Dear Evan Hansen at New Wimbledon Theatre

When Dear Evan Hansen first hit the London stage a few years ago I heard good things about it and when this tour was announced late in 2023 the promotional blurb explained that it was "THE OLIVIER, TONY and GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING BEST MUSICAL". That attracted my attention.

My ATG+ membership gave me a great deal on the first night at New Wimbledon Theatre so in November 23 I paid just £29 for my seat Dress Circle A17. Friends and relatives were also tempted by the deal and I took bought the maximum four tickets allowed.

When we arrived at the theatre, just after 7pm, and joined the messy series of queues to get in we saw the "House Full" signs which boosted out expectations for the evening even further. Full of hope we took our excellent seats in the best part of the house and waited for the show to start.

I hated it. We all did.

The story was vaguely interesting and the set was very good, particularly the scene changes, but the characters were superficial, the music was  bland, all the songs sounded the same and the singing was only competent.

I struggle to find anything positive to say about it, other than it was better than Six.

Bat out of Hell at Peacock Theatre

Just because I go to places like Glyndebourne does not mean that I avoid more overtly commercial shows and Bat out of Hell at a lot to recommend it. I bought, and liked, the album when it first came out and this production had the cache of the Sadler's Wells brand which implied some respectable dancing.

Peacock Theatre, Sadler's Wells' young mischievous sibling, is pretty well hidden on Kingsway and is one of those confusing theatres where you enter at ground level and go downstairs to the auditorium. In my case it was only as far down as Dress Circle Row A to Seat 30 for which I had paid £55 

Bat out of Hell is what is now called a Jukebox Musical in that the songs are all popular songs put into a musical rather than songs written specifically for that musical; they story is built around the songs.

Obviously that restricts the story but Bat out of Hell does pretty well in crafting a story out of bombastic lyrics. There is a fairly predictable boy meets girl from the other side of the tracks story at the centre and this is nicely enriched with another two love stories.

A consequence of having several leading characters is that the singing duties are spread fairly widely and that was a good thing as that provided some welcome variety and also they could all sing pretty well.

There was lots of pretty good dancing too. It was all ensemble dancing with a lot of different movement going on across the stage.

And then there were the songs. In some way going for such a limited source of material but it was a fair source and the production did a good job in spreading the more famous ones throughout the show, ending with a raucous rendition of "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" during which all the plot threads were neatly closed.

Bat out of Hell is still not really my sort of show but just once in a while it is good to see something light, exuberant and fun, and it certainly was.

Blitz! at Union Theatre was joyous

I do not need an excuse to see a musical at Union Theatre having seen so many good ones there and my only problem is finding the time to do so. Blitz! was always on my radar and a visit from my sister (to visit Kew Gardens) was the spur to pick this evening and I dutifully bought three tickets at £22 each.

It was a change in personnel but the same plan; meet in the theatre cafe for a coffee while waiting for the box office to open, secure tickets in Group 1, go to Culture Grub to eat then back in time for the opening of the theatre and to claim seats in the centre of the front row.

All I knew about Blitz! was that it was by Lionel Bart, which was both a recommendation and more than I knew about other shows I have seen.

The first scene hit the ground running with most of the cast on stage singing as they sheltered from an air raid in an underground station. I almost always like songs with lots of singers and I certainly liked this one.

b.t.w. another play that I have seen, The Shelter, told the story of how Churchill was forced to allow working class people to have shelter.

The main story, possibly taking from Romeo and Juliet, was about two local families who argued constantly but two of the children fall in love with each other. A simple but effective premise.

A second theme was about another son who had gone into the army and was home for a few days before going abroad. He was a bit of a jack-the-lad and fell in with some bad people.

The blitz was the other main character in the story interrupting and destroying lives and giving the cast plenty of opportunities to sing anti-Hitler songs.

Having sent the scene quickly and successfully the musical moved forward joyously with plenty to enjoy in the story, the music and the performances. There was quite a large cast and they were called on to do a lot of dancing as well as singing. The movement was superb throughout, as was every aspect of this production. That was hardly surprising given that Phil Willmott's name is on the poster and I know from many past experiences that he creates great shows.

Jessica Martin, as the matriarch Mrs Blitztein, was the star of the show and lived up to that billing. She was more than ably supported by more people than it is possible to mention here. There were many characters in the play telling many little stories and they were all told with flair.

I had expected to enjoy Blitz!, mainly because of the various people involved in it, but it far exceeded my reasonably high expectations. It was simply joyous.

Lovebites at White Bear Theatre was pure gold

White Bear Theatre is one of my nearest theatres and thanks to its inventive and varied programming it is one of the ones that I go to most regularly. I had not seen a musical there before and it took the suggestion of something “hilarious and heartbreaking” to make me want to see Lovebites. At £16 there was no further discussion required.

The hard part proved to be getting there. Despite putting it my calendar correctly as a 7pm start I then forgot this and allowed myself to attend a work meeting that did not finish until 6pm (on a Friday!). Some panicking followed but thanks to some seriously brisk walking from Vauxhall station I got to the theatre with seconds to spare.

I called Lovebites a musical and while that is true it also called itself a song cycle which is more true. Lovebites told the story of several relationships in a series of songs; there was one song for each relationship showing how it started and another after the interval showing how it ended. There were no spoken words.

The many parts were played by a cast of just four, two men and two women, supported by a lone pianist. A small platform from which some lovely stories flourished.

