This is what happens when you're sick

A quick update:
Monday - worked
Tuesday - Graeme felt sick, we both stayed home. Still went out to the theatre though, which might've been a mistake...
Wednesday - Now we both were sick
Thursday - Graeme went back to work (another mistake), I stayed in bed half the day and was very unproductive for the rest.
Friday - Graeme felt worse again, but still went to work, silly boy. I stayed in and attempted to recover.

After that week, you can probably imagine that we didn't do much this weekend. Graeme worked on reformatting his computer (and all the backing-up and then re-installing that that involves) and I did some of my scrapbook, which is woefully behind, and made some postcards for my first ever online swap, which I can't show you until they reach their destinations (Canada, New Zealand and the USA). I kinda felt bad, since I haven't even sent my friends and family any postcards since we came here, but it was the perfect little project to try out this whole swapping thing. I liked doing it though, so there might be some handmade postcards in your future (well, those of you whose addresses I have, which I admit is not that many).

Anyway, that is why the somewhat regular posting habit that I was establishing fell to pieces this week.... Now, on to the play review.

Boeing Boeing is set in the 60s, right when Boeing were introducing the 747. There's a playboy guy that lives in Paris and has a rotation of 3 flight attendants that spend their layovers in Paris at his house. He is engaged to all of them and none of them know about the others. It is working fine, until Boeing introduce their new plane, which means faster travel and turnaround times. And, of course, whackiness ensues. The best characters are the maid and the friend of the playboy, who have fantastic reactions to the whole situation. Some of it does feel dated, but all the old bitties in the audience loved it :) It was funny, if a bit predictable, and was kind of like watching a romantic comedy on a stage instead of a screen.

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The Drowsy Chaperone

That's the name of the show we saw on Friday night and we LOVED it. Problem is, that part of what made it so great was that we didn't really know what to expect, so I don't feel as though I should write too detailed a review because I don't want to potentially spoil it for anyone.

To sum it up in similar terms to what I had read before I went in, a middle-aged guy puts on the record of his favourite cast recording, The Drowsy Chaperone and suddenly the 1920s musical comes to life in his apartment. I guess it's categorised as a musical comedy and it lives up to both elements - there are some great 20s style musical numbers and the whole thing is hilarious. The unique approach to telling the story and to musical theatre in general is great and makes it instantly stand out from the other things we saw this week.

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West End addict

So far this week, we have seen both Fame and Little Shop of Horrors on the West End. And guess what? The tickets were only £5 each, of course. Best part of Graeme's job by far is the cheap theatre tickets, well, at least from my perspective. We're getting pretty good at co-ordinating our meeting time, finding the theatres without maps and knowing which places nearby we can get dinner in whatever time frame we have before the show. My collection of programmes is getting quite large (again - I already took a bunch home at Christmas) and we've realised that there are very few current shows left that we really want to see. Anyway, enough boasting - how were the shows...?

I remember seeing Little Shop of Horrors performed by the local high school when I was in about year 5, but I don't remember a whole lot about it, other than my babysitter was one of the shoop-shoop girls. I definitely didn't remember the ending, which I knew was different to the film version, but had forgotten how different. I like the stage ending better - too many stories end up predictably happy, I think. I really enjoyed this show - there was a great atmosphere in the theatre, the stage looked awesome and the actors were all great. It was funny and didn't take itself too seriously.

Fame was a little confusing at first - I guess it was because we knew virtually nothing about it and so weren't sure if it was supposed to be a stage version of the film or what. I quickly worked out (and confirmed later in the programme) that it's set in the same real-life performing arts school as the film, but several years later, when all the kids who attend have seen the film and therefore really expect to become stars by going to the school. There was some very impressive dancing, and although some of the actors were clearly twice as old as the characters they were playing and the plot lines sometimes seemed overly simplified, it was very enjoyable. Both Graeme and I agreed that the girl playing Mabel stole the show (which had nothing at all to do with the fact she was Australian, honest). I dunno that I'd be happy if I'd paid £55 for the tickets though (yeah, that's how much the top-price tickets are - per person) but it was still a good night out.

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Evita

Not so much a review as a comparison...

We saw this on (the West End - I love saying that) stage in January with Graeme's mum and her partner when they were here in January. I didn't love it as much as some of the other things we've seen, but it was still good. Having now seen the 1996 film version (as in, I started composing this while it was finishing), I think part of the problem was that I can be a very detail-oriented person and the whole thing moves so fast that its hard to follow at times and I got caught up trying to work out what was going on exactly. So, the first advantage to the film: instead of only being able to rely on stage elements - costume changes, set, lighting - there are clips of the events going on rather than just being described, plus the ability to fade between scenes gives a wider feel to the story - I actually felt like I understood what was going on the whole time. The film also has Antonio Banderas, who is just fantastic as Ché, the voice of the people - great voice, beautiful pronunciation (despite the accent, which is very important, considering he basically tells the story) and the right mix of passion and criticism. But then, it also has Madonna - and as much as she was praised for this role, I didn't love her. She looks too old throughout the film, especially considering she is supposed to start out as a 15 year old, and I definitely wasn't sad when she died.

