Recent gigs: Weyes Blood, Underworld and The King & I (?)

 One blog post, three contrasting nights out in the fair city of Bristol.

Night One: Weyes Blood at SWX ( 09/02/23 )

Night Two: Underworld at the Marble Factory ( 19/03/23 )

Night Three: The King & I at the Bristol Hippodrome ( 31/03/23 )

I'd first heard Natalie Mering aka Weyes Blood on one of those Best Of Year compilation CDs from either Mojo or Uncut magazine at the end of 2022. The song was It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody  -  a smoothly beautiful, queasy-listening song with a very '70s vibe and some strange undercurrents. When I heard Mering's In Holy Flux Tour was coming to Brizzle I immediately asked my good friend Tom if he'd be interested and he ( even more immediately ) snapped up a couple of tickets. Leaves fell from the trees, pages were ripped from calendars etc. and February rolled round, like it usually does, often soon after January. Tom picked me up and we headed off for an apparently uneventful trip to Bristol. I say "apparently" because he found out later that he'd fallen foul of Bristol's new Clean Air Zone and had to pay a whopping fine. Oops!

We found a handy parking spot, just near the site of the late, lamented Bristol Bierkeller, and joined the throng inside SWX. The support act was country / folk singer Sam Burton who specialises in an early-'70s-style, Laurel Canyon throwback sound, reminiscent of the likes of James Taylor or Al Stewart. He went down well with the audience but I found his songs a bit dull and his vocals monotonous. By contrast, Burton's co-vocalist / harmony vocalist, Lady Apple Tree ( aka Haylie Hostetter ) stepped up to sing her own single Didn't Want To Have To Do It and completely overshadowed him. One to watch.

 And then it was headliner time. Weyes Blood came out onto the stage with Natalie Mering looking positively angelic in a long white dress. The first song was the aforementioned It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody which seems, like much of her And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow album, to be about the pandemic or more precisely the post-pandemic experience. When Natalie sings, in her beautiful voice, we can all relate to the mixed-up emotions in this song: "Living in the wake of overwhelming changes / We've all become strangers / Even to ourselves"

And, what a voice! Her vocals have a deep, rich, mellifluous timbre and are perfectly enunciated. I did wonder if Mering could pull off the smooth sound and loooong notes of the first song but she did that perfectly and continued to do so for the rest of the set. The band, too, were excellent, hitting a very laid back FM radio/AOR groove which seemed appropriate on the day we heard the king of easy-listening, Mr. Burt Bacharach, had departed for that glitzy supper club in the sky.

More wonderful, baroque pop followed with Children Of The Empire and Something To Believe before a set highlight of the beatific God Turn Me Into A Flower ( Tom's favourite ) stunned us all with its ethereal otherworldliness. 

Alongside all this high-falutin' musical loveliness, Natalie Mering was also frank and funny in her repartee with the audience. Like most artists I've seen since the winding down of the pandemic, she talked about her happiness to be back out performing again and wittily acknowledged that she knows she talks in a goofy manner on stage and then plays melancholic, strange songs. Of course, that's fine with us. I've described her style as "Karen Carpenter singing a David Lynch movie" and I'll stand by that. After more fantastic songs massaged our ears  -  The Worst Is Done ( more pandemic comedown blues ), the almost-mainstream pop of Grapevine, and the crowd-pleasing Andromeda, Mering finished the set with the haunting Hearts Aglow... with her heart literally aglow:

Okay, it was some kind of prosthetic heart underneath her dress and my photo doesn't really do it justice, but it was a beautiful effect and was a perfect touch for a collection of songs so full of heart.

After a couple of encore songs she was gone like a spectre in the night but we all knew we'd just witnessed something very special.

Five weeks later, I was back in Bristol again, this time in a very different venue for a very different type of gig. I'm often guilty of hearing that a particular band is touring but not being quick enough in getting tickets. Not in this case. Once I'd heard legendary dance duo Underworld were playing the first night of their tour in good old Brizzle, I was straight on the case and snapped up two tickets. I'd wanted to see Underworld for years but they tend to mostly play festivals so I hadn't caught them before. The venue, The Marble Factory, was new to me so I was interested to give it a go.

