April!

If I can’t use spring as an excuse to go and see lots of theatre, then I’m excuseless. April has been, unintentionally, a musical month (with one exception). I’ve been lucky enough to head to theatre land on four occasions already this month and I’m going to tell you all about it.

If the April showers are getting to you, I highly recommend you get yourself down to the Garrick to watch theatre legend Kenneth Branagh perform with the hilarious Rob Brydon in The Painkiller, one of Branagh’s many plays in his company’s year long stint at the Garrick. It’s funny, it’s slapstick, it’s silly and it’s everything you want all in 90 minutes and you’re back home by 10pm- what’s not to love!

The following day I was blessed with the most unbelievable performance by Glenn Close in her revival of the delicious diva Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Like Sweeny Todd, the ENO had brought in another Hollywood actor to perform a semi-staged production of one of the greatest musicals. The Coliseum was in its shining glory; a full house, selfies being taken and the rustle and bustle of sweet wrappers and the ‘ooooo’ and ‘aaaaaah’ ing when someone recognises an actor in the programme. From the moment we heard the beautiful 48 piece orchestra make a start on the dreamy, stringy overture, we all knew we were in for a good evening. We were in pure heaven, lulled into a musical coma by Lloyd Webbers genius compositions. For days I was memorised. You’d be a fool to miss this.

Next I saw Guys and Dolls at the Phoenix theatre. From the word ‘go’ this trip hadn’t been quite as successful. Arriving five minutes before show time and once I had caught my breath (I was sprinting…. promise) it came upon me and my friend that we were sitting in the heart of a noisy bunch of school kids who clearly didn’t want to be there. Once the show had started half the kids fell asleep and the others were making up for their pals’ lack of noise. The first act was disappointingly slow with serious distraction from our fellow audience members. determined that I wasn’t going to be distracted any further distractions I spoke to a girl selling ice creams in the interval  and suggested we should move. The second act was much better down in the stalls! I found that Musical numbers were limited, which was a shame, thought the never ending  ‘Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat’ was a winner in the second act, it was everything we wanted more of the in the first half.

And most recently, I was stunned, once again, by the extremely versatile and lovely Sheridan Smith as the plucky and out-going Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Savoy. It was a pure dream to see Sheridan Smith take centre stage with such ease and wit. No comparison could be made between herself and Barbara Streissand (who played the same character in the film) because she completely made it her own. Guffawing, pulling faces and mimicking were no rare thing, having the audience giggling away. Smith gave a 5 star performance, taking the audience with her on Fanny’s journey, we were laughing with her and crying with her. I have realised that you never see Sheridan Smith in any of her characters she plays, she makes everything her own and she’s going to be a star.