(no subject)
Today has got off to a good start with a piece of fantastic news from a friend <3 followed by me actually managing to tick a couple of things off my to-do list :D and so now I'm going to try and tick a few from my LJ-to-do list *g*
ACTUALLY FOREVER (over a month) AGO I was lucky enough to go to the Dress Circle Benefit which was a concert FILLED with performers I love singing songs I adore from all kinds of shows. Some things were well known & loved and some were new to me and generally it was a fantastic night (alright so there's still that little part of me that's dubious about a Benefit concert for a shop but let's leave that aside for a moment and concentrate on the awesomness of the event :-P
Dress Circle Benefit @ Her Majesty's Theatre
So as this was over a month ago (oops?) I'm basically going to go through the list of what happened (which I helpfully corrected to what ACTUALLY happened in my programme) & comment on what I remember. This is why it's important to write reviews ASAP *coughs*
Anyway we started with the Overture from Gypsy <3 I love a good overture and that's a GREAT one before heading into a musical I don't know at all- Witches of Eastwick. They did 3 songs from the show and I believe it was original cast performing them. Look At Me was probably my favourite of the songs but mostly I was coveting the women's dresses... *g*
After that we had some of the original Donmar cast performing 2 songs from Parade and OH STUART MATTHEW PRICE ILU ♥ and am even more convinced that he is a person you HAVE to see live because I like The Old Red Hills Of Home on his album but it's so much better in person.
Next we had a couple of Stiles & Drewe songs which Aled Jones introduced (he was the compere for the whole evening & very good) including asking who had seen/liked Betty Blue Eyes and it got the weirdest reaction :-| The songs they actually did were Aled singing Choir Boy which was written for him and HILARIOUS and then Daniel Boys singing They Don't Make Glass Slippers which is a gorgeous song but the worst I've ever seen him sing it (poor boy had travelled back from...? somewhere far away and hadn't even made the soundcheck so allowing for that it was pretty great but still he CAN do it beautifully)
Then we had Avenue Q ♥ Julie Atherton, Simon Lipkin & Jon Robyns (& puppets obv) singing I Wish I Could Go Back To College and having such a fantastic time :D Oh I miss that show...
*deep breath*
Next it was Rent and Jodie Jacobs & Debbie Kurup sang what might be my new favourite version of Take Me For What I Am followed by a complete musicals all-star cast singing Seasons of Love <3
Diane Pilkington then sang Someone Else's Story from Chess which is a song that always gets me a bit emotional <3 followed by John Addison & Anita-Louise Combe singing Too Much In Love To Care which is not the song I'd have picked from Sunset Boulevard. They were rather overshadowed though by what followed- Kim Criswell singing Memory from Cats (probably the show I'm saddest I've never seen)
Les Miserables was next and again A Heart Full of Love is a nice song and it was performed beautifully but there are so many better songs in that show :-P and then to finish act one? Defying Gravity from the current Wicked cast & Ashleigh Gray ♥
If I stopped there it would have been a pretty good evening but that's only halfway!
After the interval we had the Love Never Dies Entr'acte... I suppose given we were in the Phantom theatre they were inevitably going to use some of the show and better that than any of the songs :-P Thankfully it was then followed by actualy Phantom of the Opera songs :D Think of Me & All I Ask of You were good but then Ramin Karimloo came on to sing Music Of The Night and kind of blew everyone away (no surprise) and how does he do that and create that intensity when he's dressed in his own usual get up of jeans, t-shirt & waistcoat not the Phantom's costume! I honestly don't know but it was a real highlight!
Then we had the Night Waltz from A Little Night Music followed by Send In The Clowns which was meant to be Hannah Waddingham but mostly this year I am failing to see her so instead we had Helen Hobbs as a last minute replacement who did incredibly well bar a slight stumble over which verse she was on.
It never occurred to me to want to see Dreamgirls but having heard two songs from it now I sort of want to track down the soundtrack... they were good songs performed AMAZINGLY particularly the emotional intensity & passion of Landi Oshinowo singing And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going.