There was a good mix to the stories too; a young woman pretended to be into rock climbing to be with a man she fancied only to confess to us that she could barely walk, two young men met at a book club, a film star hooked up with an air stewardess on a flight, a man fell in love with a woman on the day she married his boss, one woman bought a flower for the woman who owned the flower shop, and a woman did something deeply embarrassing after a one-night stand that she wanted to build on.

After the interval some of the relationships flourished, some faded, some died, one had a surprise happy ending and another had a very surprising happy ending. The stories were varied in tone and the "hilarious and heartbreaking" clam was easily justified. I would also add "charming" for the stories that ended somewhere between those two extremes and "realistic" too as these were very human stories not rom-com fantasies.

All of the songs worked well both as vehicles to tell the stories and as works of music in their own right.

Lovebites was an unusual and unexpected show that delighted me in everything that it did. It was pure gold.

Carmen 1808 at Union Theatre was a bold experiment that really worked

Carmen is probably my favourite opera, it ought to be given the number of times that I have seen it, so I was always going to be interested in seeing Carmen 1808 at Union Theatre, particularly as it was at Union Theatre where I had seen so many excellent musical shows and it was by The Phil Willmott Company of which the same is true.

There was only one date in the run that I could make which made the decision easier and I duly booked myself a place for 13 February for £22.5.

The evening did not get off to a good start and a late running meeting meant that I missed the usual 5:43 train from Teddington which would have got me there spot on 6:30 when the box office opened. Instead I caught a train soon after 6pm and got there at 6:45pm. That put me in the third batch for entry, the first time ever that I had not been in the first.

Then my luck changed and despite my late admittance to the theatre I was still able to claim a place in the front row.

The first thing that struck me was the similarity to the stage design for Heartbreak House, which was understandable as it was in the same season. There were differences but the basic design of a raised section in the middle and steps up on both sides was the same.

Carmen 1808 was billed as a musical rather than an opera and running at ninety minutes straight through it was considerably shorter than the opera so I had no real idea what to expect. Admittedly I could have read the details online beforehand but doing that is almost cheating.

I am sure that there is a word for this that I do not know but Carmen 1808 was a companion piece to Carmen sharing some of the characters, locations,  themes and songs but it was also had a very different plot. More than a homage but less than a remake. Somebody should do a Venn Diagram.

The main story was about Napoleon's victory over Spain and the efforts of the resistance. Alongside that we still had the love triangle/square/pentagram between Carmen, a soldier, a woman from his past and Carmen's other lovers. There were several other elements from the original Carmen, like the reading of the cards. All nice to see if you knew Carmen but also understandable if it was new to you.

The music followed the same plan, some songs were copied and changed along the way. Toreador had to be in there and it appear as a song about swearing allegiance to the Spanish flag. There was no toreador.

The singing was more musical than opera with many pieces using the whole cast and there were fewer solo pieces. Toreador was an example of this, in the opera just the toreador sings the song but here it was everybody. There were some solos though and the painter/narrator was the star here.

One thing that worked very well was using the overture as a big dance number to open the show and to reprise it at the end. I also loved the comic song that was inserted along the way. This was the one time that the French featured and they told us in song just how good they were. The song produced my favourite line of the night, "Did we mensh, we are French?".

Carmen 1808 was a nice mix of a dark story, France's subjugation of Spain, with the light human foibles that drive so much of life, particularly when there are people like Carmen around. And being a new story I was keen to see how it ended. I was engrossed.

The concept of changing something as familiar as Carmen into a musical and playing around with it so much may sound sacrilegious but it really worked and I had a lot of fun watching it unfold in front of me.

More Follies at National Theatre

It was not my idea for the company I work for to go to Follies for our Christmas treat but it was a good one and I was quick to accept my place despite, or because of, seeing it already.

This time I was up in the Circle, seat C65, and I chose the photo below as it is more or less the view I had. It was a great view and it was nice to see it from a completely different angle.

It was a strange experience seeing it again. I knew the story this time and that took some of the edge off. On the other hand I knew some of the songs and that gave me a chance to pay more attention to the lyrics. I also knew how the production was structured, with each character having a younger version of themselves, and could look out for this from the beginning.

The impact of the production was just as impressive the second time and I noticed quite a few little touches that I had missed the first time, partially because of the different view that I had and partially because there were just so many little touches to see.

In September I wrote, "The story and music of Follies were good enough, if nothing special, and everything else about the production was excellent. Follies tried hard to be a spectacle and it succeeded.", and I stand by that.

Follies at National Theatre was a great production of an average musical

The attraction of Follies was obvious, it had Imelda Staunton in it. It also helped that it was written by Stephen Sondheim. The final clincher was that it was on at National Theatre which is comfortable, convenient and cheap (compared to the West End). I was keen to see it.

So were lots of other people and I had to rely on a friend's help to get tickets. She was a member of NT and was able to get tickets before they went on general sale. Thanks Julie!

Heavy demand meant little choice of seats and I was very happy to pay £41 for Stalls H2. The Olivier Theatre has an odd shape with wings on either side of the stalls and I was in one of those. Despite being almost at the edge the view was very good, the curved shape of the stage helped as did the slightly elevated position.

Follies was a simple tale of two young women and men who met at Follies and got married. Several years later they all met again at a reunion and they both revisited the early days and considered their current situations. The relationships between the four had been "it's complicated" when they met and had stayed that way.

Possibly the most successful part of the production was the way that different actors were used to represent the characters then and now with both generations often on stage at the same time as a story starting in the present moved to the past.

