Side-note now: I apologise now for the poor pun in the title!
It is no secret that I am a fan of musicals, they are woven into my childhood, as a child I wanted to talk, squeak and squawk to the animals like Rex Harrison in Doctor Doolittle, I jealously watched 5 children walk around an amazing chocolate factory with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka and then spent christmas with Julie Andrews climbing every mountain, fighting Nazis’ and nuns … okay maybe she didn’t fight the nuns. However if she wasn’t in Austria with the nuns and Nazis’ I watched her jumping into paintings and dancing with chimney sweeps in London while looking after the Banks children as Mary Poppins.
However even though musicals are such a huge part of who I am, in 26 years I have only actually seen 3 shows live!!!
Annie … Which Was when I was really young so can’t really remember seeing that live and the 1982 film version is imprinted firmly in my mind that it’s all I know. BTW talking of Annie I would also put the ‘Easy Street’ scene from the film in the list of my favourite ever movie scenes!
Then it wasn’t till 2013 that I went back to the theatre, this time I was in fishnets, a corset and 7 inch high heels, which was a little strange as it was for Les Miserables … nah me and mates went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of the funniest nights out you can have! Even tough you find out 7 inch heels kill your feet and a bare bum is not good in the February weather!
Then there was Wicked! (See thats where the terrible pun in the title works in)
It is one of those shows that I have only heard good things about, 90 international awards have been given to the show, it must be good and it was in Birmingham!!!! My mom had finished work for 6 weeks and I … got the day off work! (that sounds like I throw a sicky, which I didn’t, I just asked after working a 6 day week and racking up close to 70 hours and only being paid for 40!!) … anyway … there was limited seats. One row had 4 seats available two blue dots and two red dots, what was the difference between blue and red I hear you ask? … £5. The blue dots were £50 the red dots were £45, so I took the red dots, if both sets of seats were limited viewing I’m not taking the most expensive!!
After my last visit to the theatre the smart jeans and t-shirt combo made me feel over dressed, but as we took our seats I wanted to know why the two seats next to us cost that £5 more, so I snook into the seats to take a look at their view:
It was like looking at the stage in HD as the usher looked over andI returned to the view from the cheap seats:
so you can see why these seats were cheaper!
The show was fantastic! A really good product with Defying Gravity sending chills though the body as Elphaba takes flight, then there is the highly catchy Popular (as the Kristin Chenoweth version is playing from the iPad). One thing I would love to ask Nikki Davis-Jones the fabulous actress that plays Elphaba: Do you just go green for the entry run? She must wake up with green paint still between the fingers or behind the ears. All I do is finger paint and for weeks I’m still finding flakes on my body somewhere … how does it get behind the knee?
If I’m giving Nikki Davis-Jones a mention I have to say Emily Tierney was excellent as Glinda the Good, the two have a chemistry on stage that works and you are drawn into the wonderful world of Oz with them. It is just a fantastic show that nods to the story of the Wizard of Oz and cleverly weaves elements of the well know story into its own and giving the overall tale new light that will make you think twice when watching the original movie again.
If you haven’t seen Wicked I would recommend it to anyone and this is only the start of my summer of musicals with Cats and Blood Brothers (both at the Hippodrome) coming soon. I also vow that I will see Michael Ball on stage too, I missed Hairspray and Sweeney Todd, I coming for you Michael, sorry if that sounds creepy, I’m a huge fan and gonna e-mail his radio show see if he will play Misty for me! Before the police break down the door that was a joke!
One last thing I have to say to theatre goers is: The alphabet is the same anywhere you go, so if your ticket says S45 its clear you should be looking further down and not ask while in row U are these our seats, clearly not!! Then when they have found the row they are like, “they have to be here somewhere?” … no love, the seats are in numeric order with 45 further up then 10!
Thank You for Reading … Go see Wicked! Defy Gravity, be wonderful and popular!
@:0).
thingsiheardwhentalkingtomyself 