Life Update

Decided to post a bit of an update on here, as I haven’t posted in a while. Just so y’all can know what’s going on and why I’ve been updating my blog less sporadically. The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason is because I’ve been having to ration my ADHD meds. Here in the UK there’s a shortage, and those are the primary tool in my life for functioning as a human being and I’m not able to…

View On WordPress

Invisible Backpacks

Imagine youve spent your entire life, from the moment you’re born, carrying around an invisible 50kg backpack. You don’t realise it, of course, because it’s invisible. If you could see it, sure, you’d know what to do, but because it’s invisible you just assume that everyone is going through life with this thing weighing them down. And it kind of baffles you how they manage to get through it so…

View On WordPress

Musical Review - OPERATION MINCEMEAT

I’m going to write this review in two parts. The first will be a review of almost all of the show, excluding one particular scene. The second part will be about that one scene. Operation Mincemeat, for those who don’t know, is a musical based on the WW2 British military operation of the same name. In this the Allies deceived the Nazis by use of a dead body carrying falsified information,…

View On WordPress

Musical Review - OKLAHOMA!

Okay I’ll be honest before we get started – this show is the show that motivated me to get back writing this blog again. The reason I started writing it again the last time was because I didn’t have anyone to share my thoughts with; now I’ve seen a musical that I need to discuss with people and yet no-one seems to understand it in the same way I do so here I am again, resurrecting my blog so I…

View On WordPress

MASTERPOST

For those of you reading this blog for the first time, welcome! I’m a nerd who likes lots of things, including (but not limited to) musical theatre. This here is my masterpost of all the shows that I’ve seen live, with links and grades to each of the individual reviews. I’ve just done this because I haven’t yet figured out how to make a dropdown content menu on WordPress; when I do, I’ll give the…

View On WordPress

RE-REVIEWING

This is just a short post, as I’ve been having a challenging time reviewing shows recently. I find it hard to truly explore nuance in a simple rating/10, so I’m going to be trialling a new rating system. As such, I’m going to be re-rating all the shows I’ve rated so far using the new system, to help give an idea of how the system looks. It’s going to be based off of the UK school’s grading…

View On WordPress

Oklahoma & Dolls - Or, The Two Ways To Modernise Old Classics

In the last few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to see two shows in the West End that have had rave reviews. Both of them are revivals of classic musicals with which I am almost completely unfamiliar. And both of them are really freaking good! If the title didn’t give it away, they are of course Oklahoma! at the Wyndhams theatre, and Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre. I will, at some point, write…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - FROZEN

2022 Musical Review – FROZEN

I actually was a fan of Frozen when the film first came out. I went and saw it in the cinema (it was a big thing on Tumblr at the time), and I really enjoyed it! Heck, I even bought (and regularly listened to) the Deluxe edition of the soundtrack, with the cut songs and everything. Admittedly I did get tired of Let It Go eventually, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who got tired of hearing Let…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - HADESTOWN

2022 Musical Review – HADESTOWN

WARNING: This is a really long post. Probably the longest I’ll ever write, and DEFINITELY the longest I’ve ever written. We’re veering into dissertation territory here. I need to put this disclaimer here because this is 100% unfiltered unmasked ADHD Will talking about his hyperfocus. There’s more that I could say, but I want people to actually read the damn thing, so it’s just obscenely long,…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - MARY POPPINS

2022 Musical Review – MARY POPPINS

I wasn’t expecting to write this review. Genuinely, I knew Mary Poppins was leaving the West End in a few weeks (January 8th – 11 days from my viewing of it), and had no plans to see it for a few reasons. However, when your family surprises you with tickets as a Christmas treat for the family, you definitely don’t say no! Especially with the place that Mary Poppins holds in my heart. As a child,…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB

2022 Musical Review – CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB

Yet again this year, I saw a classic musical I’d never seen before and knew nothing about except one riff (“Life is a cabaret old chum, come to the cabaret”, of course). I’d heard it was revolutionary immersive theatre, I knew it cleaned up at the Olivier awards with Eddie Redmayne accepting a load of awards for it, but I also knew tickets were both incredibly expensive and hard to get. I wasn’t…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

2022 Musical Review – LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

Going to be honest here (am I ever not?) – I’m actually a relatively new musical theatre fan. Well, by most standards. I enjoyed films like Mary Poppins, Joseph, and High School Musical when I was a kid. As a teenager I discovered and loved Starkid. But overall I wasn’t that big a fan of classic musical theatre; although I had only had somewhat limited exposure to musical theatre as a whole. That…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - COME FROM AWAY

2022 Musical Review – COME FROM AWAY

Well, this is going to be an interesting one; my journey with Come From Away is continually surprising me! I first saw Come From Away in July, before they announced they were closing. I’d never seen the show before – I’d heard one of the songs my friend showed me (On The Bus) but I didn’t know any details, just a vague idea of the overarching concept/event. But I knew it was good, I knew it got…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - BEETLEJUICE

2022 Musical Review – BEETLEJUICE

On my 2nd day in New York I watched a show I knew almost nothing about, but had been recommended highly by two friends. When I say I knew nothing about it, I’d never even seen the film of the same name – I simply knew Beetlejuice was a stripy demon guy who appeared when you said his name 3 times. That’s it. I didn’t know the film was directed by Tim Burton as one of his earlier works. I didn’t…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - PARADISE SQUARE

2022 Musical Review – PARADISE SQUARE

I’m going to be honest, I’ve been dreading writing this review. Out of all of the musicals I saw this year, this was by far the worst. Admittedly, I didn’t think that at the time. I’d seen 3 musicals in the 2 years before seeing Paradise Square – Heathers (WE), Phantom (WE), Hex (WE), and the closest of those was a good 5 months before. I was a little out of practise, and I was also riding the…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - THE LION

2022 Musical Review – THE LION

I wasn’t expecting a small one-man show in the back of a pub to become my 3rd favourite musical of all time (behind only Company and Hadestown) when I went to go see The Lion at the Southwark Playhouse in June. I didn’t even know if it would be there for a good few months after, what with me seeing Beetlejuice a month later, and still loving The Lightning Thief. But that’s a testament to how…

View On WordPress

2022 Musical Review - Hex

2022 Musical Review – Hex

This is a little bit of a hard review to write, simply because I saw the show a good 10 months ago! Luckily, my ADHD memory is great when it comes to things I care about, so while this won’t be the most detailed review on here, it will be accurate nonetheless. Hex, for those who don’t know it (which will be most people), is a retelling of the classic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, with some key…

View On WordPress