Theatre Trip!

If you only want to know one thing about me, let it be this - I love musicals! Apart from really niche musicals like The Rock Horror Show I'd say I pretty much like every musical ever made. From really serious ones like Les Miserables and Sweeney Todd to the traditional well-hated The Sound of Music to the modern ones like Wicked and Billy Elliot, I love them all! I don't think I could pick a favourite, I like them all for different reasons. I used to dance a lot before my health stopped me so I love a good musical with lots of dancing in but as long as the songs are good and the story isn't too loosely put together I'll enjoy. Yes, I'm one of those people who not-so-secretly really enjoyed Mamma Mia.

So when I heard Singin' in The Rain was on at the Bristol Hippodrome, I was pretty keen to see it. We got tickets two days in advance and managed to get a seat on the aisle close to the disabled toilet. Only trouble with that was, I spent the interval getting up and down for everyone to pass me. I can usually get away with putting my legs to the side but there were a lot of old people who were struggling so I had to keep standing up. Obviously I don't look disabled so I feel like it looks really rude not to get out of the way properly for the elderly. I digress! 

If you haven't seen the film (firstly, why not?) it's about the change from the silent film era to the era of the talkies and follows an actor at a big studio as they struggle to create a talkie film with an actress who has the most annoying voice you can imagine. It's a comedy with lots of dancing and huge musical numbers. The songs were written first and the story was made to fit around it so as storyline goes it's a bit loosely put together but the music is what makes it. It's funny and makes fun of itself, which is really refreshing. I studied Classical Hollywood at university but I'll spare you a long essay about this film. It's good - go watch it (unless you hate musicals, in that case it will be your worst nightmare). 

You really need a good cast to pull off the acting, comedy, singing and dancing and the show had just that. The female lead had a singing voice like velvet and all the dancing was amazing. They had real rain on the stage and the sets were brilliant considering that this is a touring production. It was true to the film but they had cut down on the weird dream sequence that looks like it dropped out of another musical, so it held it's pace better than the film. It was a great feel good watch and we were all singing on the way home!