High Enough [ROA:83/8]

Warning: Contains spoilers.

I’ve had the longest f***ing week at work, I was ridiculously tired and then my train was delayed, but boys, so I powered through, legged it up to the theatre and managed to make it to my seat a few minutes before the curtain. Then, as the music started, I took a long, deep breath and that was enough. The show began and everything else just melted away. This was exactly what I needed and for what felt like the first time in ages I was genuinely, almost overwhelmingly, happy. It was so intense, in fact, that I nearly cried in High Enough, although to be fair Luke looked like he was about to cry too and that sort of set me off.

You see, I was on the stage right side of front row for the first time today and in some ways it was like watching a whole new show. There were so many things I saw that I’ve not picked up on before and actually Luke’s expressions were a big part of that. I never really thought I was missing much until tonight, but I felt like I picked up on so much more of Drew’s emotion. For one thing, it’s the first time I’ve spotted him during Arsenal’s set. The poor thing was sat off to the side, perched on the edge of one of the flight cases and looking like his world had ended, it was so sad! I was a bit smitten with Luke today if I’m honest; there’s just something so adorable about him. I mean, his ‘yay’ after Sherrie agrees to go out with him is the cutest thing!

And speaking of love… When Lonny announced that they need to introduce an f-ing love story, I was watching Bobby and Josh, because I was sure something happened between them in Cardiff and for once I had a fully unrestricted view of them. It was well worth the effort too, because their interaction was pure gold. They turned to each other and shared a heated look, Bobby then said ‘I love you’ and a second later they had grabbed each other by the shirts and got right up in each others’ faces… Sadly they then seemed to think better of it, let each other go and stepped back a little awkwardly, but I’m putting it out there now that it would be an epic muck-up if they didn’t think better of it :P.

Sticking with the topic of couples for the moment, another thing I’d never realised before is that the reason all the protestors get yanked gracelessly to their feet is because Regina gets up to peck Franz on the cheek (after his ‘it’s the butter’ comment). I mean, how cute is that?! They’re just as cute when they’re reunited at the end and I love how much they change that up. Sometimes they just grin awakwardly at each other, sometimes they dance around each other like they’re not quite sure what to do and today she raised her hand for a high five…! Adorable!

Less cute, but very funny and still vaguely related to my current subject, is Lucas in Waiting. I’ve definitely mentioned his antics before because he’s f***ing hilarious, but he’s developed it a fair bit since the show first opened and I was watching him a lot today, so bear with me while I wax lyrical for a moment. He’s very hopeful when Sherrie starts talking about being nervous, nodding his head encouragingly. Then when they start to lean in towards each other, he gets more enthusiastic, leaning forward himself, waggling his tongue a bit… Until Drew f***s it up and Lucas is left flabbergasted by his idiocy. That said, he still has hope and when Drew starts with ‘I think you’re really…’, he’s back to being encouraging right up until Drew ends the sentence with ‘rad’. At that point Lucas facepalms so hard I’m surprised he can find it in him to get up and leave the stage! Although interestingly this production is the first time it’s really occurred to me that Drew should be ending that with something other than ‘rad’, or even ‘rad rad’. Incidentally, Lucas has thankfully not lost his popcorn since High Wycombe, he just has to clean up after himself and at the beginning of the next scene, he sweeps it up with Drew’s broom.

On a rather less romantic note, I realised something today that I’d only been subconsciously aware of before; the Mayor was blackmailed! When he doesn’t immediately succumb to the Kleinmans’ attempts at financial persuasion, Hertz brings out the big guns instead. Pulling out an envelope, he removes a photo which he shows to the audience on his way to presenting it to the Mayor. The picture (from what I saw of it) is of a man in a pvc body suit and gimp mask, which I assume is meant to be the Mayor, who is evidently then left with no choice but to acquiesce to Hertz’s demands. For my part, I think I was vaguely aware that Vas had a photo, which he then showed to Adam, but I didn’t pick up on what it was nor the significance of it until today. Anyway, I have been getting marginally better at tearing my eyes off of Sam in that scene though, especially before he turns around. In fact, since they were right in front of me, I watched Arsenal’s roadies again today and I finally caught some of the bit with the chipboard. After Sinead fills in the form, she gives it back to Bobby who tells her to kiss it. She does so, only for him to hand it back to her again, this time demanding that she lick it, which she also does before handing over her bag for him to search. His face when he pulls out the dildo is highly amusing, as is her reaction when she grabs it back off him and thumps him with it before going up to see Stacee.

Aaaaaand speaking of Stacee… There was a moment when I kinda wondered if Sam looked at me, although I think I just happened to be sat in the direction he was looking. Even so, it still made my heart skip and I don’t think I’d realised how different it would feel being over on stage right. He’s definitely over that side a lot more and there were so many bits where he was so much closer than he’s ever been in those bits before and I felt all lightheaded again and I’m going to miss him so much next year and and and… I dread to think what my face looks like when he’s on stage. I reckon I’d give Roger Rabbit a run for his money. Also, in case you were wondering, tonight did nothing to help me resist booking another Berlin ticket, especially since it would be on that side…

Another major plus point of that angle was that for possibly the first time ever, I could see Sam during the Here I Go Again formation. It was really quite exciting and very much made up for how much of a struggle it was to see him through the ensemble when he was on stage at the Bourbon. It was especially brilliant when that section began with Sam sticking his arse out for Lucas to spank on his way past. Although despite what I’m sure it sounds like, I didn’t only have eyes for Sam. I still managed to catch Lucas’ eye during that bit and shared a grin with him! Also, side note while I’m talking about Here I Go Again; it wasn’t until today that I realised Sherrie doesn’t leave the stage at the start. She’s got her blue costume on under her coat and after she walks through the Venus door at the end of Shadows, she goes straight over to the dressing room set. She just switches her coat for the kimono before the lights come up again. And another thing that fits under the Here I Go umbrella, Vas’ jazz hands are hilarious; they’re more like claws. I don’t think Hertz is a jazz hands kinda guy.

So something that I think has developed quite a bit since the opening is the way Stacee behaves when he first meets Constance. He was always a bit, er, odd, shall we say? But it’s got even weirder of late. He starts off by sniffing her; leaning right in and inhaling deeply as he raises his head from her navel to her face, after which he pulls back and holds up his arms in such a tense pose that he physically trembles. It’s a bit like he’s been possessed and whilst I appreciate the arms, it’s maybe a little much…? I mean I fancy Stacee already and even I think it’s a little over the top. Constance seems to feel the same way and when she first starts the interview (where rather than sitting on the bar stool beside her, he stands in front of it with his back arched, propped up on the seat by his arms. He’s also taken to doing push-ups whilst he’s there… *cough*ARMS*cough*) she’s not remotely enamoured with his eccentric behaviour. I’m not actually sure exactly when it changes, because funnily enough Erin is not my main focus in that scene, but something happens and suddenly she’s falling at his feet too. It definitely switches somewhere between him finally sitting down/biting the head of the imaginary winged creature and ‘the grind’ which he says whilst grinding up against her.

Now, I’m sure what you’re all really waiting for is a trouser/bandana update, but you need wait no longer! So I’m kinda used to the bandana now, but today he had some fairly sizeable locks of fringe hanging over the top of it and it was beautiful. Exactly what I wanted and I was far happier with the state of things. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but I appreciated it nonetheless! As for his trousers, there is some serious potential for another big hole, this time on his other leg. One of those middle strips is hanging by a thread and all I need is for him to put his foot through it or catch it on something and we’re good :P.

Now it’s possible I’m getting carried away with the little details, but there were a lot of little details today. There were so many tiny things that cracked me up and I’d forgotten so many of them by the time I went to write them down, but they all combined together to turn tonight into a particularly crazy show and I loved it! Lucas started us off with both a ball/sack and a titty/boob call and response, then when he chose his victim, she wouldn’t tell him her name, so he responded with ‘No?! What kind of a f***ed up name is that?!’. I think her companion told him her name in the end, but it was very funny. Wonder what he’d do if he genuinely didn’t get an answer…!

When Lucas realised something, nay somebody was missing from up there, he spanked Luke as well as smooshing him and that set up their relationship for today very nicely indeed. For example, Lonny took Drew’s set so seriously that he wore his headphones rotated 90°, so one of the ear pieces was over his nose…! I really need to pay more attention to him in that bit, he’s always doing something different, but I usually forget to check on him until it’s too late. The best bit however, was when they corpsed in the ‘it’s the musical you’re in’ scene (which really needs a catchier name now that ‘programme scene’ doesn’t work any more). I’m not sure what set them off, but they both got the giggles and it was brilliant! After a moment Luke said to carry on, so Lucas asked if he was sure, at which point Luke cracked up again. I’d forgotten how much I love it when that bit gets messy and I’m so thrilled I was there to witness it!

Speaking of messy… (It’s a weak segue, I’m sorry), Lucas had a bit of a sneezing fit when Sherrie first arrived at the Bourbon, so Danielle threw a ‘bless you’ into one of her bits, which made me grin. Something also happened in Too Much Time because Kevin couldn’t stop laughing during one of his lines, but my attention was already split between Stacee and the Mayor’s office, so sadly I missed whatever prompted that. It all went a little off the rails again in Drew’s audition scene too because when Kevin told Lucas to ‘listen to me’, only Lucas misheard it as ‘Jimmy’, so naturally questioned who the f*** he was. When they sat down, I saw Kevin tell him he hadn’t said ‘Jimmy’, but in Lucas’ defence, I knew exactly what had happened and it was a very easy mistake to make. Lucas also later explained at stage door that when Kevin holds his face in that scene he covers his ears, so it’s even harder to hear him. The best part of that however, was that Lucas demonstrated this to the wider group at stage door by cupping my face…! And I didn’t even appreciate the moment because I was too busy worrying he’d knock my piercings that still haven’t fully healed (he didn’t). In any case, we’ve come a long way since I had a meltdown over fluffling his hair that first time :P.

So one thing that isn’t exactly a rarity, but never fails to amuse me, is when Lucas’ stick malfunctions…! He’s got one of those magic ones that fits in your palm until you trigger the mechanism and it pops out into a full length cane. The trouble is, it breaks a lot and today it collapsed completely and the end of flopped over. He just swung the end round rather than twirling the stick, but it was a still funny. That thing is a disaster! And you have no idea how hard it was not to turn every sentence of that into an innuendo. Anyway… Something that was a little different; when he announced Dennis’ premature demise and got all emotional about it, he pulled a wad of napkins from his back pocket, which he then threw to his victim in the front row. And as for the end, he really went for it with Sam at the curtain call and Sam seemed to be having just as much fun too. It went on for ages and it was brilliant and I bloody love them both.

Vas also seemed to be on a bit of a roll today and when Andy grabbed him over the second ‘we built this city’, Vas removed Andy’s hand from his chest as expected, only to pointedly replace it on Vas’ own hip! And just in case that wasn’t enough; after Hit Me With Your Best Shot, he ended his parting threat with the immortal ‘with or without you, holding your dinkle, and standing there’! Needless to say it cracked me up, so much so that Lucas spotted me laughing. Oops! I really can’t be blamed though, it was hilarious and I have huge respect for Andy & Rhiannon who somehow managed to keep straight faces through it all.

There were so many other things that caught my attention at the time too, but afterwards all I was left with was a general sense of craziness. Not that I haven’t remembered a fair bit, but it still feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the brillance of tonight’s show. There was an interesting technical glitch too that resulted in the whole of Drew’s first verse of Waiting being sung with a ‘sound G-d’ style echo effect, so that was different. Also, before Any Way You Want It, one of the girls (Paris?) gives Danielle an empty glass. I don’t often catch what she says back, although I know she changes it up, but tonight (at least I think it was tonight and I’m not confusing it with Tuesday) she responded with a suitably sarcastic ‘thank you for drinking it’, which made me laugh.

So other than all that (this post has got a bit out of hand…), I’m finally beginning to settle into the new Heaven choreography. I still do bits of the original and I imagine I always will, but I can appreciate the new version too and at least there are still some raised hands & sprit fingers :P. Also, I love the way they leave the stage; it’s so dramatic. Bobby actually rolls on the floor as part of his exit, it’s very entertaining. Anyway I’m also occasionally able to tear my gaze away from Mr Ferriday and today I happened to notice Franz’s reaction to the debauchery of Arsenal’s show at the Bourbon. While Hertz & Dennis are downstage arguing and the girls are demonstrating ‘suggested fellatio’ on Stacee at the back, Franz is caught between the two groups, looking absolutely disgusted by what’s going on upstage. And yet, he keeps looking back at them… and then retching, but still!

Finally, I really committed to my ‘whoop’ for the band today, dragging it out for long enough that the rest of the audience got the hint and joined in. I felt like such an idiot on Tuesday, but they deserve that applause, damn it! It’s becoming a bit of a mission now, although I won’t deny I’m not looking forward to a good, rowdy audience that don’t need my guidance :P. Anyway, Sam smiled at me in the curtain call, so yay. Lucas smiled at me loads all evening, so double yay. Luke and Danielle decided to thump each other in the curtain call, which has nothing to do with anything besides the fact it made me laugh and it doesn’t fit anywhere else.