After that they jumped Ellen Greene singin Between from Betwixt forwards (for reasons that became clear later on!) I've failed to see the show sadly, it closes tonight, but the song didn't entirely grab me.
Alex Gaumond came next singing Lune from Notre Dame de Paris in FRENCH which was rather wonderful :D and possibly he hypnotised me because I honestly can't remember anything about the next song- Love Me For What I Am from In Trousers
Dougal Irvine & Laurence Mark Whythe had written a special song for the evening called The World Of The Show which they then performed- it was funny and cute but mostly THEY were funny and cute :-P
And then... *sighs at the memory* THEN Ellen Greene came back on stage and sang Somewhere That's Green! Just in case anyone doesn't get how INCREDIBLE that is please to me remembering that Ellen Greene was in the original Little Shop of Horrors AND the film. It was so weird seeing and hearing her perform it right there onstage and she got very emotional at the start when she stumbled over some words and then even MORE emotional at the end (I felt a bit sorry for the pianist accompanying her who was quite young and clearly a little uncertain of what to do). It really was a brilliant moment ♥
And how to continue after that? With Miss Saigon of course and Samantha Barks & Claire Moore sang I Still Believe but then basically everything was blown away by Peter Polycarpou and a really All-Star Male Chorus singing Bui Doi... I honestly don't have the words but hearing the original John sing that song almost makes up for the fact that it's ANOTHER musical I've never seen!
And then the grand finale, how on earth do you end something like this with a cast of thousands (well maybe 100 if you count the orchestra & backing chorus)?
Sunday from Sunday in the Park with George of course! They hadn't actually rehearsed it with everyone so a few people weren't singing but most were and it really is an amazing song when blasted like that <3 Plus it's probably the only time I'll ever see Puppets, the Avenue Q gang of course, singing Sondheim!
And that was that... quite an evening! Sorry it's taken me forever to write it up.
So I only have 5 6 (I can count!) more things to write up... might manage one more before I'm off to work this evening. IDK that I like this whole working on a Saturday thing *scowls*
ACTUALLY FOREVER (over a month) AGO I was lucky enough to go to the Dress Circle Benefit which was a concert FILLED with performers I love singing songs I adore from all kinds of shows. Some things were well known & loved and some were new to me and generally it was a fantastic night (alright so there's still that little part of me that's dubious about a Benefit concert for a shop but let's leave that aside for a moment and concentrate on the awesomness of the event :-P
Dress Circle Benefit @ Her Majesty's Theatre
So as this was over a month ago (oops?) I'm basically going to go through the list of what happened (which I helpfully corrected to what ACTUALLY happened in my programme) & comment on what I remember. This is why it's important to write reviews ASAP *coughs*
Anyway we started with the Overture from Gypsy <3 I love a good overture and that's a GREAT one before heading into a musical I don't know at all- Witches of Eastwick. They did 3 songs from the show and I believe it was original cast performing them. Look At Me was probably my favourite of the songs but mostly I was coveting the women's dresses... *g*
After that we had some of the original Donmar cast performing 2 songs from Parade and OH STUART MATTHEW PRICE ILU ♥ and am even more convinced that he is a person you HAVE to see live because I like The Old Red Hills Of Home on his album but it's so much better in person.
Next we had a couple of Stiles & Drewe songs which Aled Jones introduced (he was the compere for the whole evening & very good) including asking who had seen/liked Betty Blue Eyes and it got the weirdest reaction :-| The songs they actually did were Aled singing Choir Boy which was written for him and HILARIOUS and then Daniel Boys singing They Don't Make Glass Slippers which is a gorgeous song but the worst I've ever seen him sing it (poor boy had travelled back from...? somewhere far away and hadn't even made the soundcheck so allowing for that it was pretty great but still he CAN do it beautifully)
Then we had Avenue Q ♥ Julie Atherton, Simon Lipkin & Jon Robyns (& puppets obv) singing I Wish I Could Go Back To College and having such a fantastic time :D Oh I miss that show...