The stage performed wonders in keeping the flow of the story while conjuring different scenes from different times. Key to this was the way that it rotated, which also helped those of us in the wings to see the action clearly.

The Sondheim music was much as expected and the lyrics were more so. Perhaps I had not listened to them so carefully before or perhaps they were just delivered better this time but I was hit by line after line of striking prose with phrases like "I should have gone to an acting school. That seems clear" and "Constantinople has Turkish baths, And Athens that lovely debris.".

Delivering the clever lines was an excellent cast. Follies spread the singing duties widely and no one person dominating. Of course most eyes were on Imelda Staunton, and she shouldered that responsibility with ease, but the singing and acting were universally good and there were several stand-out moments that did not involve the central four characters.

The story and music of Follies were good enough, if nothing special, and everything else about the production was excellent. Follies tried hard to be a spectacle and it succeeded.

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story at Grimeborn did thrill me

The premise of Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story, child killers, may not be an obvious one for a musical (that is more opera territory) but it intrigued me and the promise of a "multi-award-winning, five-star production" was enough to get me to find £30 for seat G16 in the first row of the Balcony.

I would have gone for a decent seat downstairs but other people were as attracted to the show as I was and my favourite seats there had gone by the time that I was organised enough to buy tickets so I thought I would try the Balcony. I may have been up there before but only once and that would have been quite a while ago.

The seat was OK though there was a slight disadvantage in having a safety rail (I would rather see than be safe!) and a bigger one in not being allowed to take drinks up there. I will try and be faster off the mark in future to get a downstairs seat but the Balcony is a fair alternative.

I had not done much (i.e. any) research before hand so the minimalist production was a pleasant surprise. There were just two players, Harry Downes and Ellis Dackombe who were Leopold and Loeb funnily enough, and just one musician, a pianist.

The story started in the 1920's as the music reflected that with an easy-listening lounge style. Not usually my sort of music but it worked very well here and the music was a strength of the performance.

We met Leopold and Loeb just after they left High School. They had been very close friends and were almost lovers, though the partnership was very unequal with one of them universally popular and outgoing and the other shy and a loner. They were both rich and looking for thrills. They committed petty crimes just for the excitement. Things developed badly from there.

The story was important but more important was the evolving relationship between the two young men and that was portrayed sensitively and intelligently. The singing was spot-on too emphasising the changing emotions expertly. It was pure joy to watch and to listen to.

The set was simple but clever too with, for example, a car conjured from a few pieces of wood. Beds and desks came and went quickly too and that nicely maintained the pace and, through that, the emotional connection with the young men and their situation.

 Thrill Me was a sumptuous production all round and it did indeed thrill me.

Bob Dylan shines in Girl from the North Country at Old Vic

It took quite a lot to get me to see this as, apart from the promise of some Bob Dylan music, nothing about it appealed to me. It sounded bland and I do not like bland.

Then the good reviews flooded in and that was still not enough. Finally a friend said it was so good she was considering going again and that forced me to consider it. I was lucky and was able to get a single seat on its own, A30, in the front row of the Lillian Baylis Circle (my usual place) for a not to be argued over £21. I got a safety rail in front of me for that but I knew from previous experience that I could live with that.

I was still not sure what to expect, which is how I like it, and I settled into my seat with no preconceptions.

I think Girl from the North Country was a musical. There was certainly plenty of music in it but little (if any) of it seemed to be directly related to the story. This was not just an excuse to play some greatest hits either and I did not recognise most of the songs despite owning, and playing, several Dylan albums.

The songs were the highlight of the show and all were delivered with energy and panache. The singing roles were shared widely and successfully, leading to much clapping after every song, just like at a more obvious musical. Those not singing the lead in a particular song were usually dancing, providing some backing vocal, playing instruments or some combination there of. These were long songs too and they filled the performance with their exuberance and, thanks to Dylan's Nobel Prize winning lyrics, intelligent wit.

The songs led the way and the story flowed around them. It flowed nicely too. The simple premise, a guest house, allowed us to follow the fortunes of many people who lived, worked or stayed there. These were generally unsetting stories which was not surprising given that this was set in 1934, just a few years after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 when America was wallowing in the Great Depression. There were tales of love and humour in the mix but there were more about despair and unhappiness.

Girl from the North Country (I never did work out why it was called that) was an undoubted success and an affirmation of humanity and it's ability to survive large setbacks. The large cast was excellent and deserved all the cheers they got but the undoubted star of the show was Robert Zimmerman.

The Hired Man at Union Theatre was beautiful

The Hired Man was one of those easy choices. I had seen three Howard Goodall musicals at Union Theatre a couple of years ago and loved them all and that was more than enough to get me back there for a fourth helping.

Having the story based on a book by Melvyn Bragg only made it more attractive.

A bargain at £22.50.

Normally a trip to a theatre in that area (there are four that I go to fairly regularly) means eating at Culture Grub first but they were closed for refurbishment so that meant looking for a Plan B. That was an easy too and I stayed in the theatre cafe and had a halloumi wrap with some interesting accompaniments and, er, chips.

My usual good planning got me a top ten ticket which got me in the first batch of people let into the theatre and that got me a middle seat in the front row in what proved to be a full house, they even brought a couple of chairs through from the bar.