So poster v2 looks pretty damn good, if I do say so myself, and it arrived much earlier than I expected, which would have been brilliant had it not been raining…! Admittedly it was only a very light drizzle, so on a normal day I wouldn’t complain, but it was wet enough that I didn’t dare take it out, which sucked a bit. On the plus, I bumped into loads of people I know, so it was a very sociable stage door. Of course I did get a bit boxed in so I missed a lot of the cast I don’t know so well and am still trying to make an effort to speak to, but in general it went pretty well. I got a hug from Kevin, who was chatting to a ROAdie I’d been hanging around with, plus Bobby stopped to talk to her as well, so I joined in the conversation. It was mostly around the likelihood that one or both of us would turn up at Dartford on Friday, despite the fact neither of us were supposed to be going. I don’t think I will, but then I wasn’t technically supposed to be there tonight and for that matter, neither was she! Although she only picked up her ticket today, whereas my ‘impulse’ purchase was a few weeks back :P. I also shouted a greeting to Barney over a few heads when he spotted me as he was leaving.

When Sam came out, I escaped from my little corner to go and talk to him and ended up having a really nice and unexpectedly long chat with him. Also he was wearing a big puffy coat and it was kinda fun to hug that, plus hugging him in general is still something of a novelty so it’s enough to make me giddy. Of course I asked how he was feeling, but he’s still ill. He added that everyone in town has got it too, so I said it’s probably because the weather is so changeable and then kicked myself for being so ridiculously British. I mean, the frickin’ weather?! Idiot. Anyway, I assured him once again that he still sounded amazing and went on to tell him how badly I needed this tonight and how good it felt after the week I’ve had. Although I did also admit that it’s an addiction, which isn’t necessarily good for me…! The thing with him though is that he really doesn’t seem to mind me being silly and giddy and fangirly and I love him so much for that. It’s crazy how short a time I’ve known him really and yet he’s never made me feel like I need to be less than myself around him.

On which note… I added that I’m now dithering about doing an extra show in Berlin too, since I just so happened to notice that they’ve released more seats. I lamented briefly over how expensive they are (double what it would cost for the same sort of seat here), but at the same time, what else am I going to do on my own in the evening, right…?! And no I don’t know why I even looked in the first place, I shouldn’t have looked, but I did so… If there’s still one left by payday, I’m going, because as Sam said tonight… he’s not got long to go now… I may have frowned at him when he said that and told him not to. Anyway, he also asked me how many times I’ve seen it now, but I couldn’t remember the exact number (which always happens when I’m working on multiple blogs at once). I knew it was 80 something and think I added a guesstimate of how many times I’ve seen this production too – although that might have been to someone else, because I’m sure he wasn’t the only person that asked me that this evening.

Of course, I also had a wonderful long chat with Lucas along with a family of Idiot fans who popped up at stage door. They weren’t meant to be coming until next year, but inkeeping with the theme of this evening, they also picked up some last minute tickets for tonight and came along to see our Jimmy. We chatted about the show a fair bit and he shared with us something he’d been told recently that I found rather fascinating. Apparently around the 2.5-3 month mark is when things move from short term to long term memory. As a result, your brain needs to start retrieving information in a different way, so sometimes things are harder to fetch on demand. As such, that’s why actors often suddenly start forgetting things at that stage of the contract. Who knew?! Although as we discussed, if there’s ever a show you can get away with f*** ups, it’s a show like this, especially if you’re Lonny. Besides, Lucas is well aware of how much I love it when things go wrong…!

We also chatted about some of his previous jobs and people he’s worked with. He said a lot of nice things about Jo Clifton (he said she had a spark – I’m hoping the same is true of her brother…!) and we also had quite a long chat about Kevin as one of our party remembered him from his Corrie days and was rather surprised to find he could sing. Lucas obviously has a lot of time for him too and to be fair, you can see that on stage. They play around together a lot and it comes across as very genuine. I love watching it. Anyway, I can’t recall how it came up, but someone said something to Lucas about all the pictures he’s posted so far and I knew I wouldn’t get another opportunity like it, so I put in a request… For a costume photo of him and Sam together. Of course, I couldn’t just ask and have done with it, I then had to explain that it’s because I need a new lock screen and can’t choose between them… :P. On the plus it made him laugh and he actually seemed a bit flattered. In any case, he agreed, so fingers crossed he delivers because I really want one! I mean, I’ve been considering tweeting them to ask all week because my current screen really isn’t working for me. I suppose if I put some work into it, I could edit the tag out of Lucas’ hair, but even so, I want costumes not Mighty Ducks!

Original photo credit: Lucas Rush. Screenshot from when I got back from Cardiff and decided updating my lockscreen was more important than sleep…!

Anyway, I told everyone I spoke to that I’d see them on Tuesday and they were all equally amused, although why Lucas was surprised I don’t know. He knows me better than that :P. He did make sure to tell me that he’s got his agent in then though so might not be out, which was appreciated. I told him it’s fine and I’ll be back on Thursday and Saturday anyway, so I’ll catch him eventually ;).

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,

K xx

The Friend I Had In You [ROA:82/7]

Warning: Contains spoilers

So tonight I finally got My Friend down to the Strip to see my new boys and I have to say, I got a real kick out of it every time I heard her giggle at a joke. It was also fun sitting next to someone who’s got random bits of the old choreography locked into their muscle memory too, like that little hand wiggle before Here I Go Again. It’s kinda crazy how many things I still remember startlingly clearly and even now my head automatically fills in the old script and movements, like Franz’s *clap clap* yay or Dennis’ ‘f*** it’ in Can’t Fight This Feeling. Although that said, the new stuff is finally starting to infiltrate my brain now. For example, I was listening to the soundtrack earlier and found myself picturing Alex’s dancing in Shadows mixed up with what I remember of the old choreography.

The staging was the same as in Cardiff, with Stacee at the back by the screen in Too Much Time, instead of at the side. The stage is just about small enough that I’m still not certain if it’s a permanent change or not, but if it is, it would probably be better for some of my restricted view in Dartford, so that would be cool. That said, I did kinda prefer it when Sam had more space and most importantly, held onto the bar over his head; it’s just not the same sideways, but the sight lines are definitely better. Although while I’m vaguely on the subject, I will state for the record that his second jump down was particularly epic tonight. Anyway, Alex & Bobby were still on the platforms during I Wanna Rock (Josh is at the back by the screen) and I found myself watching them all quite a bit. I especially enjoyed watching Alex again and that seems to be becoming a thing, so I might have to adopt him. Incidentally I spent quite a bit of time appreciating him in his Primo vest too; the sleeve holes are much larger than they are on his regular shirt and it hangs very well on him.

We were at the end of the front row, so figured we’d definitely be safe from Lucas (not that I wanted to be safe from Lucas, but I didn’t think My Friend would appreciate being picked on), although we got plenty of smiles from him. Still, I was fairly surprised when he went for the woman two seats down from me, who was nowhere near centre. I think it threw Rhiannon off a bit too, although it didn’t help that when she called to ‘Jackie’, a woman who was very much not Jackie (or not the right Jackie at least) leaned forward to take the flyer! Although Jackie ended up with the third one, so it was all good in the end. It was a bit more subtle than in Cardiff though, presumably because it was a high stage and the only way off was at the edges, so he didn’t come down until Don’t Stop Believin’. Also, I forgot to mention this in the Cardiff posts, but after Lonny declares that he has an enormous penis, he looks at the girl he’s been picking on and mouths ‘it’s true’. Today he even held out his hands to show how big it is :P. And since I’m talking about the cruder parts of the narratoring; during his introduction to the show, Lucas always does a call & response thing with ‘titty’ & ‘boob’. It’s been the same at every show I’ve been to, until today. Today he went with ‘ball’ & ‘sack’ so that was new!

They had a few late follow spot issues today, which we ended up chatting to Lucas about at stage door. He said they weren’t really late enough for him to call them out on it, so I told him that I actually think it’s really funny when he does call them out. I also added that the first time he did it in Bromley, I thought it was scripted and was kinda disappointed when I found out it wasn’t. On the plus, at least I know it’s something he’ll do if the opportunity presents itself and it has done several times already, so that’s promising (for me if not for the production!). Also, while I’m on the subject of lighting, I really love the thunderclap sound & light effect that triggers when Lonny mentions the dark storm cloud. It’s very dramatic, especially with the way Lucas waves his arms through the air. And on a (very) vaguely related note (but it didn’t fit anywhere else), I also adore his sprinkle of glitter for ‘let’s set a nice mood, shall we?’.

So I was right in front of the Bourbon part of the Too Much Time scene and as such I caught sight of the picture of Arsenal in the newspaper when they were waving it around. I wondered if it might be of the band, so I made a point of checking it out, only it’s not them at all. I could swear in fact that it’s a photo of Steel Panther… which is epic if it’s true and if I’m wrong, I’m not sure I want to know! Anyway, with my attention caught, I watched the three of them a bit more than I usually do in that scene. They played jump rope with the phone cable and Lucas kinda posed with each of his jumps, after which he realised the cable wasn’t actually plugged into anything (despite the ongoing phone call) and plugged it onto his head instead. He then put his hand up like an aerial/bunny ear and it was really rather adorable. Admittedly I know I’ve at least half seen all of that before, but Stacee has turned round by then so I struggle to focus…! Incidentally, Stacee very much stole my attention at the end, because that dildo in Sinead’s hand gets very close to Sam’s mouth… and he really doesn’t seem to mind at all. For the record, I really don’t mind it either…!

It was a fairly quiet audience, which wasn’t exactly surprising for a Tuesday night, but it wasn’t dead either. Although when I whooped for the band (after ‘have you guys been there the whole time’) I was very much on my own… I mean there was a vague smattering of applause, but… *hides*. Anyway, aside from that, the room wasn’t entirely useless. They ‘aww’ed on cue when Lonny got told to go away & Lucas has taken to telling us to do it one more time before he finally gives Dennis the finger and sashays off the stage, which everyone was more than up for. He also got a good laugh for ‘Then he came… as rock stars often do’, which he really milks (and throws in a ‘thank you three people’ when it doesn’t get a big enough laugh) and another when he popped up with his umbrella hat in Shadows. He was later than I expected in that bit, to the point I was beginning to wonder if he’d been waylaid, but in retrospect I’m not sure it was that different to usual. Either way, his appearance got a giggle, so he innocently demanded ‘what?’ before he launched into the scene.

On the subject of the Venus, something I’ve forgotten to mention prior to now is the Lonny/Dennis cameo in Anyway You Want It. After Justice sends Sherrie off to dance for the VIPs (who used to be the sleazy/sleazier producers), Lucas & Kevin pop up with their producer signs flipped round to show VIP signs, only Justice is having none of that and dismisses them immediately. It does make me giggle, especially the almost innocently hopeful expressions on their faces. And speaking of innocently hopeful; when Kevin starts singing in I Can’t Fight This Feeling, he tugs nervously on his hair in the manner of a shy teenager and it’s weirdly adorable. On a specific to today note however, something went a little wrong with Kevin’s vocal towards the end, so he cracked a joke that it was only a couple of notes off, which left them both giggling like school girls and had a similar affect on me.

One thing I have noticed a fair bit this tour is that the company seem to have a really good relationship with each other and it makes it a real joy to watch them interacting. One of my favourite relationships is between Lucas & Luke, simply because they have such brilliant on stage chemistry they always seem to be playing around with each other. Lucas in particular is always smooshing his hand in Luke’s face and often tries to make him laugh, which in my opinion fits perfectly with how I picture the characters’ relationship with each other. Today there was a great moment (for me anyway!) after Luke’s cap fell off when Franz smacked him in the face with his suitcase. He didn’t pick it up until after he got up to talk to Lonny and the thing is, he wears it pushed really far back (presumably to stop the brim casting a shadow on his face), so it made it far too easy for Lucas to then knock it off again!

Of course, Lucas and Sam don’t have much interaction at all, but they more than make up for it during the curtain call. After Sam bows he goes to stand on the stage at the back and has a bit of a boogie. Lucas then follows after his own bow and proceeds to illustrate exactly what ‘suggested fellatio’ means… Which of course prompts Sam to do some thrusting and it’s really quite wonderful. And since I’m talking about Sam and thrusting… there was a lot of it today. Admittedly there’s always a lot and I think part of it was just that I was better positioned to appreciate it today, since I wasn’t blocked as much by the ensemble, but even so it felt like there was extra. I also couldn’t take my eyes off of him when he was first introduced, because before the spotlight hit him, he was just stood in the shadow rotating his hips in a dangerously seductive manner. And just in case all that wasn’t enough, he made some delicious noises when he was humping the stall in the restroom. Also, he had a strand or two of fringe hanging over his bandana today, which I very much appreciated as well.

