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.