The Hired Man told us the story of a casual agricultural worker, his two brothers and their friends and lovers in the early part of the twentieth century. They were people at the bottom of the economic tree, the sort of people Thomas Hardy also wrote about, and their lives were never settled, never comfortable. There were plenty of moments of happiness, times spent with lovers, time at the races and drinks with friends in the pub but there was also the discomfort and danger of working in the pits and the even worse discomfort and danger of the trenches in the Great War.

It was a grim story that was, somehow, never bleak.

Holding everything together was the music which did everything that I hoped it would do from my previous experiences of Goodall's work. The mood and the structure kept changing with soloists, diets, trios and choruses providing different soundscapes while some themes were repeated to make new tunes sound familiar. There was clearly a Goodall approach at work here and I felt he could write musicals in the way that other people write episodes of The Archers and they would all be good.

Sitting in the front row proved to be a good choice and I felt totally immersed in the story. That story gripped me because I did not know it, it was not obvious where it was going and there was always something interesting going on.

There was a lot of activity too with the large cast dancing quite a bit and generally moving around a lot. It was an ensemble performance and everybody played their part well.

With story by Melvyn Bragg and music by Howard Goodall my exceptions were clearly set and The Hired Man sounded exactly like that. It was beautiful (and grim!).

Thoroughly Modern Millie at New Wimbledon Theatre was thoroughly entertaining

I was obviously aware of the Julie Andrews' film Thoroughly Modern Millie but I never saw it. Likewise I was aware of Strictly but had never seen that either. Despite that I was drawn to their coming together at New Wimbledon Theatre and was drawn enough to pay £44 for a premium seat, Dress Circle Row A Seat 18.

My plan was not to have a drink beforehand because I remembered just how expensive they are there but my resolve melted when I saw the large bottles of Budvar (i.e. the Czech version of the otherwise undrinkable Budweiser). I was either charged a lot for the tap water that I had with it or that pint cost me over £8. Still, it was a good pint.

It was just going in to find my seat that I asked one of the staff what the running time was and was a little surprised, and worried, to hear that it was the best part of three hours with a first half lasting 80 minutes, a decent interval and then a second half of another 60 minutes. That is not a lot longer than the usual two hours plus interval but my attention can drift in the first half and 80 minutes is a long time to struggle with a slow show.

The seat proved to be a good one with a fine view, no problems with safety rails and a decent amount of legroom.

The show opened with Millie arriving in New York from Kansas seeking bright lights and excitement. She sang the only song I knew from the show, the title song, which helped to warm the crowd up.

Then she was robbed and lost everything and, in separation, tripped up a passing man to try and get some help. Through him she found some lodgings for young actresses which was also the front for a white-slave operation led by the boarding house's owner Mrs Meers. Things got better for Millie as she got a job as a stenographer (remember shorthand?) and started to make a play for her rich boss.

The story had lots of elements to it and while some of the main threads were obvious, as they should be in a Rom Com, there was plenty in the story to keep me engaged.

At the centre of it all, of course, was Millie and Joanne Clifton sparkled in the role. Her pedigree was in dancing and while there were not many showboat dances there was dancing throughout. I especially liked the tap dancing that the office workers did while sitting at their typewriters as their desks slid around the floor.

It was this attention to detail, and Joanne Clifton's performance, that made the show. There were plenty of songs, all of which I've now forgotten, and while they did not make much of a lasting impression they did add to the mood. The comedy came from the characters and Graham MacDuff was brilliant as Millie's stuffy boss. Mrs Meers, who was supposed to be the main comedy character (I think) was somewhat less successful partially because I did not get on with her stereotypical Chinese accent. Thankfully Mrs Meers was one little setback in a long show that had a great deal going for it otherwise.

Thoroughly Modern Millie was a well crafted show that made the most of the story and the music. Throw in lots of dancing and some good characters and it was a thoroughly entertaining evening.

The Threepenny Opera at National Theatre was brutal and stylish

The National Theatre was featuring more in my plans because while it was west-end expensive it was delivering the quality that justified that price tag. Even so, it was only a few of the productions that I found myself attracted to.

The Threepenny Opera attracted me because it was one of the classic plays that I owed myself to see and because it was by Kurt Weill. It was a significant bonus that this adaptation was by Simon Stephens who did the same job on the highly popular and very excellent The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, though, to be honest, I prefer seeing his own plays to his adaptations.

The final plus was that it starred Rory Kinnear as Macheath, a.k.a. Mac the Knife.

All that was enough to make me fork out £40 for my seat Olivier Theatre Circle A52 £40.

The play opened with Mac the Knife in which we learned how Macheath earned his nickname. That set the tone for the evening with Rory Kinnear looking every inch the brutal and stylish gangster.

The other notable star of the evening was the stage that moved in all sorts of wondrous ways to create interesting spaces for the drama to unfold in. When you have a stage that can do clever things then it makes sense to do them as long as it enhances the drama, which it did her. Oddly it reminded me of the tricks the stage did in Port, a Simon Stephens written play.

Also worth a mention in a large and excellent cast was Haydn Gwynne as Celia Peachum, the wife of a gangster and the mother of Macheath's wife following a brief and unexpected relationship. I still thought of Haydn Gwynne as Alex Pates in Drop the Dead Donkey in the early 90's and she looked no different to me as she did then. She was superb in her role.

The Threepenny Opera took us through the criminal underworld with its strong characters, sleaze, petty machinations, rivalries, violence and changing loyalties. It was a compelling world and the characters' stories quickly drew me into it. The large cast was used skilfully and there was always a lot going on, a lot of stories to follow and a lot of characters to worry about.