Another thing I’d not picked up on before was when Stacee dismissed the dancer at the Venus, he told her to ‘watch the finger’ as he dragged his hand over her torso before flipping her the bird. It wasn’t miked, but I was apparently close enough to hear it anyway. Stacee’s such a douche, why is that so sexy?! Although speaking of sexy; I was happily watching Arsenal at the Bourbon when Regina and her cohorts got very much in the way. Only it was specifically Alex who blocked Sam and he had his arms crossed, so as it turned out, I didn’t really mind all that much… Especially since he was in a vest at the time. Incidentally, there’s some great protestor choreography that I’ve been watching recently, including an arse wiggle and a hip thrust in We’re Not Gonna Take It, which conveniently happens after Alex relocates from the back of the stage to the front. Later during the reprise I was just talking about, they all smack their own arses in the Kleinmans’ general direction and funnily enough I rather like that bit too.

So I happened to be watching Josh when Drew announced that he had one more song and when Arsenal was mentioned, Josh ‘yeah’ed in such an intense manner, that I have no doubt he was on something (the unnamed ensemble character, not Josh himself, obvs) and it made me giggle. There was a fair bit of laughter later on too and not just from me; Rhiannon and Andy both got the giggles over their farewell kiss attempt (I assume it was genuine, but it fit so well with the scene, that I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, mostly cos they’re so frickin’ cute) and then Rhiannon tripped over her dressing gown when she was leaving and I wasn’t the only one giggling at that either, bless! Incidentally, the band also have their fair share of amusement, although theirs was obviously intentional. I was watching them quite a lot during Wolfgang’s songwriting stint (I’ve decided to call him that when also talking about the band, rather than referring to the Drews as Boley & Lowe, because I can, so there) and though they’re not entirely unimpressed, Drew & Marc frequently exchange exasperated looks over some of Wolfgang’s early efforts (‘killer rack’ etc.). Later when he tried out for Dennis, Drew full on laughed at him over the ‘makes your boobies hard’ line. Poor little Wolfie.

Anyhoo, stage door went pretty well; for one thing I finally asked Ryan if he’s got any dates. Admittedly the only one he knew of wasn’t remotely doable, but at least I asked. I said I was sure I’d see him eventually and established that I’ve not actually seen him on stage yet, but hopefully I’ll get lucky at some point. We were having quite a nice chat until I accidentally interrupted him to call Danielle over to sign My Friend’s programme and he wandered off after that, but did say bye before he left and added as he was leaving that he remembered I saw Idiot lots… I don’t think I ever spoke to him there, but apparently I have a reputation :P.

The theatre had put on drinks for the company, so a lot of them were going straight round to front of house and I overheard Josh telling someone that some of the cast might not come out at all as a result. Despite that though, I did see Paris and finally got her to sign my programme. Woohoo! I’d been saying to My Friend before that I think I missed her the first few shows because she looked so different without her make-up on, so we then ended up talking to Paris about that a little. My Friend mentioned how hard it is to recognise people without their stage make-up and Paris admitted that she usually takes it off straight away – not that I blame her!

Anyway, we didn’t see quite a few of the boys, so I assume they went through the building rather than coming out stage door, but I did see Sam & got my hug, so I was happy :P. Also he hadn’t taken his guyliner off and the effect was quite striking. I may have swooned. Not that that’s unusual for me, but I thought the guyliner was worth mentioning because daaaaaamn. Anyway, the poor thing wasn’t well at all (he reckons he probably got it off his missus, who’s ill too – sounds like there’s something going round town at the moment), but I assured him I still thought he sounded amazing and you couldn’t tell he was sick. He didn’t believe me, so I ended up hand-on-heart level gushing at him about how great he was, which normally I’d be embarrassed about, but it was entirely his own fault for starting me off! He added that he was worried about getting through tomorrow’s double show day, but figured if he got through today he could get through that too, bless. He also checked when I was next in and when I told him I wasn’t back until Friday, he assured me he’d be fine by then. Also I belatedly wondered if that was why he didn’t snog Kevin when Stacee arrived at the Bourbon tonight. I thought I’d somehow managed to miss it, but maybe he was just being considerate?!

Of course Lucas also came out to see us and we had a lovely long chat with him. He’s always such a sweetheart, I adore him. We talked about so much, I can’t actually remember most of it, but obviously we discussed the show and My Friend told him how great he was ;). We also chatted a bit about Idiot and the new cast, which lead (via Josh Dowen) to us unanimously establishing that Grease 2 is superior to the original (which we also talked about, since he was in it and the last time we saw Danielle in something, she was Sandy). It really does suck there can’t be a proper production of Cool Rider.

Peace, love & laughter,
K xx

PS. It hit me last night when I was trying to work out the best days for photos and poster signings (I finished v2 yesterday and I’m pretty happy with it, so I hope it prints ok) that it’s now less than a month until Sam leaves. I’ve only got a few more weeks to appreciate him and I’m so insanely busy at the moment that I’ve no doubt it’ll fly by. Waaah!

They’ve Got This Really Delicious Burger King Down The Street [ROA:81/6]

Warnings: Contains spoilers. Also the Burger King was not ‘really delicious’, it was acceptably palatable, but that isn’t a quote from the show, so…

So the ROAdie who gave me her seat for the matinee had an even more central seat for this evening, but this time I opted to stick with the one I booked, which was further along the row. I knew Lucas couldn’t pick on me twice and with that in mind, I figured I’d rather watch the show from a different angle. As it happens, that was probably for the best because last night finally caught up with me and I was tired. For obvious reasons I generally prefer not to sit front row centre when I can’t stop yawning. Still, I wasn’t exactly hiding and I got plenty of smiles and winks off of Lucas. I’m pretty sure Sam gave me a look before his line in Here I Go Again too, although to be fair, he was in the shadows so I might have imagined it. I’m also fairly certain Danielle grinned and pointed at me as well, but that could equally have been at someone else… I’ve realised over the years that in general, I need concrete proof before I entirely believe someone is looking at me from the stage and not the person next to/behind/in front of me. Although that apparently doesn’t stop me having a minor heart attack whenever I appear to catch Stacee’s eye.

I was so tired that I kinda let the show wash over me a bit more this evening and as such, I don’t think I’ve got as much to say, but of course I’ve still got the odd bit and/or bob. Such as; I was watching Andy and Vas this afternoon during the initial ‘we built this city’s and they kinda grabbed each other in panic at the unexplained sound. This evening however, something else was going on. I was on the wrong side of the stage to see it clearly, but it looked like Vas had been smoothing down Andy’s shirt, so when they got scared and jumped together, Vas’ head was somewhere around Andy’s middle, which made it even more amusing. The second time, they were both upright and it was more of a cuddle, but Vas recovered quickly and removed Andy’s hand from his chest with a grimace of distaste.

Another thing I kinda picked up on this afternoon and looked out for again this evening was the way Dennis deals with Drew and his songwriting. After the ‘makes your boobies hard’ fiasco, the two of them end up sat at the table across from the bar, presumably discussing songwriting. Dennis gives him some advice (which for some reason involves waving his arms in the air), after which Drew appears to jot some lyrics down in his notebook, before showing them to Dennis, who then crosses out nearly everything, much to Drew’s consternation. Also, whilst I don’t generally watch Dennis or Waitress #1 that much, even I couldn’t fail to notice that they seem to have a thing going on in that scene. They leave together after Heaven and at some point in the last few weeks Kevin has added a ‘don’t forget the baby oil’, which he calls after her after telling Drew he’s got the gig. It gets a good laugh, but in general I’ll confess I’m a tad confused by their relationship. Their ‘thing’ seems to span across most of the show and given the existence of the good ship Lonnis? Denny? I’m not sure how much sense it makes, even before Can’t Fight This Feeling. Although speaking of sense, or a lack thereof, there was a delicious f*** up at the start of The Final Countdown. I’m not actually sure what happened, but one of the pyjama-clad Bourbon residents was responsible and given that Lucas & his Thundercats said something like ‘that’s your line’, I’m going to blame Mr Star Wars for this one. It was hilarious though.

Continuing on the theme, but backtracking a little; this afternoon I was watching Luke after Drew sings into the plunger & Lonny points out ‘that was just in toilet water’. I’ve noticed before that Drew, for reasons known only to himself (and ya know, obvious comedy value), sniffs the plunger in response, but I realised earlier that it doesn’t end there and I was amused enough to look out for it again tonight. So after reeling back from the stench in disgust, Drew then does the obvious thing and offers it to Alex for a sniff… Of course Alex ain’t just a pretty face and pulls back immediately, giving Luke a deservedly disdainful look. Josh however, actively leans in and inhales deeply… only to collapse back against the wall as if he’s been knocked for six. In fact, he looked like he’d been permanently incapacitated by the smell. Boys are weird. Pretty, but weird.

I am growing very fond of this lot though and I’m still loving their heavy involvement in Regina’s protest. They’re so entertaining to watch and the faces they pull make me laugh so much. I love Josh’s awkward expression every time he ends up in Bobby’s crotch and it’s even better after they back up out of Franz’s Dream Spotlight. They retreat without really moving so Josh is nearly bent over backwards, still with his head dangerously close to Bobby, who ends up with his legs spread wide around Josh on the floor & propped up against Alex’s back… Which then gets even messier when Regina moves forward again, dragging them along for the ride and leaving Bobby properly sprawled against Alex’s back and full on straddling Josh’s chest… It makes me giggle every time. I also love the way they respond to Dennis’ Oscar winning speech; all of them brought to tears by the emotion of it and waving their fists around in various ways; either to muffle their cries, to express solidarity or to beat their chests. It’s a beautiful moment.

On top of all that, I’m still living for the way they respond to Regina, from the dismay over ‘700 more choruses to go’ to the defeated shoulder slumps after she refuses to let them go home (incidentally, I still think their hopeful puppy dog expressions immediately before that are the cutest things and I’m absolutely smitten with all three of them), followed quickly by the harder-to-explain-in-one-word reaction to ‘I once jumped off the Golden Gate’…! They look torn between reluctant respect and abject horror, although whether that’s because they’re scared she’s going to expect that of them or just because they’re beginning to realise she’s a bit crazy is anyone’s guess :P. Also, since I’m talking about ensemble boys; Adam intrigues me and gutted as I’d be to have a Lucas-less show, I really hope I get to see his Lonny at some point. I’ll confess I don’t pay as much attention to his characters as I do to some of the other boys, but I like how he plays them; they’re all so different.

Obviously the girls are not exactly my focus, but nonetheless I feel like Danielle deserves a special mention. I’m not sure exactly what it is about her, but I absolutely adore her Sherrie and I watch her far more than you’d probably expect. She’s got just the right mix of innocence and self-assurance, on top of which she’s got the most incredible voice. I love listening to her sing and she & Luke sound brilliant together. They’re also very cute as a couple, which is the perfect contrast to Sherrie’s relationship with Stacee, from her naivety at the start to her ‘f*** you’ attitude by the end. In fact, just before she punched Stacee this evening, she dragged out her name like she was talking to a child. Also, since I’m talking about couples; Rhiannon and Andy have somehow got even more cute together. There was even an audible ‘aww’ from the audience when he left without kissing her goodbye. Not that they didn’t try, mind you. I think I forgot to mention it earlier, but they’ve taken to pursing their lips and moving towards each other for an almost painfully long time without actually making contact, before he ultimately pulls back and runs off… I mean, just thinking back on it kinda makes me want to ‘aww’ out loud. The poor little awkward turtles.

Finally, I found myself watching the musicians quite a bit tonight, which is hardly a rarity for me generally, but I’ve not watched this bunch that much so far, so it was all rather new. I like that Amanda stands up to talk to Drew & Marc in the ‘well that’s the last of it’ scene, so she’s nearly as visible as the boys are when Dennis clocks them. I also noticed when Lucas stole Marc’s sunglasses for a bit during Don’t Stop Believing (I think), which made me giggle. I missed him giving them back, but I did spot Marc reaching up to fix them after having been wearing them at a jaunty angle for several bars, so I assume Lucas was to blame for that! Also, since I’m vaguely on the subject; I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that Wolfgang’s guitar in I Wanna Rock has been replaced with a mic, but Luke has it in Nothin’ But A Good Time instead (as well as an acoustic when he’s song writing/performing). It looks very cool, but I couldn’t help noticing that it’s not plugged in… Kevin on the other hand, does appear to play for real, in as much as the guitar he plays in the finale IS plugged in, so I assume he’s really playing it, in which case, fair play to him!

