GRcade

Just in case anyone's interested, Priority Booking is open now for Aladdin in the West End Just bought £300 worth of tickets There's already pretty much no choice, so get in there quick!

Kind of shows how lacking London's been for good new musicals for a while...

Off to see Mozart Masterpieces at the Bridgewater Hall this afternoon. Highlight will be the Sull Aria from the Marriage of Figaro. It's the piece Andy Dufresne plays over the tannoy to the inmates in The Shawshank Redemption.

So lovely!

Man. Just seen that there's a Tangled stageshow starting on the Disney Cruise Line next week:



Three new Menken songs!

Don't understand why those shows don't eventually trickle down to the parks. No-one cares about a singalong Frozen, dammit

That Maximus is so creepy, though Why is the man not *inside* the horse?

Seeing The Book of Mormon this weekend. I don't know a lot about it other than Matt Stone and Trey Parker were involved with it so I'm just going to go along and hopefully enjoy it.

Jealous. I still need to figure out the best time to go see that. Let me know if it's any good! All I've seen of it is this:



"I believe that God has a plan for all of us
I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet
And I believe that the current president of the church, Thomas Morson, speaks directly to God
I'm a Mormon, dang it, and Mormons just believe"

Book of Mormon was incredible. Bloody hilarious but I think it's best to go in knowing as little add possible.

Favourite song? Probably "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream"

Blood Brothers today was strawberry floating incredible.

Only time I can go to the Opera at Christmas is sold out apart from tickets that cost £185.

#TreatYoSelf

Just got tickets in the sales for The Homecoming



Her from Humans and the Master. Excited!

Going to see Miss Saigon next Monday

Saw the Nutcracker performed by the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the weekend, was really good. Never seen a ballet before, and would be up to see others. Great set design too. Now to find a decent opera to see.

I'll be seeing that in a week or so Adore the first half The unfolding christmas tree is spectacular. Second half I've never been too keen on, though. It suffers with the total lack of narrative. Really want to see Copelia but I missed that this BRB season.

On the Opera front, I've got tickets to Tosca at the New Alex next year. Probably dreadful but we'll see...

Just on the way back from the Nutcracker! Had a dreadful family in front of us (the one girl kept throwing her head back and cracking it off my knee. You'd think she'd learn after the first three times, but nope )

Still, it's christmas now!

Had a few glitches towards the end of the first half (when the big branches of the christmas tree come down from the rafters they obviously didn't know when to stop so just kept bringing it down - crunch! ).

Second half is still dull as chuff though.

Tzu-Chao Chou was amazing as the nutcracker/prince, too. Usually male dancers land really heavily after every jump, but he was quieter than the girl playing Clara. Hope he gets more lead roles

In other news, tickets are here for the Homecoming. HYPE.

Also Julian Lloyd Webber was sitting down the row from us.

I was watching The Play That Goes Wrong on the Royal Variety Show last night and the lead man was like a blatant imitation of Basil Fawlty.

Saw The Homecoming yesterday:



It was weird. Lots of rather strange acting direction (at times Gemma Chan is pretty much indistinguishable from her character in Humans ) presumably to hint that all isn't as it seems in a rather on-the-nose fashion. Everything major seems to happen in the last few minutes.

It was good though. Almost tempted to try and get tickets for their next show (The Maids). No idea what it's about other than it's got Vod from Fresh Meat in and she's great

Decent enough theatre, too (Trafalgar Studios 1). The seats are hella raked so you get a decent view from pretty much anywhere. Legroom is fairly standard for a theatre (ie: there's not much), and the corridors to get to and from the auditorium are pretty congested (especially during the interval when the queue for the ladies clogs the entire corridor. Would be carnage in a fire).

Oh hey guys remember how I keep saying that everyone needs to watch Dogfight?

Now there's no excuse:



Best bits:
The intro and the first song (Some Kinda Time)
Dogfight and Pretty Funny
Hometown Hero's Ticker Tape Parade
First Date/Last Night but they skip the restaurant scene ("I'll have the.. strawberry floating poached salmon, with the son-of-a-bitching rice.." ), which is the best bit
The last ten minutes or so - It's heavy.

seeing this tomorrow night.
http://www.rncm.ac.uk/performance/icarus-at-the-edge-of-time/

Intriguing film scored by Phillip Glass with he BBC philharmonic playing it live. Should be cool. Saw Philip Glass last year - it was immense.

Been a busy few weeks. Two ballets, an opera, and a director/choreography workshop.

The opera was actually pretty good (Tosca - I get why they used it in Hitman now!) Glad we went for seats in the circle too, as the "surtitles" show up on a screen mounted to the very top of the archway around the stage, so it was still a bit out of sight for us. Obviously everyone in the stalls is fluent in Italian.

Having a big group outing with my amateur operatic society to see Kinky Boots in September! Ended up going for the front of the circle tickets because theatremonkey makes it sound like the rake is utterly dreadful there so it's either £57 for seats literally right at the back (so you'll miss the top of the stage and probably get someone's massive head in your way) or £72 for the front row.

Better be good now.

Still need to try and get tickets for Mrs Henderson Presents... Gonna get expensive...!

Got tickets to see Jurassic Park at the Royal Albert Hall with a full orchestra. It's in November but I'm already stupidly excited...

Wow, sounds amazing. I really want to go to one of those, I've seen Indiana Jones advertised but not Jurassic Park!

Edit - Just checked and there are a few tickets left, but only at the £2148.00 bracket.