The Threepenny Opera remained brutal and stylish throughout and was utterly entertaining too.

Funny Girl at Savoy Theatre was a triumph for Sheridan Smith

I last saw Sheridan Smith in a musical at the Savoy Theatre back in September 2010 when she was in Legally Blonde and while I had seen her a couple of times since then that was in serious plays, if you can count A Midsummer Night's Dream as serious that is, so it was good to have the opportunity to see her sing again.

I was tempted to get tickets for her run in Funny Girl at Menier Chocolate Factory but even though I was far more organised that usual they had sold out before I could get some. I was, therefore, delighted when it was announced that the show would transfer to the Savoy Theatre and I was in early to get front row seats in the Grand Circle (that's the top level). Other people had expressed an interest in going so I ended up buying four tickets, A18-20, for £39.50 each.

The view was reasonable, as the photo shows, and hearing was not a problem as the sound was amplified. Sadly the amplification was a little bit of a problem as the clarity was not always there and I could not hear some lines that people elsewhere in the theatre laughed at.

In some ways the story of Funny Girl is the same as Legally Blonde, a young woman faces setbacks at work but battles through to become a success. In Legally Blonde Elle's success comes near to the end when she shifts from what is expected of her to become shocking in pink but in Funny Girl ii happens almost immediately, Fanny is thrown out of the chorus for her bad looks (Sheridan!!) and poor dancing, resolves to become a star by exploiting her comedy and gets her opportunity straight away.

Of course it is not all as simple as that and there are some hiccoughs along the way, some of them very big, but essentially the story is about her success through individuality and effort.

Funny Girl is very much a one-woman story, more so than Legally Blonde, and Sheridan was absolutely brilliant as Fanny Brice. She sang well enough but it was her acting that dominated the show. She had all the familiar humorous touches learned in her early comedy career, e.g. Two Pints ..., plus she convincingly transformed herself into a dark-haired Jewish American. It was a magnificent performance that was widely applauded throughout the show and even more at the end.

Even though it was a one woman story it took a good cast of characters to tell it, there were other significant roles, like her husband and her mother, and a chorus of singers and dancers who supported Fanny in her stage performances. The card playing elderly relatives were a particular favourite with the audience, and rightly so.

The music was fairly standard musical fare with a mix of belters (Don't Rain on My Parade) and slow ballads (People) played by a small orchestra. The two songs mentioned were the only two that I knew and that was fine as the rest were in the same vein. Here the songs were more about Fanny's/Sheridan's performance of them that what they added to the narrative, and she sang in most of them.

Funny Girl fitted Sheridan so well that it could have been conceived as a star vehicle for her. She is not yet in the Imelda Staunton class but the fact that such a comparison is now possible shows just how far she has come as a stage performer. I hope that this is a portent for what she might do in the future and that I do not have to wait another six years to see her in another musical.

Bad Girls was another excellent musical from the Union Theatre

I had never seen the TV show Bad Girls and I am not sure that I had even heard about it so that was not my reason for going to see the musical based on it. My excuse was the usual one, I wanted to go to the theatre that evening and in looking through the listings of my favourite theatres I came across Bad Girls at the Union Theatre. I had seen many good musicals there, and other plays too, so it was an easy decision to part with £20.

I had been at the Park Theatre in the afternoon and that worked brilliantly as that finished early enough for me to have a coffee there before walking for an hour of so down from Finsbury Park to Southwark arriving there just before 6:30pm when the box office opened enabling me to get a coveted first ten ticket.

That then left me with an hour to eat something in the pub across the road and to enjoy a well deserved pint of beer to refresh me after the walk.

It is always a surprise to see how the seats are arranged at the Union Theatre and as one of the first people in (that's what a top ten ticket gets you) I had to make a quick assessment on which seats are likely to be the best. This time the seats were arranged in two long rows with the performance area in the middle. I took a seat in the front row half way down on the right hand side. It proved to be a good choice.

Bad Girls told the stories of several women in prison and of some of the people charged with looking after them. There were a lot of characters to engage with and several plot lines to follow and that made it a rich experience. I was really interested to see how things would work out for them all.

This was not a sympathetic look at prison life either. The women definitely deserved to be in there because of the seriousness of the crimes that they had committed, though there were sometimes some mitigating circumstances that the legal system was not able to make much allowance for. Some of the prison officers were not very nice either, particularly the man who thought he was entitled to sex with the women prisoners and got his entitlement regularly.

This was a women's prison so it was expected that there would be a relationship between two women somewhere, though which two it was came as something of a surprise, and for the second musical in a row at the Union the prettiest song of the evening was a gay love song.

The rest of the music was pleasing too and there was a good mix of solo, group and chorus singing which utilised all of the voices and played with their combinations. The balance between the songs and also between the songs and the speech worked very well; the songs were part of the story and there were enough of them for this to be a true musical (rather than a play with songs).

All of the story threads progressed nicely and I was quickly engaged with both the plots and the characters. This was set in a prison after all so there was lots of grimness and there was never going to be a fairy-tale level happy ending but it still managed to be uplifting and refreshing.

The Union Theatre has a wonderful habit of finding unusual and little-known musicals and staging them brilliantly. Bad Girls was simply excellent.

Buoyed by an emotional and skilful Road Show at the Union Theatre

I am not a great Sondheim fan so Road Show might not have appealed to me had it not been on at the Union Theatre where I had seen plenty of good musicals that I had known nothing about beforehand.