Stage door was a marked improvement on earlier in terms of the number of people I spoke to, although I still didn’t speak to Ryan. I’d intended to ask if he’s got any shows in Dartford after the matinee and totally forgot, then saw him waiting for Sam after the evening show and just wimped out of calling him over, so that didn’t quite go to plan… It all went pretty well apart from that though. Sam smiled at me when he passed, so I wished him a safe drive and by that point a handful of other fans had collected at stage door, which then made it easier to talk to people, since they were stopping them anyway. For example, I finally spoke to Luke again and mostly just told him how brilliant I think he is, although I also mentioned that it felt like ages since I’d last seen the show, so we talked about that too. He was going back to London tonight too and explained that he was getting a lift with Vas since he drives past Luke’s house anyway. I have to confess I was a tad jealous of all those jumping straight into cars when I had a good two hour wait til my coach!

I finally saw Paris, only annoyingly I didn’t bring my programme this time, so didn’t end up stopping her. I did see Danielle, but only exchanged pleasantries over people’s heads. I swapped smiles with Bobby as he passed too, but didn’t talk to him either. When I smiled at Barney however, it caught his attention and he belatedly realised he recognised my face and came over for a chat. I reminded him that we met in High Wycombe and we reintroduced ourselves, before chatting a bit about the show and the band. He talked about getting in real rock musicians, so of course I just had to mention the bass player on Idiot and how much he brought to the table… :P. Anyway, he said he saw the London production a few times and (I think it was him) pointed out their show is filthier than it was in the West End, which was something I obviously had to agree with. He gave me a hug goodbye too, so hopefully this is the start of a beautiful stage door friendship!

On which note, that train journey after Wycombe has apparently put me on hugging terms with Andy, so that was a nice surprise! Kevin also recognised me (he grinned at me when I helplessly threw some horns in Don’t Stop Believing too), so chatted to me for a bit about seeing the show a lot and travelling for it. I said I was doing a lot of places this year and reeled them off, so he told me he’s doing panto so won’t be in Berlin. It’s terrible timing given I’m not going to want to take my eyes off of Sam that weekend, but I’m still a bit excited for a cover show.

Alex and Josh came out while I was talking to Lucas, but I figured Alex knew who I was because he follows me on stuff, so I grinned at him and he stopped to talk. He told me it was nice to see my face in the audience, which is always lovely to hear, plus something about keeping up on twitter that I didn’t quite catch. I said something about blogging after that and I’m not sure why I felt it was an appropriate conversational topic, but we chatted about that for a bit. He said he wanted to start, but had never got around to it, so I explained that I used to blog shows when I didn’t go out so much and could spend all week working on one post, but I can’t do that any more. I admitted mine are more like journal entries now (could you tell?), that I write for myself more than for anyone else, but we discussed the fact that some people still want to read that. Although I’m really not convinced about these… Is anyone reading this? If you got this far, tweet me a gif :P. Anyway, I’m really glad I finally spoke to him again, especially since I watched him a fair bit in both shows today. He’s so cute!

After Alex left, I went back to Lucas and we bonded over our shared inability to pack and unpack. He was lamenting the fact he had to go back inside and pack up his dressing room while I admitted I’ve not unpacked from Paris OR Poland yet. We also talked about my late night travel woes and what I was going to do in the meantime. He sympathised, having evidently done the same thing himself in the past, and suggested I try Revolution for somewhere to go. I opted not to take his advice on that one because I figured it would be too clubby on a Saturday night, but then ended up wandering around for ages trying to find somewhere suitable. There was a nice quiet bar just round the corner that had serious potential, but I wasn’t sure it would stay open late enough and didn’t want to risk it. The bouncer there suggested Yates, but that was definitely too clubby, especially since there was an entrance fee. I figured I’d just go to the 24hr Maccy D’s, but when I got there I found every single seat in the multi-storey building had been blocked off by barriers, so that went well. On the plus, I happened to notice that the Burger King Google said closed at 11 was still open when I walked by at 11.45 and it turned out to be open til 5, so I got myself some chips and an oreo milkshake, found a perch by the window and sat in there until I had to go. It seemed a pretty apt choice really, even if the script has gone back to Arby’s.

So. As you may have gathered from the Stacee photos in this afternoon’s post, we’ve finally had an influx of production pics beyond the scant handful they released after Bromley. As you can imagine, I was deliriously happy there were actually some of Sam this time and there were loads more of Lucas, which was also very much appreciated. Admittedly I didn’t get exactly what I needed; Sam is blocked in all of the new Here I Go Again photos (along with the majority of the company) and I still can’t believe there isn’t an end of act one jazz hands shot, but it’s far better than I’d hoped. I had enough to pull together a decent poster featuring my favourite boys anyway, even if I had to use the original company shot from Bromley (in which Sam is wigless, half the ensemble are obscured and the composition is off centre). I haven’t quite finished it yet, because my initial draft didn’t come out exactly as I’d hoped and it needs reworking, but I’ll stick it in here once it’s done, so watch this space if you’re interested.

Even more excitingly than the photos however, was the EPK, which was more glorious than I could have dreamed… Plus they used a quote from the WOS review (at 1:10), which made my frickin’ day.

As you can see, Lucas smashed it & he wasn’t wrong when he promised me gif material (yay!). Plus Sam is properly in it too (double yay!), which I wasn’t expecting given the whole forthcoming influx of ‘celeb’ (meh). I even got this gem out of it and I haven’t stopped swooning over it yet (it’s been nearly 4 weeks…).

Peace, love & gif material,
K xx

PS. I found an old half-written blog draft a few weeks ago that I was meant to be a record of all the things I loved about the original West End cast of ROA before the new cast made me forget the detail. For the most part it’s stuff about the show itself, a lot of which is script or staging based, but there are a few little details I’d totally forgotten about. It was a hell of a trip down memory lane, to the point I ended up watching the CIN video of the original cast too and got a bit choked up over it. Much as I’m loving the new cast and the new production, I don’t half miss the original. I think I might have to try and polish up the edges of it just enough to get it published, half-finished as it is. I reckon there are a few ROAdies out there who might enjoy it too.

Belts, Boots & Bandanas [ROA:80/5]

Warning: Contains spoilers, fangirling and far too many mentions of Nick for a post about a show he’s not involved with…!

So once upon a time I’d intended to spend today nursing my hangover at Frank’s Cafe, but since we didn’t formalise our plans, I ended up with an unexpected free day and I just couldn’t resist the cry of the strip, even though I knew I’d probably hate myself for it. Admittedly my hangover wasn’t even half as bad as I’d expected, despite the catastrophic failure of my ‘I’ll just have a couple of pints and then stop drinking’ plan. I mean, I did just have a couple at the Monarch, but then we moved to Joe’s so it would have been rude not to have another… I did, rather sensibly I thought, cut myself off after that and it was all going swimmingly until Sir Nicholas of Kent offered me a drink… and one does not say no to Nick. I mean, I tried to, but… On the plus, the whiskey was delicious and I very much appreciated him buying it for me. In fact, he was lovely all night and I love him and yay.

Anyway, somehow or other, I didn’t actually feel too awful today, plus I got to Cardiff on time, which was a relief. Given past experience, I’d normally give myself a bigger buffer for coach travel (getting in an hour before the show was horribly risky), but I knew I’d need the sleep and luckily my gamble paid off. I even had time to grab a panini before the show and between that and my nap on the way down, my hangover was in an unexpectedly manageable state by the time I headed to the New Theatre. Although I’ll confess the fact I was still grinning about how awesome it was hanging out with Nick last night didn’t exactly hurt. I love him. Could you tell?

On to the boys I came here to see however, and it all started marvellously well. I spotted Lucas outside stage door as I was heading for the theatre, so I detoured to say a quick hello. I hadn’t actually mentioned I was coming today (I meant to, but it just sorta got away from me), but he seemed happy enough to see me and I got a lovely cuddle. He apologised that his voice is shot, so I commiserated by telling him I was hungover so he said we could suffer together. Still, as rough as I felt, my head was unexpectedly clear and pain-free and once the show started I forgot about everything that was wrong with me. Well, except for the ache in my cheeks from smiling so much. It was so good to be back!

I was supposed to be in the third row (because it was the was best I could get when I booked), but a ROAdie I know couldn’t make it today and offered me her seat instead, which just so happened to be in the front row, only just off centre… Needless to say, I got picked on and it was brilliant :D. It hasn’t changed dramatically since the last time, although the bubbly I was given at that first show has since been replaced by a rose at the curtain call, which he threw to me when he bowed and by some miracle I actually caught. He also told me to stop crying over Dennis at the end cos I’d make him cry… Which I’ve obviously seen before, but it’s more fun when aimed at me! By far the best bit though, was right at the beginning when he climbed over the railing and sat himself on my lap! I wondered at the time if he does that to all the girls, but when I checked with my seat donor, she assured me he stayed sat on the railing when he picked on her earlier in the week. In case you weren’t already aware, I bloody love that man!

So all in all I didn’t pick up on any dramatic changes, but I think the show has really got into its stride now. Of course there were still a few bits and pieces that I picked up on, most of which I promptly forgot as soon as I left the theatre, but one example is that Zoe had a glitzy nail file in Harden My Heart. It took me a while to work out what was different though and it was only when Lucas appeared and didn’t have her cigarette stubbed out in his palm that I worked out what had changed. I wonder why they swapped it, I miss the face he pulled…!

A new thing that I really loved was after Lucas cracked up over ‘killer stuff’. He said ‘I’m sorry, I tried’ to Kevin, who responded by holding his face in both hands and saying ‘I know’, prior to telling Lonny to go set up the stage. It was only a little thing, but it really tickled me. Also, Kevin seems to have taken to collecting some of the spilled ‘coke’ from the table and smothering his face in it. He had a streak of white across his cheek when they sat down at the table and Lucas laughed before brushing it away. Incidentally, Kevin has a moustache now… is that new?! I’m almost sure that’s new.

Another thing that made me giggle was after Franz asked where his Oscar was, Lucas pretended to search his person for it, before making a show of pulling his middle finger out of an inside pocket. He then flipped his waistcoat open to put it back and in response Andy gave the most dead-pan sarcastic laugh I’ve ever heard and it was glorious. I think Andy, and Vas for that matter, have really got into the comedic parts of their characters now and I found them both very funny. Andy pulls some truly brilliant faces and I loved the way he played the ‘I’m not gay’ scene; there was such a perfectly blended mix of camp flamboyance and traditional machismo, it was nothing short of art! That said, I’m not sure how I feel about him feeling up Dennis’ chest during his ‘you have a sadness inside of you’ speech…! Although it does make Kevin’s ‘what the f***?’ even funnier afterwards. As for Vas, the whole of the Keep On Loving You scene really made me laugh, he makes some hilarious noises. Plus I like the way he leaves the stage through the Venus Club doorway, having found himself outside it in his drunken state.

There was a particularly excellent moment after Stacee pushed Sherrie away in the restroom too. Danielle knocked into the urinal and it broke, so it was hanging at a very odd angle when Bobby came in to use it. Of course, he took it all in his stride, doing something of a double take, then standing at an angle himself. It was hilariously funny and I really don’t think I can sing that man’s praises enough. He’s so good at physical comedy; I mean the way he eats that sandwich is one of the funniest scenes in the whole show!

On a related note though, it wasn’t a great day for the set. The Venus booth where Sherrie gives Stacee his lap dance nearly broke apart when Danielle shoved Sam onto the seat too. I was worried she’d lose a foot between the seats when she climbed up at one point. It was an odd one set wise though, because it’s a much smaller stage than any of the other venues I’ve been to. I think the arch of truss at the front must have affected sight lines or something, because they didn’t really use the platforms at the sides. Nearly all the scenes that usually take place on them (like when Stacee is on the phone to Dennis in Too Much Time) were staged closer to the centre (where Lonny has his sound desk at the Bourbon). Although Sam still climbed down the ladder (twice) on the audience side of the scaffold, the same way he usually does. And if you’re wondering why I mentioned that, it’s a fair question, but I don’t have a sensible answer. I get a kick out of watching him is all. Although if you’re still wondering why I’m noticing random silly things about Sam, you’ve probably not been paying attention. Besides, he usually jumps down the last few rungs and I like it when he jumps off of things, it’s hot.

On which note… much to my delight, Sam’s trousers have not been sewn up after all and he still has a nice big hole halfway up his right thigh. Interestingly, it wasn’t until I was writing up the last blog and went looking through all the shiny new production shots that I realised the holes were not originally part of his costume (see exhibit A, below). Having now seen them again however, I stand by my original theory that his trousers were slashed on both legs in three even splits, only one of the in-between bits broke and he got left with an extra-large hole, which most wonderfully they did not repair. And yes I’ve just written a whole paragraph about Sam’s trousers. Also, yes I consider that to be interesting content and now I’m about to write another paragraph on the subject of his new bandana, aren’t you a lucky lot?