Sarah and I found our way to one of the less well-known areas of Bristol which seems to be a wasteland of demolished factories and warehouses waiting to be renovated. On the plus side it meant there was free on-street parking but, give it a couple of years, and I'm sure gentrification will mean plebs like us won't be welcome. The Marble Factory itself is a very cool venue, a huge industrial slab of concrete and brick, formerly a skate-park ( very Bristol! ) but now an events space which hosts the club, Motion. It has a capacity of 1600 people and it was easily at capacity on that Sunday evening. I mean, it was rammed. You probably couldn't get a glow-stick between the bodies of the ravers down the front. Sarah and I wormed our way into the edge of the crowd and then Rick Smith and Karl Hyde came on stage to the burbling synth pulse of new song Gene Pool. Well, I assume they came on stage: we couldn't actually see them or really much of anything but the rapturous response from the crowd clued us in that something was indeed happening. As an opening number its spacey, hypnotic groove was a great start to the set, reminding me of The Chemical Brothers circa Surrender, with a hint of a melody from the Bunnymen's The Cutter occasionally surfacing.

From there on, the boys were off and running with a hugely welcome airing for the evergreen Juanita, which I'd been subjecting Sarah to on the drive down the M5. This was actually Juanita 2022, a slightly tweaked version of the original which had recently been released as two separate mixes, showing Underworld never rest on their laurels. In fact, nobody could rest that night as they pumped out one dancefloor banger after another. A monumental Mmm... Skyscraper, I Love You was followed by another new track, Denver Luna, a four-to-the-floor, ravetastic future classic, which had everyone bouncing.

We'd climbed up onto the balcony by this point where we had a slightly better view, even though Karl Hyde was still mostly obscured, as he spent a lot of time dancing behind Smith and his decks. The sound though was fantastic as we were in line with the PA and the music cut through the dry ice like a knife.

Actually, the dry ice and packed conditions were a bit too much for Sarah who ducked outside for a while after another couple of songs. I stayed inside but kept going out to check on her. It's often difficult at gigs when she feels overwhelmed by it all, especially when seeing bands she doesn't know too well. I found myself at the back of the hall by the mixing desks and actually got a half decent view by hanging off a rail (!) and somehow managed to groove along to a piledriving King Of Snake and the one!two! punch of Rez / Cowgirl. ( "Everything! Everything!" ) Sarah had luckily come back in at this point and was in time for the set-closing Born Slippy NUXX which was epic! It had been a cracking gig but I'd like to see them again and actually see them.

Our next trip to Bristol was last weekend when we went to the beautiful Hippodrome to see a performance of The King And I. ( Yes, this show was really for Sarah, but I was happy to go along. ) The 1956 movie version, starring the immortal pairing of Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, is one of Sarah's all-time favourite films, so this new production starring Helen George ( of Call The Midwife fame ) had a lot to live up to. After a drive down to Bristol in some torrential downpours we got to the Hippodrome and climbed up the mountainous stairs to the upper circle. The view was pretty good, considering how high up we were, but the bench seats were torturous. I've got a dodgy back at the moment ( the old, reoccurring lower back pain ) and this wasn't the best thing for it really. Oh, well!

The show itself was very good: the performances, costumes, sets and music were all excellent, as we'd expect from any show at the Hippodrome. Sarah loved it and was over the moon that it hadn't been a let down after her high expectations. To be honest, this kind of show isn't really my thing and I certainly don't have the attachment to the story that Sarah has, but I definitely enjoyed it, and was impressed with Helen George ( who has a fantastic singing voice ) and Darren Lee ( the King of Siam ) who exuded all the charm, authority and charisma the role demands. After the show we went for a late night pizza then headed back to our hotel. We were staying in the Marriott Royal which is a sumptuous Victorian hotel and was a lovely place to hang out in. After checking out the next morning we had a day in Bristol and, luckily, the weather was kinder to us. A good day. Here's Sarah, outside the hotel:

I just need to start booking more gigs now :-)

Spider-Man: Far From Home and other recent movies

So far this year my movie-going experiences have oscillated ( and that's a word I don't use enough! ) between MCU blockbusters and assorted classic re-releases. I'm just going to do a quick rundown in roughly reverse order, starting with super-hero shenanigans...