*deep breath*
Next it was Rent and Jodie Jacobs & Debbie Kurup sang what might be my new favourite version of Take Me For What I Am followed by a complete musicals all-star cast singing Seasons of Love <3
Diane Pilkington then sang Someone Else's Story from Chess which is a song that always gets me a bit emotional <3 followed by John Addison & Anita-Louise Combe singing Too Much In Love To Care which is not the song I'd have picked from Sunset Boulevard. They were rather overshadowed though by what followed- Kim Criswell singing Memory from Cats (probably the show I'm saddest I've never seen)
Les Miserables was next and again A Heart Full of Love is a nice song and it was performed beautifully but there are so many better songs in that show :-P and then to finish act one? Defying Gravity from the current Wicked cast & Ashleigh Gray ♥
If I stopped there it would have been a pretty good evening but that's only halfway!
After the interval we had the Love Never Dies Entr'acte... I suppose given we were in the Phantom theatre they were inevitably going to use some of the show and better that than any of the songs :-P Thankfully it was then followed by actualy Phantom of the Opera songs :D Think of Me & All I Ask of You were good but then Ramin Karimloo came on to sing Music Of The Night and kind of blew everyone away (no surprise) and how does he do that and create that intensity when he's dressed in his own usual get up of jeans, t-shirt & waistcoat not the Phantom's costume! I honestly don't know but it was a real highlight!
Then we had the Night Waltz from A Little Night Music followed by Send In The Clowns which was meant to be Hannah Waddingham but mostly this year I am failing to see her so instead we had Helen Hobbs as a last minute replacement who did incredibly well bar a slight stumble over which verse she was on.
It never occurred to me to want to see Dreamgirls but having heard two songs from it now I sort of want to track down the soundtrack... they were good songs performed AMAZINGLY particularly the emotional intensity & passion of Landi Oshinowo singing And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going.
After that they jumped Ellen Greene singin Between from Betwixt forwards (for reasons that became clear later on!) I've failed to see the show sadly, it closes tonight, but the song didn't entirely grab me.
Alex Gaumond came next singing Lune from Notre Dame de Paris in FRENCH which was rather wonderful :D and possibly he hypnotised me because I honestly can't remember anything about the next song- Love Me For What I Am from In Trousers
Dougal Irvine & Laurence Mark Whythe had written a special song for the evening called The World Of The Show which they then performed- it was funny and cute but mostly THEY were funny and cute :-P
And then... *sighs at the memory* THEN Ellen Greene came back on stage and sang Somewhere That's Green! Just in case anyone doesn't get how INCREDIBLE that is please to me remembering that Ellen Greene was in the original Little Shop of Horrors AND the film. It was so weird seeing and hearing her perform it right there onstage and she got very emotional at the start when she stumbled over some words and then even MORE emotional at the end (I felt a bit sorry for the pianist accompanying her who was quite young and clearly a little uncertain of what to do). It really was a brilliant moment ♥
And how to continue after that? With Miss Saigon of course and Samantha Barks & Claire Moore sang I Still Believe but then basically everything was blown away by Peter Polycarpou and a really All-Star Male Chorus singing Bui Doi... I honestly don't have the words but hearing the original John sing that song almost makes up for the fact that it's ANOTHER musical I've never seen!
And then the grand finale, how on earth do you end something like this with a cast of thousands (well maybe 100 if you count the orchestra & backing chorus)?
Sunday from Sunday in the Park with George of course! They hadn't actually rehearsed it with everyone so a few people weren't singing but most were and it really is an amazing song when blasted like that <3 Plus it's probably the only time I'll ever see Puppets, the Avenue Q gang of course, singing Sondheim!
And that was that... quite an evening! Sorry it's taken me forever to write it up.
So I only have 5 6 (I can count!) more things to write up... might manage one more before I'm off to work this evening. IDK that I like this whole working on a Saturday thing *scowls*