I think probably if I had seen the film first, or at least had a much firmer grasp on what the story was actually about, I would've really loved the stage version. The girl playing Eva in the stage version was great and I would much rather see people singing and dancing in real life than on a film. Because basically, other than the extra film clips that help to tell the story, it is the same show - same songs, similar scenes, different actors.

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Blue Man Group: take 2

Yeah, we're now such theatre-goers that we're actually starting to see shows for a second time...
We first went to this show in May last year and loved it (here's what I said then) so when Graeme got the opportunity to get those coveted £5 tickets we have come to love, we decided we may as well go again. Funny, that sounds so blase - yeah, we figured we may as well go to another west end performance - lol.
It was almost as good the second time around, too. The show was virtually identical, so obviously there was very little surprise involved, but it was still fun, and we still ended up in a heap of laughter, so I reckon it was worth it.

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Rent

One of the things on my 101 in 1001 list was to see a show on Broadway. You can read about our adventures in New York on our website - I'm just going to talk about the show.

As we approached the tkts booth in Times Square, we discovered we had quite a few options of what to see that night. We whittled our choices down to two which we were both happy with. Graeme's first choice, believe it or not, was Beauty and the Beast (primarily because its run in New York finally comes to an end later this year), which I'm sure would've been great, but I was pushing for Rent, since we were in New York and it is about New York. Plus, as much as I love theatre and film, I had never really been exposed to it and I thought our first broadway show should be a completely new experience (I have, after all, seen Beauty and the Beast on film several times, as well as knowing all the words to the soundtrack). I'd pretty much already succeeded in convincing him, but I think, in the end, we finally decided on Rent because it was cheaper - lol.

I really should've written this review much earlier, because I am having trouble recalling details. So, I'm going to resort to bullet points, just so I can get all the things I thought down, without having to worry about coherent sentences...

• Playbills are awesome. In London, the only way to get a cast list is to buy a programme. And then, of course, I have to also have the big souvenir one with the full-colour pictures. This usually sets us back at least 10 quid. In New York, they give you the proper programme with the cast and crew bios and everything. They even gave us a little bit of paper with that nights precise cast (because there was some understudying going on). Of course, I still bought the big souvenir one - it came with a free drawstring bag/backpack.
• The show was very 90s. I know thats when it was written and set and stuff. It seemed (although I'd have to do more research t be sure, and that ain't happening) that they'd made some attempt to update it, but I could be wrong. Either way, it didn't feel dated, where it could have.
• We both recognised more songs than we thought we would. I spent all of the next day singing them :)

I really can't think of anything more specific to say. And besides, I'm starting to worry that what I am saying may not make sense (its 1.30am here) so I'm going to leave it by saying that I loved it, thought it was awesome and am glad to have seen it on Broadway.

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The Lady from Dubuque

On Tuesday night, we went once again to the theatre on the West End. I have to say, this whole west end thing is one of the few parts of living in London that I will miss when we move home. Anyway, we got the tickets through Graeme's work, as usual. Usually, unless it's for a show he knows we both want to see, he checks with me before he asks for tickets. This time, however, he didn't ask - the sole reason being Maggie Smith. Yes, THE Dame Maggie Smith is playing the title role in this limited season of a play I'd, admittedly, never heard of. No matter what the play, you don't pass up an opportunity to see Maggie Smith live on stage, do you?

Actually, the play was really good. A bit strange, but then the guy who wrote it is considered a pioneer of American absurdism. Plus, I like when we can walk out of the theatre and have a discussion about what it was supposed to mean. And Maggie Smith? She and Peter Francis James, as Oscar, totally stole the show.

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Avenue Q

Yep, its another one of those days when I post more than once :)

Once again, thanks to the connections at Graeme's work, we got £5 tickets to go to the theatre. This time, however, it was something we've actually been wanting to see for awhile - Avenue Q. Go to that website, watch the intro and then hover over the scrolling heads along the bottom to read their speech bubbles and you might get an idea of what the show is. If you're too lazy to do that, you'll have to put up with my horrible attempt at a description:

The play revolves around the people and puppets that live on Avenue Q. With songs like "It sucks to be me", "Everyone's a little bit racist" and "The internet is for porn" its like Sesame Street for grown-ups - so grown-up that they have to have a disclaimer that its not affiliated with Jim Henson or Sesame Street. Basically, it is hilarious, pokes fun at stereotypes and is really well done. The puppeteers are visible throughout and seem to merge with their puppet characters, they generally play more than one character and there is some awesome flow when both of a puppeteer's characters are on stage and they are being voiced and controlled by two different people.

