they had put in a lot of work, but it was also not in the same sort of league as other amateur things we had seen recently.  The singing though, was mighty super - and the transvestite character was show stealing in the performance.  Well done all!

Catching up on life

I would love to re-enter the blogging world after todays snow post.  Am not sure if I will be a regular poster again, but a quick catch-up on life will give me the option.  I am going to bullet point it so that hopefully I will do it quicker and actually complete it!

• Last February John and I went on holiday to Norway and there he proposed to me!  It was wonderful and I was delighted to say yes!
  
• We got to work and with the help of our family we planned a wedding for 21st July 2012.  The shone and it was a day better than we could possibly have imagined.

• I moved into Maureen, the flat, where we had a MazzaMoon for a week and then it was off to be...

• Gamesmakers at the London 2012 Olympics!  Wow!

• Then off to the Maldives for our honeymoon - Wow again!

• Then time to settle into wonderful married life :-) with little time for blogging!

So there you have a super quick update 

Snow is here again!

What a time it has been since a post, but a fitting time to be blogging again. 

We have a snow day!  Well not a full on proper snow day, as we have been in to school, but it is 2pm and I am now at home.  We were thinking if this had happened before and I said yes and I think it was a Wednesday; John said how do you know and I said I blogged about it and will check.  Have just had a nice time reading the snow posts. 

Last week, the forecasters starting predicting snow and we had had a little bit here and there but nothing to cause disruption - or even to build a snowman.  Then rumours started going, including from the school cleaner, that Friday would be the day.  I came out of the staff room yesterday after school to see all the teachers heading to one of the infant classrooms and had found out an emergency snow meeting had been called.  The head gave out the same letters that had been sent to the children about how to find out if school is open and gave us his number to txt in the morning if we couldnt get in.  John got the latest weather forecast up on the IWB and we all watched that.  It seemed to suggest that snow would really hit us at 9am and carry on for the school day.

That evening (including during a meeting at school about turning to an academy) snow appeared to be falling, but very light wisps of it and not a chance of anything sticking.

Woke up at 6.30 with the alarm this morning and after a moment leapt out of bed to check behind the blind.  Alas, there would be no need to txt the head.  There was a very slight covering on a few of the car rooves but that was it.  By the time we started driving it was indeed snowing, but nothing seemed to be sticking.  We parked in the junior playground and carried snow boots into the classroom.

By the time the children were here, it was still snowing and this time it was settling.  There were discussions about what we should say to parents about school staying open and the message was school will be open till 3 but children can be collected at lunchtime if conditions become such that it's needed.  I did overhear the head discussing with the Didcot teachers that the 7 of them would each be responsible for a year group in the afternoon if all the other teachers needed to go.  We also heard snippets from TAs about what was going on at other schools in the area.

I only had 4 away which I felt was pretty good going.  We had a pretty normal start to the day then it was all hands on deck for breaktime - children with boots went outside while others stayed in a couple of the classrooms.  It was still snowing pretty hard which meant it was hard to look anywhere outside!  Break was kind of delayed and so we didnt do phonics, and then things kind of descended!  While I was checking who really did have wet shoes and socks, I put on the 8 minute video of the three little pigs.  Feet checked I then started changing the reading books.  The video finished but I hadn't - doh!  The children pleaded to have it again so wonderful teacher that I am I let them!  Then to fill time did a few maths games on the board and then explained to the children what might be happening at lunchtime.  We gave out Ratty and had just started reading a big book story when the parents started arriving at 11.45.  Children started to eat in the classroom if they were still here at 12.15.  Then children all went to Foundation Stage for a film if they were still here and non-Didcot teachers were able to leave. 

A pizza box was passed from one of the other cars in the car park to start clearing the couple of inches off Mavis.  John drove magnificently home.  The hairiest bit was at the end of the school road which has a little slope downwards to the main road.  Mavis wouldn't stop and there was a car travelling slowly along the road towards us and somehow we missed but it was very close.  The A34 was fine half the way and just slow the rest. 

We are home safe now!  John is in the bath and I am happily doing this.  Sadly I have no photos yet - I am really out the habbit!  but hopefully I will take some soon.  We have tickets for a secret cinema event tonight with Lizzie in London.  I really hope we can make it!  It's still snowing outside...

Musical - Top Songs

Just put on Elaine Paige on Sunday and I do love that she starts her show with a rousing number that normally gets me going and I am always excited to see what it is.  Today was an excellent, the Trolley song from Meet Me in St Louis - I recognised it from the first dong!  So I am putting that on the list!  

The Trolley Song - Meet Me in St Louis.

Musical - Anything Goes

This is definitely one that is up there in my top 10 musicals (not furthered that post in a while!).  This was my 4th viewing of it, which puts it up there in most seen list too.  First 3 times were the National Theatre production and I saw it between about 2001-2005, first at the National with Mum, Lizzie and some theatre friends, and then by myself on my Gap Year at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, then by myself (I think) when it was touring through Malvern.  This was an amateur youth musical group performance at the Oxford Playhouse.  I went fairly spur of the momently with Lizzie after a dinner date at Fire and Stone for Lizzie to try out the new swordfish pizza!

It continued the improved reputation of amateur theatre that has been building up for me.  And although for a few of the characters, it was a little odd seeing young people playing them, most of them did an excellent job!  My favourite had been the guy playing Moonface Martin (sadly no photos).  They somehow had his hair greyed a bit - am guessing it wasn't natural!  He played a great gangster accent (loads of convincing accents) and then at points he (deliberately) went into an Irish accent which was equally impressive and wowed me!  When he came on for his curtain call, I started to woop, but then he slipped and fell and Lizzie tells me my woop changed from 'wooo-hahahaha'!  I was really sad that he missed his moment of applause!!

 Lots of good songs in the show, with Anything Goes being my favourite and liking Blow Gabriel Blow.  Other catchy ones I quite like are: Friendship, De-Lovely, You're the Top, I Get A Kick.  I once heard a story about Easy to Love and All Through the Night.  Cole Porter had written one for the show, but the male lead actor asked him to write another because it was too tricky to sing.  So Cole wrote the other which was just as/even harder to sing!  I think when we first saw Anything Goes at the National, Jon Barrowman was playing Billy Crocker - though can't be sure he was playing that night as I didn't know who he was then!  I went to hear Jon Barrowman talk at the Union some years later and people were calling out songs to sing, and someone called out one of these and he said no way, too hard!!  I like that story!

Think am going to start my best musicals songs post now as am listening to Elaine Paige on iplayer and a favourite just popped up!