Zorro!
Saw Zorro. Which is full of flamenco and swashbuckling and gypsies and is really funny. It is *fab*. Matt Rawle is once again playing rather disreputable louche and self-depreciating, Emma Williams is being sweet and funny and slightly more hot blooded in the second half as Luisa (first half, she suffers a bit from being earnest romantic female lead trying to get Diego interested in their plight, but second half she falls in with the gypsies, so all is well), Lesli Margarita as Inez (main gypsy, don't ask) is frankly awesome and is the utter master of the facial expression, the bloke playing Sergeant Garcia must be taken home and fed sweets and hugged and squeezed and called George, and Adam Levy was pretty good as the evil bloke. Nicely menacing, my only problem was he wasn't really the focus and got a bit cancelled out by everyone else. Plus, he didn't get any dance numbers. (which is...er... somewhat odd considering the role was created by Adam Cooper. But you could so see in the body language and prowling just who created the role.) Also, the company in this? Just as important as the main cast, since a lot of the big numbers are big flamenco pieces.
The flamenco is just.... ooooo. Lots of it. Plus a lot of the music is generated by stamping, or single guitar or acapella (occasionally the guitar being onstage). We fully approve of Gipsy Kings -written musicals. The stuff written for the musical is never quite as awesome as stuff like 'Bamboleo' apart from three or four of them, but still great fun. Begins with them setting off a flaming 'Z' and then straight into the flamenco and gypsies and Diego being a louche trickster. The 'I will fight for my people' stuff is entirely beside the point. It's just the framework to hang the cantina scenes and the flamenco and the magic tricks on. Plus anytime they reckoned it was getting a bit too serious, they'd chuck a joke in. Really fun - no-one taking themselves too seriously, especially the gypsies, Sergeant Garcia and Matt as Diego/Zorro. The...outfit he turns up in at one point and the bit where he's putting together the Zorro gear is hysterical. Plus some class one-liners (earrings. and sizes of candles. Don't ask.). It is essentially ridiculously feel-good and everyone was bouncing as they came out (the final bow is the entire cast singing and dancing bamboleo and djobi djaba with added standing ovation). GO. SEE.
Stage door stalking. Managed to stand in front of both Matt and Adam's moped and motorbikes, then they get swarmed by a bunch of little kids in the front rows of the stalls who loved it to pieces and were yelling 'It's a trap' during one bit and were squealing 'Zorro!' 'can I have your autograph, Zorro?' at the stage door (they adored Sergeant Garcia). Plus the actors did love them because they'd noticed them during the show. It's an effective plan. Matt's really lovely and still blinking a bit from coming out of the show (and has nice legs. we approve of the legs). Then the girl who was one of the main gypsies who's the co-leader of the dance group who adored the kids something chronic. Then we got Emma. Who is lovely and adorable and was still on a high and I think had her natural hair colour - I'd commented on this and she said that she's had a different hair colour each month this year. And it's so ridiculously hot due to the theatre, the dancing, the costumes (normally three layers) and the fact that she's wearing two massive wigs. Seven liters of water she went through that day alone. The entire cast is having way too much fun, they sold out their previews, it's *different*, it's been mostly full all nights, and this was one of the quieter performances since the audience wasn't calling out stuff during the show. Also, they're campaigning for a cd since 'hello, extra money!' and I told her that there should be some stuff up on youtube soon since the girl next to us was filming bits. 'On the one hand bad and no but on the other hand, ooo, I can show my gran.' We pointed out that it works as publicity and getting people to go. (hasn't turned up yet, only a couple of official promo clips're up so far) She also has no idea who sings 'the Man behind the Mask' that's on the site as jukebox and reckons it must be really old since they changed the words and workshopped a new arrangement when it got to her taking over the role (which took about 4 hours). And then the first drops of rain started and she was going 'Whee! Rain!'
*so* going again. You must all go. For it is FUN.
The Garrick has *no* air conditioning due to it being so old. Combine with yesterday being utterly boiling. Just glad I popped into the chinese tat shop before meeting Dario to get fans - they were in use through most of the production. Dario spotted one poor sod trying to fan himself with his tube map. :snicker: Added points for during the 'please turn off the recording devices' message 'and please open all sweets quietly'. Succumbed to t-shirt. The bloke complained about not having branded bags since they advertise the show, and reckoned that the big glossy brochure should turn up sometime soon.
Then Dario finally got me into Ciao's, the cafe across the road which has awesome icecream. And since I was still ridiculously giggly, I dragged Dario out to dance in the rain (fortunately still light and not the storm it was an hour or so later) while waiting for our orders where we faked tango and salsa and such with lots of spins and complained about the music spilling out of the bar next door not being right. So we just sang bamboleo as the accompaniment. And got applause and cheers from the smokers and passers-by. there were also cameras, so if you see any youtube of people dancing in the rain it'll be 'errrr... us?'