Spider-Man: Far From Home ( 2019 )
James and I saw this at our local Cineworld last weekend, and probably just in time too as the film is down to one showing a day now. We'd missed seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming at the cinema so really wanted to catch this sequel on the big screen, especially because there were scenes set in Venice, as the poster above demonstrates. After the huge, world-saving, time-travelling Endgame where everything was about the BIG STAKES, this movie was lighter and smaller scale but a lot of fun. Again going for the John Hughes teen-comedy vibe this took Peter Parker and his friends on a wild school trip around Europe, taking in beautiful Venice ( sigh! ), Prague, Berlin, somewhere unspecified in the Netherlands ( we knew that 'cos there were tulips and windmills on display ) and ending up in London. Some fine action sequences, Jake Gyllenhaal having a ball as anti-hero / villain Mysterio and some great performances from the young cast. I'm still uncomfortable with Peter being Tony Stark's bitch and not really his own man but this movie went some way to move the character onwards in the wake of *SPOILER* Stark's death in Endgame.
So, I'd rate this a solid Three and a Half out of Five Web-Shooters

The Matrix ( 1999 )
Sarah, James and I went to see this 20th anniversary re-release in Southampton while we were on holiday down in Hampshire. This was at the Showcase Deluxe cinema which boasts a 70 ft (!) screen which was perfect for a film like The Matrix in which you need to be totally immersed. For a film that is two decades old ( I still can't believe that! Surely it came out in about 2010? ) and has been almost constantly imitated ever since, The Matrix stands up really well. Apart from a few wobbly effects and some obviously outdated cultural references it's still a visually spectacular thrill-ride, with its cod-philosophy more integral to the plot than the endless navel-gazing in the sequels, and lots of fun to be had in the interactions between the lead actors. Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne are still impeccably cool, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano are hilariously slimy and Keanu is... well, he's Keanu. Playing a hacker-turned-action hero who seems to be simultaneously the smartest guy in the room and the dumbest dope on the block, the role of Thomas Anderson / Neo is absolutely perfect for the former Ted ( Theodore ) Logan. And, bizarrely, Keanu is of course an action hero again all these years later in the John Wick series. "Whoa!" indeed.

Avengers: Endgame ( 2019 ) ( SPOLERS! For anyone who hasn't etc. etc.)
What more can be said about The Most Successful Movie Ever Made TM? ( Until the next one, anyway. ) There's not much I can add except to say it was hugely entertaining, with the Russo brothers somehow managing to corral the immense cast, spectacular action scenes and emotional payoffs to this long-running MCU saga into a convincing, and mostly coherent, whole. After the intense setup of Infinity War this last chapter in the Thanos saga was surprisingly light and comedic, although the early scenes of post-"Snap" trauma were suitably anguished. Most of the characters received appropriate screen-time and were given fitting ends / next chapters in their stories. Chris Evans and Mark Ruffalo easily walked away with the acting honours... or hobbled away, in Cap's case... but it was also suitably sad, if inevitable, to see Robert Downey Jnr's Iron Man meeting his heroic downfall. ( Also, as Doctor Who fans, James and I both laughed when the concept of a "time heist" was unveiled but, of course, nobody else in the cinema did. )