Exhibit A (These are all official production pics, so I don’t know who to credit, if anyone knows, please give me a shout so I can update):

Although I will stop at this juncture to state that I was freaking out so much about how fangirly my last blog was that I ended up posting it in the middle of the night when I knew no one would be online… then sulking the next day when it got no clicks… In retrospect, there may have been some flaws in my logic. Not least because I then tweeted about it getting no attention, thereby drawing attention to it, but again I did this in the middle of the night because I was scared… Only that did garner a bit of attention; I got a couple of hits and even a like (from Liam Holmes), so I chose to take that as sufficient encouragement to keep these going for now. I did however decide that the best course of action would be to attempt to censor myself enough that I don’t feel the need to publish them under the cloak of darkness… As you can see, that is going swimmingly well… Although to be fair, going back to writing up my old Idiot blogs a couple of weeks ago has helped give me some perspective in as much as I’m way worse about Nick than I am about Sam… well, so far at least. I’ve not called him ‘lickable’ yet, in any case!

So, Sam now has a bandana. Admittedly, I knew that already because he’s posted a fair few Stacee photos (see exhibit B) since I was last in (which naturally were greatly appreciated. Although I’m dying for a shot of him and Lucas together, preferably in costume. I’ve only got one of them together so far and it was a tagged instastory, so not exactly ideal lockscreen material. It’s like Idiot all over again, trying to get one of Nick and Lucas :P). Anyway, I decided to withhold judgement until I saw it in the flesh, but to be honest, by the time that happened, I’d already got kinda used to it. I still think I prefer him without it; I liked the way he had the side bits pulled back, not to mention the little fringe thing he had going on (it gave me tingly fingers). Besides which, I’ve never been a huge fan of bandanas tied over the top of long hair, especially straight hair, but honestly, I’m really just being picky. Stacees have always had bandanas; It’s authentic and it suits him, so all in all I have no complaints. Well except for the fact I’m now going to have to make one for Staceebear and I’m not sure how well that will work. I may have to tie it around his fluffy little head in a slightly different way. And I’m not getting rid of his pulled back side bits either, because it’s one of the cutest things I’ve done to a bear in ages. My bear, my rules :P.

Exhibit B (Credit: Sam Ferriday):

So I do have a few things to say about Sam beyond a detailed description of his clothing, but before I do that I have one more costume-based comment to add; HE’S GOT THE BELT BACK!!! Pure sex, indeed! I don’t know why that matters so much to me, but it does and I was absolutely delighted when I first caught sight of it. Especially because it seems to fall open quite a lot, so it surprised me that he’s ended up with it again. Although I suppose Stacee’s belt probably gets a lot of action, it’s no wonder it won’t stay closed… :P. On which note; he seems to have started humping the corner of the stall at the start of the restroom scene… And whilst I’m not certain that’s new, I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered it if he was doing that before…?! Either way, it’s hot. He’s also developed the scene with Luke just before that a bit and I love it. It starts pretty much the same; Drew says ‘hey man, big fan’ and Sam oh-so-slowly tilts his whole upper body to the side as he looks past Sherrie, before stepping off of the flight case with a not-quite jump. He approaches Drew declaring ‘And I am a big fan of you…’ and then leans right into Luke’s space, to the point that Luke is practically bending over backwards to keep his distance (G-d knows why anyone would want to do that, but hey ho). So far, so normal, but Sam now follows that by running his hand somewhat suggestively down Luke’s torso, heading towards his belt before saying something like ‘what do we have down here…?’. It was filthy and brilliant and I was almost (read: very) disappointed when Sam then grabbed hold of the ‘coolers’ and walked off with Sherrie in tow. It was a beautiful moment.

Another beautiful moment was in Cum On Feel The Noize. I’d been watching Sam as usual, but got distracted by someone at the front of the stage and briefly looked away. When I looked back, he was on the floor surrounded by the ensemble, only as I looked over at him, his eyes met mine and f***ing hell, it was just as good as last time…! What is it about that Stacee stare?! I wonder if he has any idea what that does to a girl?! He smiled at me in the encore too, so between him and Lucas it was a very good afternoon of fangirling!

Anyway… Other things. Things that are not Sam. There are more of those things, which I meant to talk about before I got distracted talking about Sam. And to think I genuinely thought this one wasn’t going to be ridiculous. I mean, I seriously believed that, right up until I actually mentioned him… Sigh. Aaaaanyway, Sam is not the only one with a costume worth talking about; Lucas has some epic new boots and even though I’ve seen pictures of those online too, I was still rather jealous when I saw them for real. They’re so kick-ass.

Lucas was definitely on top comic form today too, no matter what he said beforehand about his voice, and after the rather subdued audiences at the start of the week in High Wycombe, it was rather lovely to be part of a Saturday afternoon/early evening (the show was at 5) crowd. The room was behind him 100% and it was awesome to see him play with it. Before he got to his slow clap bit, people were so into it that he had a bit of fun messing around with the applause; swiping his arm across to cut it, then starting it up again. The boy had us all in the palm of his hand and that is one of the many reasons that he’s so bloody perfect for this job. I still can’t believe how lucky I am that it happened! Anyway (I’ve been saying that a lot, must stop going off on tangents…), once he did the usual slow clap bit and we were all applauding without his assistance, he danced a little jig and it was the cutest frickin’ thing.

And speaking of cuteness; Something I forgot to mention in the past, but I wanted to record for my own memories is the way Drew gets over Sherrie when she first comes to the Bourbon Room. After she hugs Dennis to thank him for the job offer, Dennis starts to move toward her, only for the Drew to physically push him away again. He’s very clearly telling him to back off and in Dennis’ defence, he does as he’s asked, stepping back to allow his boy Drew to show her around. I just think it’s a really sweet moment; both in terms of Drew taking a stand (which is not something he’s forward enough to do all too often) and Dennis giving way to him.

Also on the subject of cute; I’ve developed quite the thing for Alex. I mean he’s hot and all, plus I really can’t put too find a point on those ARMS, but at the same time there’s something very adorable about him too. I really hope I get to see him go on for one of his cover tracks at some point, I imagine he’d have a very different take on both of the characters. I also found myself watching him quite a lot today, especially in Shadows/Harden and I love the way he moves. He’s a beautiful dancer.

Finally, I couldn’t help noticing that there was quite a bit of bouncing today and it wasn’t all just me being overly giddy and bouncing in my seat. I’m sure Luke and Danielle were more bouncy on Drew’s bike than they used to be; Sherrie did not look remotely comfortable and at one point seemed to be clinging on to her picnic basket for dear life. It wasn’t just them though, because when Lucas sneaked on with his cut-out palm, he made the tree bounce along with them. It really made me giggle. Also Sherrie does a fair bit of bouncing on top of Stacee in the restroom and Danielle’s startled squeaks whenever Sam thrust her up into the air made me… well I’m not sure what – I don’t think giggle is the right word. Smirk, maybe? Either way, I bloody love that scene, it’s so filthy :P.

Anyhoo, there wasn’t much time between shows, so I didn’t have high expectations for stage door, but in the end it exceeded anything I could have hoped for. Admittedly I barely saw any of the boys and most of the girls were out before I even got there, but Vas and Barney were waiting on Drew so I exchanged smiles with Vas. I saw a couple of the band too, but didn’t stop them and then Sam came out not long after and it turns out he came out just to see me…! Now I know that isn’t the most dramatic thing to ever happen at a stage door, but I’ve not known him long and I was giddy (and to be fair I’m still giddy about that time Nick came out just to see me before the Summer Holiday press night, so there’s a precedent). Also, he gave me a hug. A hug! And I didn’t know we were on hugging terms yet, so I didn’t reach for him the way I would with my other boys, so this was all on him. Cardiff is clearly the place for new boy hugs; that stage door was the site of my first ever Kent cuddle too. It’s a shame I didn’t bump into Thacko, who was apparently in town today, we need to break through that hugging barrier soon or I’m going to scream! Anyway, I digress…

So Sam explained that he’s driving back to London with Ryan tonight and they need to be out of the car park by 11 or some such, so they’ll be rushing out as soon as the show is over. As such, he knew he wouldn’t have time to stop then and since he’d seen me in the audience he thought he’d come out to say hello now instead. He’s a keeper, this one! He even remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be back in until Birmingham, so I gave a long meandering explanation of how I ended up coming today after all. No doubt he was fascinated… *shakes head at self*.

Anyway, we chatted about the drive and I said he should listen to loud rock music to keep himself awake. He then asked if I’d heard the new Slipknot song and when I said I hadn’t he told me that it’s heavier than he usually likes, but it’s melodic. I assured him that I’d check it out, even though I’m not sure I’ve ever voluntarily listened to Slipknot in my life, but he seemed so earnest and he still had his guyliner on and those eyes just slay me… I can’t say no to him any more than I can say no to Nick offering me a drink :P. [Edit: I did end up listening to it, although I didn’t quite make it to the end. I see what he means about it, but it’s still way too heavy for my taste].

He also asked me what I thought of the bandana, so I pointed out that it didn’t feel new since I’d seen so many photos, but obviously it was different seeing it in person. I think I was more honest than he was expecting and admitted that although I don’t dislike it, I prefer him without it and explained that I liked the way his fringe was before. I agreed it was more authentic though and pointed out that Stacee always had one in the past. He prefers it because it keeps his hair out of his face, although apparently he still frequently ends up with a mouthful, especially in Dead Or Alive. I’ll confess I sympathise with him on that front! Anyway, I’m not sure what came over me, but apparently I thought it was a good idea to blurt out that I was happy he had his belt back, to which he said something about me noticing little details. I think I then explained about blogging and how that’s responsible for the way I pick up on tiny things now. On which note, I also spotted that he’s got a new poncho for his llama ride, but I forgot to ask about it (and for the record, yes I’m still mad about Renegade. And why ‘but don’t worry, he’s still rocking for a living’ had to be cut, I don’t know. Hmph). Incidentally, I also noticed that he’s removed his chest hair since last time, but fortunately I didn’t remember that while we were chatting either, so I couldn’t accidentally mention it. Writing it down here instead is clearly a much better idea… :P.

Anyway, he got a phone call while we were talking and I gathered that he’d sent one of the girls for coffee, but all the chains were shut, so they came back empty handed. After I headed off to get a between show snack, I walked past a coffee shop just round the corner that was definitely still open and I thought of him, but there wasn’t much I could do for him then, much as I’d have liked to. The girls and Ryan all came back while I was there though, so I exchanged smiles with a couple of them. In the meantime Lucas also came out, but had a friend in so I carried on chatting to Sam for a bit longer, until he needed to head back inside, at which point he gave me a hug goodbye and have I mentioned today how much I adore that man?!

Of course, I adore Lucas too and once Sam left, he beckoned me over to join him and his friend. He introduced us and explained that she worked on the ill-fated JCS tour – apparently she actually went all the way to America before it got cancelled and then had to come straight home again. We talked a little about repeat visits, so I reeled off a few numbers on request (80 ROAs, 140 Idiots – I feel like a performing monkey sometimes! Or perhaps one of Barnum’s curiosities would be more apt… THIS IS ME!) and explained that I got carried away with that one, but once you fall in love with a show, it’s so easy to keep going back and then you get the cover shows where you end up dropping everything to see whoever’s on, because you can’t bear to miss it and all that jazz. I mean I still haven’t forgotten Idiot in Cardiff when Lucas went on for Theo. I’d never have forgiven myself if I’d missed that! On the subject of Idiot though, Aaron Sidwell and company are also in town at the moment and they were in for the matinee earlier in the week. Lucas told me he gave the whole show a bit of a Wicked theme as a result and it sounds like it was brilliant. I can’t recall all the details now, but he definitely said he threw in an ‘eleka nahmen’ when he was ‘conjuring’ and of course the Defying Gravity belt at the end of the first act. His friend hadn’t seen the show yet as she was coming to the evening performance, so he didn’t want to give anything away, but it didn’t need much for me to know exactly which bits he was talking about. She pointed out that now I was sad I’d missed it, but he cheered me up by pointing out that at least I was hearing about it from the source.

Anyway, I didn’t like to intrude too much on their time and I figured food would be advisable, so I took my leave to go and get a snack before the evening show. I even managed not to skip down the road, although I was certainly giddy enough. I love my boys!

Peace, love and I really can’t believe how many times I mentioned Nick in this blog,

K xx

PS. Apologies for the title, it’s not my strongest work.

Shot Through The Heart [ROA:79/4]

Picture the scene. We’re at the Bourbon Room. Stacee Jaxx has just told Dennis he’s gotta go make some dreams happen and now he’s sauntering across the front of the stage to the bar. His gaze sweeps the room as he moves and as he does so his eyes come to rest, for just a moment, on me. His arms are straight out in front of him, finger guns cocked and ready to fire, pointed straight at my heart and… I think I died. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did. I am now dead. I don’t know what happened before or after, all I can remember is that brief shining moment of stunned bliss as my eyes met Stacee Jaxx’s across the room. Time stood still, my heart stopped, the whole world ceased to turn… And as such, that’s the end of the blog.