We had fantastic seats, laughed a lot and had a great time. Unlike most things I seem to review though, this is definitely not one for the kids :)

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Love Song

another one of our slightly underinformed adventures to london's west end resulting from £5 tickets from graeme's work. but this one was a treat - not an ounce of disappointment.

read the info here. check out the cast list - quite impressive.

from that page:
Beane is an exile from life – an oddball. His well-meaning sister Joan and brother-in-law Harry try and make time for him in their busy lives, but no one can get through. Following a burglary on his apartment, Joan is baffled to find her brother blissfully happy and tries to unravel the story behind Beane's mysterious new love Molly..

It was funny, entertaining, thought-provoking, etc

(cut short because dinner's here and i'm starving)

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Guys and Dolls

Patrick Swayze is playing Nathan Detroit in the West End production of Guys and Dolls. At the moment, however, he's "indisposed" (I think he's got a couple of weeks off). So as I was leaving school yesterday (at 5pm, after building some stage elements for the school musical) I got a phone call from Graeme to say he had got cheap tickets through his usual work connections for the show - only catch, I had to get home and then into the city as fast as possible, because the show started at 7.30pm that night.

So once again, we saw an understudy, but you wouldn't have known it. The show was awesome. I really loved it. Graeme probably didn't enjoy it quite as much, because he didn't really know the storyline or any of the songs. Although he was singing "Luck be a Lady" all the rest of the night because he had heard me sing it often enough to know it well enough for it to get stuck in his head :)

And, once again, its Thursday evening and my week has already exhausted me and tomorrow, Friday, is always my craziest day at school. Oh well, one more week and its half-term, which means a week off.

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Footloose - The Musical

On Wednesday night, we went to the West End and saw Footloose.

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And that's all I wrote. Its now October 10 and I just realised, when I made a new post, that I never actually finished or published this one.

Footloose was great - the lead was played by the understudy, which was quite apparent for the first 20 minutes or so, but then he got into the swing and did a really good job. I was expecting a bit more flashy dancing and probably a bit less corniness, but it was fun, the music was (obviously) catchy and everyone in the audience created the right atmosphere.

I've realised that when I go home at Christmas, I will have a big pile of things like programmes to take home. Maybe we haven't seen a whole lot of Europe yet, but we're quite familiar with London's West End.

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August

So August has come and almost gone and I haven't updated. Thought I better have at least one post this month, so here's what my August has been like:

Summer school holidays last all of August, so I haven't been working, well other than trying to work out what I'm actually going to teach this coming school year. I spent today in school trying to get my classroom organised, but they are doing a lot of renovation work over the break and its all still a big mess. Hopefully I'll actually have tables in the room before class starts next week :)

Graeme and I went on a 9 day holiday to Scotland - you can read about it on our website. Scotland is much nicer than London - less people (but friendlier ones), less polution, less cars, less of everyone living on top of each other. I guess most of Britain outside London is like that, but Scotland was great.

We only went on a short holiday within Britain because I haven't actually been paid yet, even though I started work on July 3. I have been sorting out all the paperwork and I SHOULD get paid two months pay tomorrow - although they'll probably take out more tax than they should because I only just got the paperwork to fix that...

We went and saw We Will Rock You - the musical written by Ben Elton and based on the music of Queen. Graeme basically promised on my behalf that I would write a review of it here, but part of what I loved about it was that I didn't really know what to expect - had no preconceived ideas about the plot or which songs they'd use or anything. So I'll just say it was great and leave it at that.

I pulled out my sewing machine (yes, I brought my sewing machine around the world with me) - actually, that happened in July, but I had just used it for mending and adjustments. I bought some fabric and made a couple of skirts - unfortunately I've only worn one of them and only once, because the weather here is just not suited to much less than jeans and a tshirt most days. I still have fabric that hasn't been made into anything because the change in weather right as I finished the first two kind of made me lose my motivation.

Oh, and I turned 26. Don't know what else to say about that.

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Blue Man Group

We went and saw the Blue Man Group show last night and it was awesome. You know who the Blue Man Group is, right? They're a group of guys who wear dark clothes and paint their hands and heads blue. They've appeared in ads and stuff all over the world.

Their show is a one and a half hour spectacular. There's music, lights, audience interaction and participation, general craziness. It's performance art in a way, especially when they pour paint on their drums and make a mess while carrying a cool beat. The first four rows of the audience have to wear plastic ponchos to protect their clothes. Its so great yet so hard to describe. If you get the chance to see them, take it. We got our tickets half price, but it totally would have been worth the full £40. And thats a LOT of money to us Australians.

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