Captain Marvel ( 2019 )
More super-hero action of the cosmic variety next with the latest iteration of Captain Marvel. It's certainly past time the MCU focused on a female hero and its previous applicants ( Black Widow, Scarlet Witch ) have never been strong enough characters to carry their own movie. Carol Danvers, on the other hand, former test pilot - turned - Kree warrior, is far more interesting and worthy to be Marvel's answer to DC's successful Wonder Woman. The film showed huge confidence by instantly plunging the viewers into the middle of the intergalactic Kree / Skrull conflict with very little hand-holding by the way of exposition. Brie Larson was the definition of "steely" as the good Captain, trying to discover the secrets of her past and to escape from the toxic shadow of Jude Law's Kree mentor Yonn-Rogg. Her scenes with Samuel Jackson's Nick Fury were a delight, their spiky, acerbic chemistry being the best parts of the film. Larson brought a subtlety to her character which many nay-sayers confused for blankness but I thought was refreshing after the often over the top stylings of many other super-hero actors. The action scenes were well handled and surprisingly not too gratuitous, while the 90s soundtrack was a blast. Hopefully, apart from her short appearance in Endgame, we won't have to wait too long for this gutsy, empowered hero to return.

A Clockwork Orange ( 1971 )
Another classic movie re-released, this time Kubrick's controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess' equally controversial dystopian novel. James and I saw this at Stroud's Vue cinema with only about a dozen other people. Maybe another Fast And Furious movie was out or something.Anyway, it was a lovely print of the film, lending extra clarity to Kubrick's eye-popping visuals and, as often when you see a familiar movie on the big screen for the first time, all the little details of the set design just sang out, enhancing the experience. I hadn't seen A Clockwork Orange for some time and I found "the old ultra-violence" to be as shocking as ever ( especially the sexual abuse scenes ) but I was surprised to recall just how much of a pitch-black comedy the film really is. From Malcolm McDowell's alternately charming and sneering performance, to all the typically Kubrickian grotesques that make up the supporting cast ( "P and M", Mr. Deltoid ) to the juxtaposition of horror and farce, this was a film that had you laughing at some "real horrorshow" situations, then feeling suitably uncomfortable that you'd found it so funny. Viddy well, O my brothers, viddy well...

A Matter Of Life And Death ( 1946 )
And finally, another re-release, in complete contrast to the last one  -  Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's romantic fantasy masterpiece A Matter Of Life And Death  -  or Stairway To Heaven if you're American. This has long been one of my and Sarah's favourite films and we jumped at the chance to see it on the big screen at the Cheltenham Playhouse, part of a season of "fantastic films". We dragged James along too and I think we converted him.
I should probably do a whole post on my love for this movie, and for P&P's other classic films, but I'll just state for now that it's one of the most beautiful, heart-felt, witty and wise films ever to be made in this country. The direction by Michael Powell and the cinematography by Jack Cardiff are absolutely perfect and the wonderful script by the Hungarian Emeric Pressburger is a total joy, masterfully capturing aspects of the British character as only an outsider could see them. The story of a WWII airman who jumps from his burning plane without a parachute but survives and then has to justify his life to a maybe-imaginary Heavenly court is a triumph  -   a sweet love story, wrapped up in a fantasy, underpinned by philosophical ideas and touching on darker themes of war and mental illness. There really isn't anything else like it. And the lead actors  -  a never-better David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring and Raymond Massey  - are all sublime. I have to admit, I've never watched the last scene of this movie without getting a bit misty-eyed... and I hope I never do.

Two nights in Bristol: Ash and Dylan Moran

A busy weekend, live events-wise, saw me taking two trips down to Brizzle ( that's how it's pronounced, honest! ) to catch two of the greatest exports from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland respectively: pop-rock-punk power trio Ash and wild-haired surrealist philosopher Dylan Moran.

The Ash gig on the Friday night was at SWX, a venue that was new to me, just around the corner from the former Bristol Bierkeller. None of my usual gig buddies were available for this one but, after a chance remark to my daughter Sophie that I was coming to her adopted home city of Bristol, she said she'd join in the fun. And here's a very grainy photo of the two of us at SWX...