Ok fine, maybe not, but I was in something of a giddy daze for the rest of the act and still hadn’t calmed down by the end of the show. In fact, I hadn’t even calmed down by the end of the day, so most of the notes that formed the basis of this post were written down a bit later, once I’d finally (sort of) pulled myself back together. And I probably did miss a lot of the end of the first act because dead. Or at least, totally loopy. So much so that I had a genuine pang of ‘I wish he was real’ after that. Although in my defence, just imagine it for a second. Two hours of Stacee Jaxx (à la Sam Ferriday, obvs) and Arsenal rocking out on stage would be frickin’ epic. I’m kinda sad that can’t be a thing.

Oh yeah and FYI, warnings: Here be spoilers, fangirling and even more inconsistent use of character vs actor’s names than last time. We’re at that point now. It will be a mess from here on out and I’m going to stop warning you about it. Although I’m not sure who ‘you’ are. Even my usual readership of 2 during the Les Mis era, won’t be interested in these, so… Is there anyone alive out there? No? Good, I can fangirl to my heart’s content :P. (Although if you actually are interested in these, even on an intermittent/skim read basis, maybe give me a shout/telling off for inappropriateness/twitter like of encouragement. If they’re purely for my own entertainment, I can’t promise I’ll continue to find the motivation to write them up to a publishable standard).

Anyway, it seems I wasn’t the only one falling apart tonight, the set was doing a pretty good job of that too…! One of my friends was messaging me during a show stop at the matinée and then there was another one tonight just after I Wanna Rock. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I noticed a scaffold pole near the Bourbon bar swing forward towards the end of the song. When I was talking to Lucas later, he said he saw that whole section of set move and was already alerting the stage manager when the pole fell. Fortunately they were able to fix it fairly quickly and in the meantime I ended up having a nice chat with the guy next to me, who’d identified me as a fan due to my clapping in Too Much Time…! He told me he’s seen the show a few times before and he was loving the new production, so woo. I ended up reeling off all the places I’m planning on seeing it this year and it turns out he’ll be in Sheffield accompanying his wife the weekend the tour is there and will be at a loose end, so he’s going to look into tickets for that. I should be on commission :P.

After they fixed the set they picked up where they left off (just after the song), so Drew’s ‘I guess I got a little excited’ was even funnier as a result. It still wasn’t entirely smooth sailing though; the seat fell off of Drew’s motorbike as Luke tried to guide it off the stage at the end of the scene…! Hopefully that won’t be too hard to fix either, because I think I’m growing rather fond of those little machines. The synchronised bouncing Sherrie and Drew do on their way up to their picnic spot is adorably funny, plus Vas’ petulant expression as his little digger makes its way oh-so-slowly across the stage really tickled me this evening.

Another thing that tickled me was Lonny having a nap at the sound desk (up on the scaffolding near the screen) during Drew’s support set. He looked like he could have happily kipped through the whole thing and it wasn’t until everyone cheered for Arsenal that he ‘woke up’. Admittedly I actually noticed it yesterday and it made me laugh a lot then, but it wasn’t until tonight that I saw the reaction he got from Drew. When he thanked Lonny, Luke looked up at Lucas, only to discover Lonny passed out on the railing. He just rolled his eyes and carried on, but it reminded me of how over-enthusiastically encouraging Lonny used to be in that scene and I found it even more amusing in contrast.

On a slightly different note, the first time I saw this production, Lucas’ spotlight for his ‘is it the end of act one already’ speech was centre stage, while he was standing in shadow off to the side outside the Venus Club doorway. It didn’t move to illuminate him until he called it over and I thought it was really funny, only they haven’t done anything like that since… Until tonight when there was no spotlight at all. Oddly enough, I’d just been thinking that it was a shame they hadn’t kept that in (and that I must remember to make a note of it), so I appreciated it all the more when the light didn’t even come on until Lucas called out ‘Dude, I’m here’. I also like the way he mutters ‘let me just find centre’ before beginning his posh-voiced recital of Breaking Into Acting For Dummies . Although I’ve belatedly realised that I miss the little hand wave in the spotlight thing at the end of that bit. I didn’t know I missed it, but my hand automatically wiggles itself every time it hears the tinkly bit in the music, so I guess I do…!

So I don’t know that anything has outright changed since first preview, but I feel like the end of the act has settled itself properly now and it flows far better. I like how they all kinda break out of character at the end to congratulate each other on an act well done, before Lonny interrupts to get them all to do jazz hands. I also think it’s a nice touch that Lonny gets ‘stuck’ on the wrong side of the sheer curtain because he’s too busy chatting up his victim for the evening and then has to lift up the bottom and slide under it to get backstage.

And speaking of Lucas’ victim… This is an utterly terrible segue into a comment on Regina’s flyer distribution. So other than the named person/victim in the middle, Rhiannon hands out a couple to people along the front row and she waved one in my general direction again today. I thought I’d be nice and let the guy next to me have it, only after leaning forward to collect it, he gave it straight to me anyway. Ah well, I tried! On the plus it’s a different design to the one I already have, so I kept it :P. Incidentally, I love the way Bobby scrunches his flyer up and dumps it on the floor, only to contritely retrieve it and smooth it out when Regina glares at him. Rhiannon certainly knows how to keep her troops in line! It also makes me giggle when Dennis tells them to go home and the protestors look hopefully towards Regina, only to immediately deflate again when she claims ‘this is nothing’. In fact, there’s an awful lot of cute boy pouting in this production, from the protestors to Lonny (‘go away, Lonny’) to Stacee (‘I’m not dancing for him’)…

And since I’m on the subject of Stacee… ;). He makes me so ridiculously giddy, I can’t take it. Just seeing the back of his head when he first appears on stage destroys me, although to be fair the hand gripping the rail above him is also a contributing factor. Plus I was thoroughly distracted by the fact he appears to have ripped a hole in his jeans and there’s now a strip of fabric halfway up his thigh that hangs open. I mean, they’ll probably have sewn it up by the time I’m in next, so it was definitely worth taking time to appreciate it, but that’s not the point. The point is; why do I always do this to myself?! And why do I continue to be so surprised by it?! Of course I’m obsessed with (this particular incarnation of) Stacee Jaxx, why wouldn’t I be? He’s my favourite character, in my favourite show and Sam is everything I could have thought to ask from him. It’d be more surprising if I wasn’t head over heels. So I guess the real question is; how the f*** am I going to cope for six weeks til I get my next fix?! I might have to splurge on another Birmingham ticket after all… After I book Berlin… Not that either of those things will make the next show happen quicker, but they’ll make me feel better in the meantime and that’s what matters :P.

Anyway, accepting my ability to go from 0 to fangirl in 60 seconds and rolling with it… Sam didn’t have any tattoos at all today (unless they were in places we couldn’t see… :P), just a faded mark where yesterday’s anchor was, but I figured the hole in his jeans made up for it. Also, I’ve established I feel very at home at the Bourbon when Stacee first arrives, because I fit right in with all the other girls in the room, practically falling at his feet. Case in point; I’m pretty sure my expression isn’t all that dissimilar to the Sherrie’s when she gazes up at him standing over her on the bar (‘sometimes you tell the day, by the bottle that you drink’), before (and maybe while) he pours his beer all over her. Hell, even Adam has a moment when Sam throws his bottle to him and Adam licks it almost reverently. #lickmybottle is a new one, but I can certainly work with it…!

One issue I do have however, is the number of bodies that get in between me and the Bourbon stage during Arsenal’s set. I frequently can’t see Stacee at all and it’s very annoying :P. I did have a marginally better view today though, so I think it helps being a way off centre. And if you need an indication of how captivated I was by him, I even spotted him grabbing the handful of ‘coke’ he uses to blow over the ensemble. I do love how that’s staged though, it looks very effective. Turns out that guyliner and icing sugar is a rather potent mix where I’m concerned :P.

Another thing I get a kick out of is when Stacee gets knocked out and the girls are all over him. Even Alexander has a bit of fun with him when he steps over Stacee’s unconscious body. Maybe too much fun, in fact… :P. Although I suppose Stacee has it coming after smacking Alexander in the face with his hat and knocking him off the flight case halfway though Wanted (I like that bit too, it’s very nicely choreographed). Anyway, most of the girls get pulled off of him, but Waitress #1 gets right in there (staff benefits?!), straddling him & pretending to kiss him (I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be her attempt at mouth to mouth, but there’s an awful lot of tongue involved, so I’m gonna go with not), before all but shoving her boobs in his face… And all of that is totally the reason I watch that part of the stage in that scene and has nothing to do with the fact that I’m utterly captivated by Stacee even when he’s friggin’ unconscious.

It’s certainly a whole lot worse when he’s conscious though and Heat Of The Moment is an excellent example… Even if he ends up just as unconscious (and just as captivating) at the end… :P. Before that though, I think the somewhat scorching heat of the moment was getting to me a bit. If I hadn’t already died after the whole ‘he looked at me’ thing, this sure as hell would have finished me off, because there’s one point when he’s on his hands and knees on the floor and reaches back to spank his own arse… before grabbing Sherrie’s hand in an effort to get her to do it for him… I mean, come on. D. E. A. D. Although as off the scale hot as Stacee is in that whole scene, that’s not the only thing that blew me away. I love how Sam’s voice abruptly goes very high pitched when she steps on him, before he fluidly drops the falsetto when she moves away. It’s really funny, but far more importantly, it’s an incredible vocal. The transition between the tones is so smooth, it never fails to impress me. Much as I love the way Sam acts Stacee (could you tell?), I love the way he sings the part just as much and his voice keeps giving me tingles. I have some serious regrets about missing him in his previous roles, especially Gaudio. I was so very close to seeing that tour too. Gutted.

So as you may have realised, I’m kinda struggling with the whole ‘looking at stuff that is not Sam when Sam is on stage’ thing and I can’t even pretend it’s just the Stacee effect (although to be fair that is a very large part of it. I love Stacee, I’ve always loved Stacee, clearly I have terrible taste in men), because I’m just as bad in the Final Countdown. On which note, I’ve been meaning to mention this since the first show and even though I’ve been paying less attention to it this week, I still think it’s brilliant; I love the dance break mid-fight when Franz starts dancing and is then joined in various waves by the rest of the company until they’re doing a big, snazzy company routine.

Also, since I’ve stopped talking about Sam for a second, I’ll add that I’ve decided I have a thing for Alexander’s hair. It’s so gloriously mobile. Plus he has arms and he wears a vest sometimes, so there’s that. It really does suck that he doesn’t get his Beaver Hunt moment though. On top of which, I just assumed he would be first cover Stacee (I’m sure Primo has always covered that track?) and he’s not, which is a shame cos I’d really like to see it. That said, having checked the understudy list I am now equally keen to see Joshua (who was awesome as Judas in JCS, so I really hope I’ll get to see him do more in this) and if I could see his Stacee a few times (next year), it would be quite glorious.

It was another quiet audience tonight, but it really bugged me yesterday when Dennis’ ‘have you been there the whole night’ was met with little more than a titter. The band are totally kick ass and they deserve better, so tonight I gave them a whoop, which prompted a bit of noise from the rest of the audience too, so I was rather chuffed with myself over that. I was a little less proactive with the ovation at the end, but I got up once a few others did and had a marvellous time of it.

So just in case I wasn’t already quite giddy enough, one of the first people out of stage door was The Distraction himself, Ashley Williams…! And he spotted me immediately (he was a lot less surprised to see me than I was to see him), came over and gave me a hug! I can’t even remember the last time I saw him and it’s apparently been so long that I’d forgotten we were on hugging terms, but needless to say, I was delighted. It was so good to see him again too, especially given the circumstance. You see, Inglorious recently announced a tour and I wondered at the time if it might be worth popping in while Drew is off just in case, but I thought I was being silly. Only it turns out I’m not so silly after all (depending on how you look at it… :P) because the reason Ashley was in tonight was to refamiliarise himself with the music and learn what’s changed for when he’s depping next year…! Of course I checked where he’s playing and they’re all friggin’ miles away, but Stoke might be an option if some other plans fall through (and I think he’ll still be there then). Otherwise I might just have to do Grimsby. Although that said, even Scotland wouldn’t be entirely off the table if it turns out to be my only option… I really don’t think I can pass up the chance to see The Distraction rock out again…!

After Ashley left, I bounced giddily to myself while I waited for the cast and band and needless to say, seeing Sam did nothing to bring me back down to earth. Given I was still buzzing from the ‘Stacee Jaxx looked at me’ incident, I was even more liable to bouts of stage door swooning than usual and whilst I may not turn into a puddle when Sam looks at me the way I apparently do when ‘Stacee’ looks at me, I wasn’t exactly unphased by his presence. I mean, the way he smiles… and those guylinered eyes… He’s so pretty… And he didn’t have his hat on either, although my brain didn’t process that properly until after he’d moved on to talk to someone else and they asked him for a photo. I did fleetingly consider calling him back for one of my own since I don’t know how rare an occurrence hatless-Sam is, but my hair was not in a remotely photographable state, so I decided to leave it for now and keep my fingers crossed for next time. Anyway, he asked when I’m back, so I lamented that I’m not in again until Birmingham, which is ages away, but sadly places like Dublin are a bit too far to get to on a work night. He told me that Brum is his hometown show, well Midlands is and I admitted that at the moment I’m only there the first night, but I may add another one. I then checked the ticket sitch on the way home and they still have front row left for the Friday, so… I’d have to skip sing-a-long Moulin Rouge at the PCC, but it’s not like we’ve booked it yet and there will be other chances to see that. I’ll also have to leave work early to catch an even vaguely affordable train, but, but, but… Front row! And it’s the side I desperately want to sit on too (stage right of centre). It’s horribly tempting, but I do need to check how much Berlin will cost first… (I think I need help).