The story sounded interesting and that helped. It was the story of two brothers living at the start of the twentieth century when the USA offered the American Dream.

Besides, after seeing a few excellent but dark plays a musical seemed like a good way to spend a Wednesday evening.

So I paid my £20 and got the final ticket for that day. Several other days were already sold out. That was good to see both as a recommendation for the show and for the health of the theatre.

By coincidence, that health was confirmed the same day when I got an email from them saying that they would soon be moving to new premises in another railway arch on the other side of the road. It will be bigger and better, they mentioned hot water!, and I am looking forward to going there. I'll also be contributing towards their supporters' fund.

My routine for the Union Theatre is well practiced and very effective. I left the office at 5:45pm and walked down from Kings Cross to Southwark arriving at the theatre just as the box office opened at 6:30pm and that got me one of the desired first ten tickets, it was actually number one! That left me a comfortable hour to stroll along to Culture Grub for some Chinese food. I got back to the theatre in time to get a coffee to take in with me.

Around 7:25pm the first ten ticket holders were invited in and I politely let an elderly couple in before me. They took two seats at the end of the front row of the central block that left the centre seat free for me.

The stage was set much as it had been for Fear and Misery of the Third Reich with the seating along one of the long sides, the musicians in the far right corner and a large picture frame with a gauze-like material at the centre back of the stage.

The story started with the death of the brothers' father which caused them to venture out to seek their fortunes, starting with a gold rush in Alaska.

One of the boys was hard working and the other spent most of his time in the local bar, which he subsequently won in a card game. The boys fell out and went their separate ways.

We followed those separate ways through their ups and downs and the occasional reunions. Along the way we discovered that one of them was gay and one of the nicest tunes of the evening was a love duet made all the more poignant by the context, this was 1930's USA not 2010's Brighton.

There were plenty of other good tunes and I unexpectedly found my foot tapping throughout the evening. I had expected a few good songs but I had not expected the music to be as consistently enjoyable as it was.

Helping the songs immensely was the large cast all of whom sang, acted and moved well. It frustrates me that so many theatre websites do not do proper cast lists, though I accept that many have programmes that they want to sell that would give me the information I am after, so I'll only mention Andre Refig as the older brother, Wilson Mizner, who had the voice that I liked the most.

I also liked the young woman who blew me a kiss at one point though I'll have to admit that as a rare male in a female dominated front row I was an obvious target. This was during one of the all cast singing and dancing numbers that were interspersed between the more personal songs by and between the three male leads.

Road Show was fairly short, around 100 minutes and so it dispensed with an interval. I approved as even though the show was episodic, often leaping forward a few years, there was no obvious break and to insert one would have broken the flow of the journey.

There was lots to enjoy in Road Show and while there was sadness and anger in it the overall impression was a positive one and I left the theatre buoyed by both the story and the skill of all the people who delivered it. It was indeed a great way to spend a Wednesday evening.

Bend it like Beckham at the Phoenix Theatre was a feel-good musical on steroids

I had heard of the film on which the musical is based but that was about it and from that little knowledge I had concluded that Bend it Like Beckham was a simple crowd-pleaser of a musical that was best avoided, which I did.

The little nagging doubt came from knowing that Howard Goodall had written the music and I had seen and loved several of his musicals.

What finally persuaded me to go was a ticket offer that coincided with a special day. And to celebrate that special day and also to keep in the spirit of the musical I first went for a curry, at Woodlands just of Piccadilly where I had been a few times before. It was a good start to the evening.

The Phoenix Theatre was on the other side of Soho so there was a nice walk through the back streets to get there. Soho is vibrant and lovely and should stay just as it is.

Somehow I had not been to that theatre before so I had little idea what it looked like inside. I assumed, correctly, that it was like most other traditional theatres in the west end and so I went for a seat in my usual location, Dress Circle Row A  Seat  15, which was a friendly £35.

If I had any preconceptions about Bend it Like Beckham it was that it would be a full-on family musical with an Indian twist to the story, music and dancing. Which it was, and it had so many great things going on around that. I liked the way that the story included elements of class, sexuality and inter-generation conflicts as well as the expected gender elements.

While the young woman keen on playing football, Jess Bhamra, was at the centre of the story she was surrounded by many other strong characters, such as her sister Pinky Bhamra, her determined English football playing friend Jules Paxton, Pinky's boyfriend and Jess' male school friend who is secretly gay. To that list you can add assorted parents, other family members, friends and, of course, the girls' football team. It was a very large cast which was just what was needed for the many ensemble scenes of singing and dancing.

There were some nice technical touches too, such as the way that the two main girls' bedrooms slid in an out on raised platforms on either side of the stage. Tricks like that meant that the action could move from scene to scene quickly without breaking the flow too much, something that film makers do not have to worry about.

There were plenty more nice touches in the script too such as, and these are just two little examples to prove the point, the football skills shown by Posh Spice and the Jules' forty-something mum being called a granny by a young man.

The overall effect was wonderful. The main plots were obvious, as they should be, which meant that we got the happy endings that we all wanted and we also got lots of other happy, funny and jolly things along the way.

Bend it Like Beckham was a feel-good musical on steroids with a great cast. I absolutely loved it.

Outrageous fun with Kinky Boots at the Adelphi Theatre

Despite going to musicals quite regularly I would not have gone to see Kinky Boots if not for an offer through the social club at work. I had heard of the show and had heard of the good reception that it had but I prefer my musicals in small venues, like the Union Theatre, and I tend to avoid the West End blockbusters.