The support came from Norwegian band Death By Unga Bunga ( and I thought I used to be in a band with the world's worst name! ) who played a knowingly over the top and quite camp brand of '70s / '80s metal. We only caught two or three songs but their performance was lots of fun  -  playing guitars behind their heads, breaking into a brief tribute to Thin Lizzy, the very macho looking drummer and bass player sharing an ostentatious mid-song snog...

And then it was time for those Ash boys. I've probably seen them live half a dozen time and they never disappoint. They started with the upbeat, poppy True Story from their recent album, Islands, and then motored straight into crowd-fave Kung Fu, unusually moved from its usual kick-ass place at the end of the set. And the crowd went wild. Well, sort of. The audience seemed quite reserved for Bristol ( which suited me in a way because we could get near the front and I didn't have to worry too much about Sophie being caught up in a mosh pit ) but they eventually warmed up. The fact Ash played such fizzing power-pop bangers as Oh Yeah, Shining Light and Cocoon certainly helped...

Of course, there's a romantic, sentimental side to Ash and the likes of Walking Barefoot, Incoming Waves and Annabel ( another great song from the new album! ) highlighted this dreamier quality, with all Tim Wheeler's classic, elemental pop song tropes of young love, moons and stars, tide and time coming to the fore. There was a fantastic segue from A Life Less Ordinary into Goldfinger, and then things got rockier as they blasted their way through the likes of Orpheus, Jesus Says and newly-minted sweary classic Buzzkill  -  waking up the sleepy Bristollians at last...

It was a cracking gig with the band clearly having a blast  -  the grins on their faces when they took their customary final bow saying it all. Although out of her usual live event comfort zone of musical theatre, Sophie enjoyed herself and it was lovely to share the evening with her. ( Although she seemed somewhat non-plussed when Ash broke into the Star Wars Cantina Theme ahead of Angel Interceptor. ) We went for a quick drink in Bristol afterwards and then I had to zoom back up the M5 to Gloucester to get some rest before heading back down to Bristol the next night...

...for the wonderful Dylan Moran! It had been many years since Sarah and I last saw Dylan  -  at Gloucester's Guildhall in those dark, pre-Blogger days  -  so we were well overdue to catch his act again. We're a whole family of Moran Fans, so James also came with us but, unfortunately, Sophie had a hen night to go to, so couldn't make it and was gutted. The gig was even at the Bristol Hippodrome where Sophie works so it was even more frustrating. Anyway, we turned up at the theatre, along with hundreds of other Moran Maniacs ( I think that's what we're probably called ) and proceeded to our box.

Yep, Sophie had reserved us three seats in a box, something we've never had at a theatre before. Although quite small it was fine for the three of us and gave us a pretty good view of the stage, as can be seen in the photo below. It was also good not to have to clamber over twenty other people whenever you needed to get to the bar / toilet. Plus it made us feel like royalty...

Dylan came on to the stage to some wild applause ( the place was pretty much sold out ) and said he'd have to mention Brexit, just to get it out of the way, you know. At the mention of that ridiculous omni-shambles most of us groaned but he proceeded to rip it apart and actually make us laugh about it. An early highlight of his set was his observation that Theresa May is the only person he's ever seen whose face appears to be backing slowly away from their body...

And then, politics done, Dylan went on to ramble in his own absurdly surreal way about his usual topics  -  growing up and growing old in Ireland, the lunacies of organised religion, and just being generally useless at everything. And apparently he's now given up the drink ( after being told to by a "12-year old" doctor ) which would explain the prominent tea-pot on stage instead of the former glasses of whisky. The main theme of the show ( named "Dr Cosmos" for some inexplicable reason ) was that of getting older and not understanding the world any more  -  but, to be fair, this is what he was talking about the last time we saw him, well over a decade ago. Dylan Moran ( or his stage persona at any rate ) is the kind of man who seems to have been born old and puzzled... which could be very sad but is actually hilarious. He mentioned at one point how we watch all those skincare and shower product adverts on TV, showing us those idealised, perfect bodies bathing in golden light  -  "When you know what you really look like is a pig in a typhoon. In a phone box. Having a panic attack." Similarly, on the subject of being told by a personal trainer that he needs to protect his core:
"Core? I don't even have a core! Everything's on the outside. It's your job to scaffold all this shit back in...!