When Danielle appeared, she gave me a hug, so I like her :P. Seriously though, she’s got a gorgeous voice and I really enjoy her take on Sherrie, I’m sad she’s leaving; she’ll be very much missed. On which note, I’m going to need to sort out some more Dartford tickets too, because I’ve realised I can’t miss her last night any more than I can miss Sam’s. I’m also going to need to win the lottery to pay for all of this, but that’s by the by :P. Anyway, I did pretty well with the programme today and caught Liam (associate MD), Drew & Amanda (drums – although how I recognised her, I don’t know), except I somehow missed Paris again. It’s getting a bit ridiculous now, she’s the only person I still need and now I’m going to have to schlep my programme to Birmingham. Although I do need to sort out my stage dooring on this show. It’s far too easy to just wait for the people I know and let everyone else go without a word. The trouble is, if I don’t start speaking to them, I’ll never get to know the rest of the cast and I’d really like to. Currently I’m only talking to Lucas, Sam and now Danielle, which admittedly isn’t too bad going since I only knew Lucas a few weeks ago, but I let so many of them walk straight past me and I should be better at this by now! Bobby was around for a while chatting to friends, so I kinda smiled at him once when I inadvertently caught his eye, but that’s just not good enough. I should have said hi at the very least and what about the rest of them? I mean, what about Luke? And Alexander & Joshua were lovely when I spoke to them before, so what about them? I need to sort it out sharpish and stop being so stupidly shy.

Although all that said I did speak to Andy since I ended up getting the train back to London with him and Lucas. I’ll confess I felt a tad awkward, but it was lovely to spend some time with Lucas, even if he was too shattered to be overly chatty. That said, we talked about a bunch of things, including the fact he’s not allowed to pour popcorn all over the stage any more…! I suppose it’s fair enough really, what with the grease, but that bit was so funny, it’s a shame. It did leave me musing aloud about the fact that apparently I like shows with popcorn covered stages. And guyliner. Anyway, we also chatted about the promo videos they’ve started releasing (the ones he shot with Lipkin back in the summer) as well as the EPK they filmed the other day. I may have commented that I need there to be be gif material in it and Lucas assured me there will be, so that’s promising! We touched on a particular review that was published today too, but I won’t go into detail about that because I’ll just get mad again. All I will say is that as a result, I sorta accidentally told them that I think Sam is hot. Not that I imagine it was much of a revelation, but it maybe didn’t need saying out loud. Oops :P.

Peace, love & Stacee Jaxx,
K xx

A Little Time To Think Things Over [ROA:77/2]

Warning: Contains spoilers, fangirling & rock ‘n’ roll debauchery.

So I was a bit less giddy today and I think as such the changes jarred more than they did on Thursday. I still loved it, but that was tempered by all the things I was missing… Until Stacee Jaxx rocked up and suddenly I was high as a kite again. I think I might maybe may have a bit of a crush on Mr Ferriday’s Stacee… Which I’m sure will come as a complete surprise to none of you :P.

I was on the front row again, but this time I was near the end. I’m sure when I booked it, I chose the seat because I thought it would be next to some of my ROAdie friends, but they weren’t even there tonight, so who knows. It’s a shame too because there were definitely better seats available when I booked. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, but more central would have been infinitely preferable. Although that said, Lucas told me afterwards that he didn’t even see me until the end – so apparently I didn’t need to worry so much about him catching me gazing adoringly at Sam whenever he was on stage… Not that I knew that at the time, but hey!

So of course now that the initial ‘aaaah’ is over and I’ve had a bit of time to process everything, I picked up on more detail than I did on my first visit. I’ve probably forgotten half of what I wanted to record, but this is what I remembered to note down: So instead of the David Coverdale intro, the show starts with a countdown. There’s a curtain across the stage, but it’s sheer enough to see the screen and the band, plus Lonny is already there, standing between the musicians. Guitar 1 comes forward the way he always has, but Lonny is with him and does a bit of tongue waggling at the guitar before starting the show. I liked that bit :P. Anyway, I knew something wasn’t right at the start on Thursday, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Turns out there was a bit missing from Lonny’s speech, about saying hello to the person next to you, which was back tonight. I’d forgotten all about it til he said it, then couldn’t understand how I could ever have forgotten it…!

I have to confess that one of the things I miss more than anything else is the choir’s Heaven/Be With You choreography. I still can’t help doing it during the show (I just keep it really really small), but the trouble with that is I don’t focus properly on what’s going on on stage because I’m so wrapped in the memories and I really should. It’s not the same and that sucks, but the new choreo does have its moments and it deserves more of my attention than its been getting, especially since it features Lucas :P. I will say that I like the way they break out at the end, with their fingers in their ears and riffing with their hands.

One thing I do really like is the way Lonny spies on Drew & Sherrie in Waiting. He brings out a big cutout of a palm tree, which he hides behind with his binoculars, then when Sherrie does her bit, he puts on old-school red & blue(?) 3D glasses and starts eating popcorn with increasing enthusiasm until he’s just pouring the stuff down his throat like a drink. How he doesn’t choke himself, I don’t know, but it’s f***ing funny!

During the programme scene, which is no longer the programme scene, because there is no programme involved, Lonny really takes the mickey out of the movie and I’m not sure how I feel about that. He starts off saying the movie sucked but the show rocks, then when he tells Drew to screw the writers, he adds that everyone else did when they made the movie. I mean he’s not exactly wrong, the show is infinitely better and they kinda did screw the writers when they made the movie, but I like the movie. Sure it’s no comparison to the show, but as its own entity it’s fun and I like it and I’m still somewhat shocked over how awesome Tom Cruise is as Stacee… But that’s not important. What’s important is… the show, so to continue…

I think I should probably have been rather amused by the dance Lonny, Drew & Dennis do with the phone towards the end of Too Much Time On My Hands, but I was really struggling not to watch Stacee exclusively, so I wasn’t paying full attention. Plus I was also a bit distracted by what Stacee’s roadies were getting up to so I struggled to pick any one thing to focus on and as such didn’t really watch anything properly. It’s a hard life.

The roadies (not to be confused with the ROAdies) appeared to be managing who got to go backstage to see Stacee. I need to watch it properly to get all the detail (which, let’s face it, really isn’t going to happen until next year), but it looked like they were getting one of the ensemble girls to fill out a form first? She had a clipboard and she kissed it (signed with a lipstick mark?) before they let her go up to him. One of them also searched her bag and pulled out a large pink dildo… She got rather mad at him over that, so much so that after taking it off him, she hit him with it. I think she ended up spanking Stacee with it once she cleared security too, but I’m not 100% sure if I’m interpreting that too PG-13… :P. Anyway I definitely didn’t spot it on Thursday, but it may well have been new. I don’t think Young Groupie had a teddy bear on Thursday either. Plus they’ve definitely added little black Bourbon Room logo patches to the staff’s aprons since then, so they’re obviously still changing things a fair bit (because previews).

So now, if you’ll excuse me, I will be waxing lyrical about Stacee Jaxx for the next far too many paragraphs, because I’m in love again and that’s what I do when I’m this smitten… Besides, I’m on limited time here, so I want to appreciate every second of Sam’s incarnation of my favourite douchey rocker while I can and record it so I’ll remember it all when I can’t. So in a vast improvement since Thursday, he appears to have cut open the top of his shirt. Well either that or a raving fangirl tore it open… (I swear it wasn’t me). It does an excellent job of showing off his chest, although he pulls up his own shirt a time or two as well, just in case that wasn’t enough (it’s never enough). Also, I’m not sure what they’ve done to his hat, but it fell off far less frequently tonight. In other costume news, Sam’s moved his gun tattoo from his arm to his abs, although he’s still got the heart one on his other arm. The plus point of the relocation is that it lends a nice touch to the bit at the end of Wanted Dead Or Alive when he pretends to pull a pair of guns out of his belt to finger shoot at Sherrie.

Still, the costume and even the tattoos pale in insignificance compared to his inherent raw sex appeal… His performance is so insanely, crudely sexy and the way he sings/moves/sparkles/thrusts is sheer perfection. There’s some rather intense thrusting in I Wanna Rock… It does things to me… Not to mention his eyes are so deliciously smouldering, even when he looks totally stoned. It’s really not fair how awesome he is!

I love the way he plays The Rock Star, from the big stuff to the little details, although I think it’s been well directed too, so hopefully it won’t completely kill me when he leaves… (It’s totally going to kill me when he leaves. Waaah). He gives Dennis a rather long and lingering kiss right on the mouth when he first shows up at the Bourbon (which shouldn’t really be that hot, but it’s that hot), he jerks off at Waitress Number One then sprinkles his hand over her face, plus he mimes biting the head off something (à la Ozzy Osbourne and the bat) after explaining to Constance that Arsenal is a living thing; it breathes, it creates, it changes… *mimes small animal flying away, then catches small animal, cradles it in his hands & bites its head off*. It’s a nice 80s rock ‘n’ roll reference!

Of course, the panties still make an appearance, but rather than being tugged from Stacee’s waistband, he instead appears to remove them from Constance’s person (as if he’s pulled them off of her from under her clothes). He then shoves them down the front of his trousers, rather than flicking them into the audience and while I’m kinda sad I won’t get another pair for my collection, I think the scene works very well. Plus there’s the bit when he’s getting sucked off on stage at the Bourbon mid-performance and the faces he pulls… And whilst I’m sure I’d have noticed anyway what with barely taking my eyes off of him all night, after my mates comments to him the other night, well f*** me!

As for the bits with Sherrie… The scene in the toilet is equal parts hot and hilarious. When he bursts out of the cubicle he accidentally slams the door in her face. In the meantime, Bobby has nipped in to relieve himself and it takes Stacee a moment to realise that the person who’s crotch he’s currently kneeling in front of belongs to a man and not Sherrie, who’s still caught up behind the cubicle door… I did say Bobby gets lucky in this show… :P. After that little mishap however, they pick up where they left off and although they end the scene in the cubicle, they really get down to it well before that. There’s a beautiful (I’m not sure that’s the right word, but I’m going with it) moment when he’s flat on his back on the floor with her straddling him and then jerks his hips up suddenly so he ends up holding himself up on his hands and feet, bouncing a bit while Sherrie rides him… And that is a terribly wordy description of something that’s really too hot for words…

Although it’s not just them. The whole production seems a bit more touchy, feely, ride ’em cowboy, raunchy than the ones I’ve seen before. The lap dance Sherrie gives Primo when she first starts at the Venus Club is pretty intense. As for the one she gives Stacee… I don’t even know where to start (and if I do start I’m not sure I’ll ever stop) so for now I’m just going to include my comment exactly as it was when I was jotting down notes immediately after the show: Heat Of The Moment is hot. Sam is so hot. Help…!

On which note… I happened to spot something interesting today; Sam is one of the riot police officers. It’s hot (duh). I really wasn’t expecting it either, so it took me a moment to convince myself I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing, especially after they cut his Sherrie’s Dad track (although on the plus, this does kinda make up for that a little, even though he doesn’t have any lines). Naturally I ended up staring at him at lot… because I was trying to work out if my eyes were playing tricks on me… aaaand then just because that’s what I do when there are pretty boys on stage, but that’s not the point :P. Anyway, when he was standing still at the back I barely took my eyes off of him, only I was slightly concerned that he noticed… Only there’s something about his stare that kinda floors me a bit and the way the guyliner frames his eyes makes it even more intense. I just couldn’t help myself. Although on that note, I’ve belatedly realised that I didn’t mention the guyliner even once last time which was incredibly remiss of me because GUYLINER. I wonder if I’m even capable of truly loving a guyliner-less show any more…?!

Aaaand I think I’m done with the Stacee celebration, for now at least. So here are some other things I wanted to talk about; I rather like the way the ensemble join in with the choreo of the protest without really meaning to. They come in one at a time and some of their expressions look as though their bodies are moving without their control. They also have a few cheesy grins and hand wiggles thrown in to the otherwise protest-themed choreo. Also, if it’s possible, Hertz has gone even more German/Nazi than he was on Thursday. He’s even got a construction helmet done up to look like an old fashioned military helmet, complete with crest and spike. Honestly, I think it goes a bit too far and I don’t find it very funny, but in Vas’ defence he’s hilarious when he gets upset over Franz’s desertion and gets hammered on a bottle of Blue Nun…! I also like his little fluffy puppy dog puppet at the end.