Price is a factor in this. Offers abound for group bookings etc. but the headline prices for the best seats are over £100 these days and I can go to Glyndebourne for that (almost!). It is the perceived value that annoys me. I'll happily pay over £100 to see something a Philip Glass opera but somehow it does not seem worth paying that for a trashy musical.

That's where the social club discount swayed the balance and I paid just £20 for my stalls seat.

Though I had heard of the show I had not head that much about what was in it so the story came as something of a surprise to me, but clearly not to the many gay men and middle-aged women in the audience who were clearly there to see Lola/Simon and who whooped with delight every time he flounced on to the stage. I grew up watching acts like Danny La Rue, Dick Emery, Les Dawson and, more recently, Little Britain, and also films like Charlie's Aunt, so men in frocks was nothing new but Kinky Boots did the drag queen thing with a lot of panache, exuberance and sheer fun.

There was a lot more to the show that drag queens though the story of how two different boys grew up and the relationships with their fathers seemed more designed to cynically pull the heart-strings than to add any real depth.

The main story of a shoe company falling on bad times and trying an innovative route to survival was fine even if the ending was telegraphed from the beginning. The main love story was telegraphed too though it took the characters longer to realise that they should be together than it took the audience. My star of the show was Lauren, the female half of the love story, who behaved just how a young woman falling in love should behave with much embarrassment to herself and amusement to us.

The other workers at the show factory were significant characters in the story too and that helped to lift the show above being a one-trick pony. Their relationship to their new boss had its ups and downs as the fortunes of the business changed and not all of them felt the same way about the proposed changes. The richness of the supporting cast was one of the show's big strengths.

Kinky Boots is known for its music because it was written by Cyndi Lauper famous for her pop hits in the 80's. The biggest of these, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, would have been ideal in this show but she did not write it. I thought that the music was fine too, if unremarkable.

The raucous audience reaction suggests that Kinky Boots is becoming a phenomena like Rocky Horror where the audience knows exactly what to expect and joins in heartily. I am not going to go that far but I am glad that I saw it and I was hugely entertained by it.

The Spitfire Grill at the Union Theatre tugged at the heart strings deftly

And to think that I nearly missed this treat.

I had always intended to go to the theatre that evening but the question was which one? There were interesting sounding shows in other theaters that were ending their runs that week but I chose to go and see The Spitfire Grill at the Union Theatre instead, a decision based mostly on my previous experience at the Union and also its convenient location.

That location would have been more convenient had I managed to work in London that day as planned but a looming important deadline took me to Reading instead.

I managed to leave there promptly to catch a train to Paddington and then a couple of tubes to Southwark, arriving there at a very hospitable 6:45pm. That was plenty of time for a Chinese curry in Culture Grub, which was just as well as the pub opposite was not doing food that evening for some reason. I got back to the theatre just in time to get a latte before the doors opened.

The seats were oddly arranged in a "U" shape with the bulk of the stage above the U. The front-row seats at the base of the "U" were taken by the only people to get into the theatre before me (I had ticket No. 3) which happened to be a group of six and the first one in claimed seats for the rest of them. There were no props on stage to suggest how the space would be used and I settled for a front-row seat at the top of the "U" on the left side as that looked as though it would be the closest to the action. It was. And only £18 too.

All I knew about The Spitfire Grill was that it was a musical set in America so I settled down for an evening of surprises.

The story started with a young woman, Percy (!), contemplating her imminent release from prison after serving five years. A pretty picture of autumnal leaves in a magazine had given her the destination of Gilead, a small town in Wisconsin. There she was met by the local policeman who arranged for her to live at The Spitfire Grill in return for working there. The grill was run by a cantankerous oldish woman, Hannah, on her own.

We quickly learned some disturbing things about the small town and the people in it. The town was suffering from the closure of the local quarry and this had a particular impact on one of the men who felt lessened without real work to do. Hannah's husband had died soon after hearing of the death of their only son, Eli.

Once the scene was set things developed quickly both in the story and the characters. To make the two points with one example, when Hannah needed more help in the Grill following an accident she called on the help of the wife of the frustrated husband mentioned earlier and the wife grew new strength as a result and was able to stand up to the husband who had been used to telling her (and his gang in the quarry) what to do. He did not take that well.

The main story concerned a plan to raffle off the Spitfire Grill in a competition and other stories flowed around this. There was a love interest for Percy, more details of Percy's past emerged (in particular, the reasons why she had been in prison and then the reasons behind her committing that crime) and the husband and wife moved apart aggressively.

At the Beck's break it was hard to tell which way the stories would go.

There were more shocks in the second half and as this was a happy musical all of the plot lines nudged towards satisfactory endings but it was the mood of the piece that mattered more than individual events. Percy in looking at the town of Gilead through new eyes could only see its beauty and she helped others to see it too. There were lots of pretty songs about forests. All of the many conflicts were resolved (to some extent) through forgiveness, such as the town's people forgiving Percy for her terrible crime. There were lots of pretty songs about emotions.

Percy was at the heart of the musical but did not dominate it. Hannah was as prominent and as powerful, while the husband, wife and policeman also had major roles. They all acted and sung well. The songs were evocative and emotional with just the right level of repetition to give them the catchiness musicals need.

The Spitfire Grill was a beautiful musical with good characters and engaging stories. It was most definitely the right thing for me to go and see on that Friday night.