And so it goes. Dylan's absurdist views on life, death and the cosmos had us all in stitches and maybe, just maybe, gave us a few things to think about too...

The Woman In Black

Last Monday night Sarah and I went to Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre to watch the stage production of The Woman In Black. I've wanted to see this show for years, well before the rather underwhelming Daniel Radcliffe movie brought the story into the public consciousness, so it was good to get a chance to visit Eel Marsh House, if only for one, haunted night.
This theatrical version of Susan Hill's novel is apparently the second longest-running non-musical in West End history, after The Mousetrap, and I was interested to see how they approached the adaptation. With just a two-man cast ( and possibly a random stage-hand as The Woman? ) how could they present the creaking old house, the fog-bound marshes and the crashing horse and carriage of this grim, Gothic story? Pretty well, actually...

( Spoilers ahead )
The story of course involves a young solicitor called Arthur Kipps who is sent to sort out the affairs of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, a reclusive old woman who lived in the neglected Eel Marsh House in a particularly desolate part of North-East England. Kipps finds that no-one from the neighbouring village of Crythin Gifford will talk about the old lady or go anywhere near the house. When he starts to work on the mountains of papers and correspondence that Drablow left behind, Kipps starts to experience strange noises in the house and out in the marshes, before eventually the Woman In Black herself appears  -  a vengeful spectre who haunts the gloomy landscapes and the tumbledown house. Soon the solitude and the disquieting events start to affect the mind of the homesick solicitor and it seems like the haunting may even follow him when he finally escapes from Eel Marsh House...

This adaptation takes the form of actors rehearsing, and then living out, a play.The elderly Arthur Kipps, still haunted by the events at Eel Marsh house decades before, enlists an unnamed Actor to help him tell his story, in the hopes that this will exorcise the memories and ghosts. The Actor in turn urges Kipps to take part in the play  -  he will play Kipps and Kipps himself will play all the other characters  -  something Kipps is at first reluctant to do and frequently stumbles over his lines before gaining confidence in the telling.
We found this initial setting up of the story at times almost painfully slow as there is much backwards and forwards between the Actor and Kipps over his inability to act. After a while we were whispering to ourselves "Yes, we get it  -  get on with the story"... and I don't think we were alone: the woman sitting next to me actually fell asleep...
When the story finally got going it became more enjoyable as the cast made ingenious use of the intentionally limited stage set and props. The Actor urged the audience to use their imaginations to conjure up the scenes and, aided by some brilliantly designed lighting and sound effects, we were transported to that fog-enshrouded old house at the end of a submerged causeway. At times the stage was plunged into almost total darkness with only lamplight to illuminate the scene... and maybe a ghostly, white face hanging suspended behind the actors...

( I'm cheating slightly here as this image is from the movie, or possibly its sequel, but who saw that anyway? )
The moments when the ghost appeared were certainly effective although mostly heavily signposted, the best and creepiest being the times when she would slowly appear in the background as little more than a moving shadow, unobserved by the main characters. We were seated up in the Circle so at quite a remove from the action and probably didn't benefit from the full impact of the SHOCK! moments. The ground-level seats were mostly taken up by school kids and students ( studying the play at college, I guess ) who screamed their heads off whenever the ghost appeared. We heard the actors talking in the bar afterwards and they loved the fact that the play had such an impact on the kids.
And, yes, the actors did a wonderful job in conveying such a story while working with such minimal aids, particularly David Acton who played Kipps and all the secondary characters. He really convinced as a man haunted by his past who finds the confidence to tell his story on stage. The Actor himself, Matthew Spencer, had a far more showy, necessarily "luvvie" kind of role and also excelled as an actor who found himself literally recreating the hauntings. Both were very impressive and helped rescue the early, stodgy scenes. So, all in all, not quite the scare-fest we'd expected but good fun and well worth seeing. It was also great to be in the lovely Everyman Theatre, a beautiful building which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year:

