ahhh, i do love me a good musical. my love affair started with the sound of music as a child; i "grew up" watching dirty dancing and grease, later came hairspray and - i'm not ashamed to say, the high school musicals, and my love was only cemented with the introduction of tv's glee. obviously disney had a huge part to play in the beginning too; the lion king, the little mermaid, beauty and the beast, all films that kept my childhood full of theatrics and music - not to mention the wizard of oz, charlie and the chocolate factory, and... well, you get the picture.
the shows never came to adelaide when i was growing up, but i remember mum and i used to travel to melbourne or sydney whenever something really special was playing. i always loved dressing up in my best, buying the program, lining up with all the fancy ladies and gents... always super excited to get to my seat and see the stage set up with the tiny binoculars mum always packed from home. "going to the theatre" was always a treat; something we did once every few years, and something i always really looked forward to.
so naturally one of the highlights of moving to london was the possibility to be able to go to the theatre allthetime. i planned to see everything that was showing, and see them regularly. see the big ones, see the independents, see everything i could get my hands on. sadly, there is always the small matter of money to contend with, and this has slightly hindered my ability to actually do the thing.
so, when the editor over at official theatre got in touch with a spare set to last tuesday's showing of wicked, i naturally jumped at the chance. i have seen the show before, but a long time ago, and before i really knew what the show was about; after seeing it the first time i was a little disappointed in myself for not having the foresight to actually scrub up my lyrical knowledge prior to heading along, and as such, was keen to see it again.
i grabbed laura from work (another theatre nerd) and we headed down to victoria's apollo theatre for a night of sing-along fun. in my mind, all the shows play in the west end, so it was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle and head south for the night. we grabbed our tickets, ordered our drinks (pink wine), took our seats (excellent, of course), and waited for the show to begin.
over the course of the next two hours we laughed, we cried, we sang along and felt all the feels. the show was pure magic (pun intended), and definitely better than i remembered. maybe because this time i was more knowledgeable about the story, the songs, and how it all ties in with 'the wizard of oz' (having seen that show in the last year too also helped) story line.
if you haven'e had a chance to see the show that always tries defying gravityyyyy, then you absolutely should. you can pick up last chance tickets for almost all the shows at outlets like lastminute.com and other such reseller sites, and usually for less than twenty quid. honestly, a great time was had by all - and nice to be able to get home so easily from victoria afterwards too!
have you seen wicked? which is your favourite west end show?