The musical version of Duncton Wood at the Union Theatre was lovely, if somewhat bloody

All that I knew of Duncton Wood when I saw the musical announced was that it was a popular book with animals in it. I assumed that it was rabbits or a mix of species but that would have been something like Watership Down or The Animals of Farthing Wood. Duncton Wood was about moles.

I picked a Friday performance to be reasonably sure that I could work in London that day and so could make the gentle stroll down from Kings Cross to Southwark and still have plenty of time to eat beforehand.

I had to go to the theatre first for the opening of the box office at 6:30 were good planning got me there first and so I was able to secure one of the all-important first ten tickets which would get me into the theatre as part of the first group. It is a slightly unusual ticketing system but I think that it works very well. I wish places with awkward queueing systems, like the Bush, would it.

For food I went to one of my new favourite places, Culture Grub on The Cut close to the Young Vic, where I had my new usual Chinese style curry. One of the reasons for going there was to avoid having a beer in a pub and I went for a grapefruit and honey juice instead. The food at the restaurant was very good and came very quickly, just what I wanted before a theatre date.

I got back to the Union Theatre around 7:15pm, in good time for the play. There was a little jostling for position from the people who knew how things worked there but I am not unskilled at jostling and I was the first one in. It is always a surprise walking into the theatre there as the performance area is always laid out differently and a quick decision has to be made on where to sit. This time the seating was L-shaped, running along two sides of the stage. I chose a seat in the middle of the long leg of the L. It proved to be a good choice.

I might have been alone in the audience in not knowing what to expect; it even took me a few minutes to work out that they were all moles.

The story, in case you do not know it either, was steeped in fantasy with one group of moles seeking to return to the old ways when they worshipped seven stones and another group wanting to retain their power over the moles. These were both groups of stones moles and there were also pasture moles involved.

What followed was a tense drama with groups of moles fighting each other, individual rivalries between some of the moles and some love affairs between others. It was somewhat bloody too with one of the elders and one of the pasture moles being killed before the break. I thought that might have been it for the violence but in the second half it got worse and several children were amongst those murdered.

It was not all violence, there was a fair amount of sex too. Who knew that moles bonk face-to-face like humans do?

I liked the story because while there were some obvious bits (the goodies beat the baddies in the end) there were quite a few surprises and diversions along the way and so while the general direction was clear it was always uncertain what would happen next.

The musical side of the performance worked very well. There was a large cast with several important roles and that meant lots of loud choruses, plenty of solo ballads and several cosy duets. The music was reassuringly approachable with some of the themes repeating, as they should in a musical.

I was impressed by the singing in all its combinations though in my view the baddies had not only the best tunes they had some of the best singing too, and the one who impressed me the most was second-in-command baddie Rune, but that is just me being my usual unfair self and picking one when all were good.

The rest of the production was good too with plenty of movement, atmospheric lighting, a simple set, evocative costumes, striking make-up and good use of sound effects for rain etc. This was another example of when being in a small theatre works best as the total effect was very immersive with all of the elements of the play set out just before me. It is hard to tell what colour a mole's toenails are painted from several rows back in the stall.

Duncton Wood was my sort of musical as it had a good story touched with darkness, fine music well played and sung, and a rich production that teased all the strengths out of both.

Whistle Down the Wind at the Union Theatre was glorious

All that I knew about Whistle Down the Wind previously was that it was the name of a song by Nick Heyward from the eighties and I guessed that it had nothing to do with this show. But there was something evocative about the title and my previous experiences of the Union Theatre had all been good (or better) so I decided to go.

I managed to work in Kings Cross that day and as I am on a health kick at the moment and I had plenty of time, I walked all the way down to Southwark arriving there just in time for a coffee before the box office opened at 6:30. The first target was to get one of the first ten tickets, which I managed comfortably.

That then gave me a almost an hour to go across the road to the Union Jack for some food and something to eat. I went for the Nachos as I had on my two previous visits as I like nachos and I like sticking to things that I like.

Then, armed with my top-ten ticket, I went back to the Union to join the queue to make the most of that ticket. It is just possible that the man who got in to the theatre ahead of me had been in the box office queue before me so I did not begrudge him taking my favourite seat too much. I took one next to him.

The stage was set out as on my previous two visits with the performance area on the right and the seats arranged in a wide horse-shoe on the left. As I sat facing the stage the small band of musicians were in the corner on the far right.

The story of Whistle Down the Wind was almost silly, some children find an escaped convict hiding in a barn, convince themselves that he is Jesus Christ returned and conspire to hide him from the adults. But there was far more to this than the story.

The heart of the piece was the many emotional relationships between the children, their friends, their father and his sister, the convict and the other adults. This was a slow moving piece that wallowed in the emotional highs and lows of the unusual situation and the usual hardships of the time.

The music and singing heightened the emotions with slow powerful tunes and plenty of group singing of the sort that I enjoy. I also liked the mix of combinations of singers with solos, duets, small groups, larger groups, larger groups and mixes of male and female voices. I think I prefer musicals where the singing roles are shared widely rather than given to just a few lead singers, but do not quote me on that.

A particular favourite scene of mine was towards the end when all of the children formed a line around the barn to keep the adults out and sang loudly and proudly. It was a magnificent moment in an excellent musical.

Whistle Down the Wind really surprised me. I went there with few expectations and hoping just to be reasonably entertained but I left in absolute awe of what I had just witnessed. It moved me in a way that I did not expect to me moved and in a way that very few musicals have. Would definitely see it again.