Nights at the theatre

I've never been a regular theatre-goer but, because our daughter Sophie has been training for a career in musical theatre, we've spent some time sampling the ubiquitous smell of the greasepaint and roar of the crowd in recent years. Prior to that my only theatre experiences have been limited to a few pantomimes, school trips to Shakespeare plays, two performances of The Rocky Horror Show and falling asleep during Cats. Last year we saw Sophie's dance school The Big Act do a very brief performance at the Bristol Hippodrome  as part of the city's Cary Grant Centenary celebrations. Since then she's also appeared in two Big Act shows at Bristol's Alma Tavern and one at Bath's Rondo Theatre. ( Wow! I've gone link-crazy in this post! ) The Bath show was particularly impressive  -  an off-Broadway musical called I Love You Because...  -  a New York-set comedy of relationships with some cracking tunes, which showed off Sophie's talents really well, especially when she brought the house down with the funniest ( and rudest! ) line in the script.
All this was a prelude to the grand finale of her year with The Big Act, a performance of the Queen musical We Will Rock You at the Hippodrome. This charity performance, in aid of The Mercury Phoenix Trust, was produced after only 48 hours' rehearsal, a huge challenge for the cast who are used to weeks and weeks of rehearsals for most other shows. In support of this show The Big Act also performed a half-hour showcase of song and dance, which Sophie also choreographed. No pressure! :-)

( That's Sophie at the bottom right of the above photo with her fellow Big Act students Joe, Edd and Jess. )
To add a little offstage drama, Sophie suffered an injury whilst rehearsing and ended up in A&E the night before the show, and was advised by doctors not to dance. Did that stop her? Hell no!
( "Determined" is her middle name. Well, only metaphorically speaking... actually it's "Jasmine". )
The show itself was a great success, with a packed-out Hippodrome watching over 100 local performers singing, dancing and acting their socks off. Although I'm not a great fan of musical theatre, I thought We Will Rock You was fantastic -  a little cheesy but great fun, with the added bonus of all those wonderful Queen songs and Ben Elton's often very funny script. The principal cast were all excellent. It's hard to believe they weren't professionals! They all gave 100% and more than earned the standing ovation they received. For Sophie and her friends it was a dream come true to perform on the famous Hippodrome stage and a fitting end to their time with The Big Act. Now the big, wide world beckons!
Below are Sophie and co. at their very last ballet lesson:

Also on the subject of musicals, I meant to write a post last year about another show we went to, but never got round to doing it. ( Like so many other things...) This was a trip last March with our friends Helen and Shaun to Cheltenham's Everyman Theatre to see Fiddler On The Roof, starring the legendary Paul Michael Glaser. The actor that I will forever think of as Starsky was returning to the story he starred in way back in 1971, when he had played the student Perchik in the Norman Jewison movie version. This time around, however, the 70-year old was of an age to portray the iconic milkman ( there can't be many of those ), the  long-suffering patriarch Tevye.

This version of Fiddler was an absolute triumph with a highly-talented cast playing multiple roles, singing, dancing and playing instruments, all with passion and enthusiasm. The cast even shifted the intricate, multi-purpose sets themselves! Glaser was fantastic as Reb Tevye, the hard working man trying to keep his family together amid various disasters, but always retaining his sly wit and keeping up his humorous ( one-sided ) dialogues with God. Full of a startling energy for a man of his age, with a strong singing voice and charisma virtually oozing out of every pore, Paul Michael Glaser was a pleasure to watch and his performance certainly stands up against the definitive take by the great Topol. ( Interestingly, Topol was only in his thirties when he starred in the film but was made up to look older. ) It was a lovely night out with some good friends. What more could you want?
OK, so I'll never be a "luvvie" but, every now and then, a trip to the theatre can be something special.
L'chaim! To life!