When Drew is delivering pizza, he knocks on the door to the Venus, only it’s not a door, it’s just ribbons, only it still makes a knocking sound, which confuses him… Except he’s the doofus that knocked on ribbons in the first place, so… Jokes on him? I’m possibly overthinking this, but the look on his face WAS very funny. I’m less convinced by Justice’s crack about the sushi she’d recently consumed being a mistake, followed by a fart noise, as it seems kinda out of character for her, but oh well. Thinking back on it however, I belatedly remembered that the pizza used to be for Candi. I’d completely forgotten about her existence, but now I rather miss her. Sucks. They’ve changed the end a bit too and Sherrie isn’t pregnant. I do kinda like the way they spend the whole of the Lonny’s wrap up sat on one of the amps at the front of the stage while Arsenal/Primo are performing and snogging the face off each other. When Lonny tells us what happened to them, they pull apart from a comically exaggerated breath before diving back in, which made me giggle.

I think something still needs fixing with Dennis’ response to his own death announcement. I can’t put my finger on what, but it just doesn’t quite seem to flow properly. Although it doesn’t help that I miss the way he used to walk off stage into the ‘light’. I also miss Lonny’s ‘Damn you, Bay City Rollers’ (or in this case; Alan Parsons Project). Incidentally, on Thursday they missed the cue for the picture of Lonny & Dennis to come up on the screen, but Lucas is rather good at dealing with stuff like that, so it was just funny. It was spot on today though. Also, the confetti cannon went off without a hitch, only it’s paper confetti and doesn’t go that far. I guess the metallic stuff isn’t very environmentally friendly, so it’s probably a good thing, but I was still a bit gutted. I still find bits of ROA confetti all over the place (which may or may not be because I’m rather precious over it and return stray pieces to my bag should they attempt to escape) and I was hoping I’d be able to top up the collection.

Anyway, tonight everyone was up right from the start of Don’t Stop Believin’, which I have to confess felt a bit awkward for a sober person, but at least there was another amazing atmosphere. They don’t do the rock horn arms as part of the choreography any more, so I mostly refrained from doing it despite the muscle memory almost forcing my arms into the air, but in the freestyle bit towards the end Sam & Luke did it a few times, as did Lucas I think, so I joined in a couple of times then. Lucas ran along the front row at the end again too and after doing whatever he did to Julie (the woman he picked on today, who did not get a glass of bubbles, but he did present her with a rose during the curtain call) he came down my end high fiving people. I stuck my hand out but when he saw me he stopped and kissed me on the cheek before carrying on as before. I felt special :P. I do love that boy so very very much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve quite got my head around the fact that one of my favourite boys is in my favourite show – it still seems a bit surreal. Anyway, as expected they’ve sorted out the bows since Thursday and they’re pretty much how you’d expect. I’d forgotten that Stacee’s bow is fairly late on, right before Lonny and Drew/Sherrie, so I appreciated it even more.

Stage door was pretty damn ace. I’m now only missing the swings and most of the band out of my programme and I’ve started the photo collection (ish). I got one with Luke at least, although I didn’t really talk to him much. I may have mentioned that I was the girl from Thursday, but to be fair that could well have been to someone else. In any case, he was chatting to the Ultimate ROA Fan, who presumably already knew him from the Breakaway so I didn’t like to interrupt as he’s only here for the day. I did have a nice chat with Alexander and also Joshua when he appeared too while they were signing, but again, I’m not sure exactly what I said (I really don’t know what’s wrong with me at the moment, I’m sure I used to be better at this…!). I think I talked about how I’ve seen the show a lot in the past and will be back a lot in the future. I know I listed off a few places that I’m seeing the tour and admitted that I’d got carried away and added Sheffield (I’m blaming Sam entirely for that one, but it’ll be my last chance to see him and I’m so busy this year I don’t have all that many options for additional dates). I assume I told them I was the girl from Thursday (too?), because I’m sure one of them said that now I know where to sit, to which I mumbled something about ‘if I can afford it’. And that’s the killer, the venues they have front row left, I can’t really justify the prices, so I don’t think I’ll be able to add any more even if I want to. Anyway, Alexander said that he was already loving it and Joshua added that he was looking forward to going on tour again. One of them also said it’s always nice to see familiar faces on the road, so I’m taking that to mean they’ll be delighted to see me again :P.

Lucas came out with Lola and was waiting for his mum and aunt, so he hung around for a fair while. I was with a few ROAdies at first, but two of them didn’t hang around and the others left with Vas, so I had Lucas almost to myself for a bit. Although when he got chatting to the Ultimate Fan, I ended up having a nice long chat with his aunt and mum instead (I have met them before, so it’s not that random). We talked about how many times I’ve seen the show before, although my 77 didn’t quite rival the 690ish that had just been mentioned, plus of course ended up talking about Idiot. Somewhat more randomly, we also chatted quite a bit about my love of Paris and the shows I see there. It was really rather lovely, if a little surreal. Especially since I got hugs from the whole family when I left! They’re all such lovely people though. I did grab a quick photo with Lucas too, because why not. He looks totally different to the last time I got one with him (not that I can remember when that was, but it was certainly before he grew the Lonny ‘tache).

Sam came out not long after Lucas appeared, so when I asked Sam what happened to Renegade (I really had hoped it would be back tonight, but no such luck) I ended up chatting to them both about it. Apparently it got cut because it wasn’t working, but they are intending to make more of a thing about Stacee going to Uruguay, so hopefully Sam will get something more… Although I’m still sad. I loved that bit and even if they didn’t copy the original production costume choices (although it would have been glorious if they did…!), I’d still kill to have it back. Wah. We also talked about Lonny losing the ‘actually you did’ line, but it didn’t sound likely that that would make a reappearance either. Sad times.

Anyway, possibly more importantly than the cuts and changes was a far more startling discovery… Sam knew who I was… Which was giddifying but also a tad concerning given this is only the second time I’ve met him. Although I reckon there’s a fair chance he’s already put stage door me and twitter me together, in which case he knows who I am and I’m really quite ridiculous over him on twitter already. Although when he posted a delicious Stacee photo the other day (see below – it’s far too hot not to save for posterity) and I quote retweeted him with a caption declaring it was the new lock screen I was looking for, he replied with a ‘haha’… which I did not expect at all (what I expected was to be totally ignored – clearly I’ve been fangirling over the wrong people recently…!). Soooo that does suggest I’ve not gone too far (yet) and maybe he’s cool with a bit of silliness and swooning and general fangirling. And I suppose Lucas can vouch for my harmlessness if needed… :P.

@samferriday: Here’s Stacee 😛 Loving the cast, all creatives staff and everyone involved with @rockofagesuk ITS A LOT OF FUN!!! Thank you xxx

Aaaaanyway… I wanted a photo with him, obvs, and when I asked for one he said something about the hat he was wearing to hide his wig hair. Except as he said it, he took the cap off and pushed his hair back before replacing it on his head. It wasn’t quite a fluffle, but it was damn close and I appreciated it. Of course, I’d have preferred a fluffy photo too, but I’ll take him how I can get him. It’s a pretty decent picture too, although I possibly should have resisted the temptation until I’d recoloured my hair. It’s currently what I like to call ‘shipwrecked’ (kinda blonde-y with very faded bluey greeny bits, so it looks like rope that’s been washed up on a beach… It’s not my best look). Still, it’s nice enough that when I checked it at home, it became a contributing factor towards my decision to add another double show in Sheffield…

Two shows in and I’m a lost cause already. Send help! Or better yet, send tickets :D.

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
K xx

Just Like Paradise [ROA:78/3]

Warning: Contains spoilers, fangirling and inconsistent use of character vs actor’s names.

So I got to High Wycombe (or High Why-com-bee as Lucas pronounced it, which made me giggle and now I’m sad they’re not playing Loughborough :P) about an hour before the show and played spot the cast member whilst loitering out front waiting for my mate. I also did a bit of blogging, although I imagine that didn’t do much to help with the pre-show jitters, mostly caused by yesterday’s publication of the first tour blog. In the end I wimped out of tagging anyone directly when I tweeted it, but I did tag the show so I knew there was still a fair chance of it getting picked up. Besides which, Danielle somewhat inexplicably followed me the other day. She then replied so fast, I’m pretty sure she could only have skimmed it, but then a short while later Sam replied too. Sam. How have I got so good at getting myself into trouble so quickly?! Admittedly that first post isn’t so bad (by my standards), but the second one sure as hell will be and if past experience is anything to go by, they’re only going to get more fangirly as the tour progresses (Exhibit A: see below). I mean, I doubt I’ve picked up a new readership, I don’t imagine there’s an Alexis in the cast, but even so… I might just change my name to Trouble and have done with it.

So I was back at full giddy tonight after a slight dip last Saturday and when Sherrie declared ‘I think I’m here for good’, I had a real pang of ‘I’m home‘. It was a sentiment that didn’t really go away and it hit me quite a few times over the course of the evening. Well, in the bits when Stacee was off stage anyway. When he was around I was far too busy swooning to know where I was…! It really don’t get better than this :D.

Still, as much as I’m a bit (lot) obsessed with Sam (could you tell?), I’m loving my boy Lucas just as much. He’s so f***ing incredible as Lonny and he’s just getting better the more he settles into the character. He’s got such a flare for the dramatic, it really was inspired casting. Obviously he’s got a healthy dose of cheek and oodles of charisma, but it’s the little details that make him so good at this; the facial expressions and flourishes of his hands. He really does appear to conjure each scene into existence. I love the way he sorta stops singing properly before Sherrie’s introduction as if he’s distracted trying to work out what’s missing.

The start of Sister Christian really cracked me up too and basically set me up for a whole evening of ‘isn’t he just brilliant, though?!’. He’s very present in that scene, but in a narrator-y manner. He’s certainly not there, because Danielle drives her tractor right over his foot when she comes on and is completely oblivious to him, but he’s so involved nonetheless – pushing her suitcase into the scene when needed and generally encouraging the drama. I love how he then stands between her and her parents, watching the conversation and silently reacting to it, plus I especially like his ‘yeah, exactly’ reaction when she says she’ll get a job until she makes it big. On a similar note, he’s really gunning for Drew & Sherrie to kiss (from his spot behind the palm tree) in Waiting. Incidentally they get much closer to it than I remember from the original production. After she says she’s nervous, they start leaning in towards each other, almost in slow motion, until he suddenly pulls back, punches her arm and tells her they’re just friends… At which point Lucas’ jaw all but hit the floor in a ‘Dude, are you serious?’ sort of way.

There haven’t been all that many script changes, but one thing they’ve added that I kinda love is after Lucas says ‘no I am not talking about the delicious Arby’s’, he adds ‘and do not cross in front of me while I am narratoring’. The sentiment would be funny anyway, especially given the cowed expressions on Joshua & Bobby’s faces, but ‘narratoring’ is just the icing on the cake. I do love a good made-up word and I feel like it really suits Lucas’ characterisation to say something like that.

So if I recall correctly, the stuffing of the scarf in his mouth (after Dennis tells Lonny to go away) was very much a Lipkin-ism, so even if Lonny had tied the scarf around the mic in this production, I’d have had no expectation of seeing that again. I still miss the scarf, but what Lucas does is too cute not to love. He pouts like a kicked (little fluffy) puppy dog, milking the audience’s helpless ‘awww’s for all they’re worth and even puts his ‘paws’ up and ruffles his hair with one. It’s just the cutest thing. Well, until he abruptly stops, gives Dennis the finger and stalks off the stage, anyway.

In other changes from the original, I suddenly remembered tonight that Lonny used to have a nipple tassel when he came on to introduce Justice, but I’m more than happy with the current staging. Lucas appears wearing one of those multicoloured rainbow hats and whilst I’m not sure it’s the best look I’ve ever seen, as a play on the umbrellas in the ensemble choreography, it does work very well indeed. That said, it’s not the thing that really caught my attention. The bit I particularly love is when he holds out his hand for Justice to stub out her cigarette in his palm and he whimpers in pleasure/pain mid-sentence. It makes me giggle every time.

Although on the subject of whimpering… I may have done a bit of that myself at one point. Audibly, according to my mate. It really wasn’t my fault though. What’s a girl meant to do when Sam lifts his shirt up and rubs his nipple… after making positively indecent noises in response to Sherrie’s ‘the way you sing’ and ‘the way you move’… It was pure sex, even if he’s not labelled as such any more. And I’m actually a bit gutted about that if I’m honest. Given how much time it spent hanging open, I can only assume his original belt buckle (in the style of many Stacees before him) was broken, but the zebra print replacement (with an unremarkable buckle) isn’t anywhere near as cool. Sad times. Sam also had a less inspiring tattoo configuration today, with an anchor on his right arm and that’s it. To be clear it did nothing to dim his overwhelming sex appeal, but I still felt it was worth noting :P.

So my mate and I had a debate about the use of the dildo at the end of Too Much Time (because why wouldn’t we…?). She definitely did not see it as PG-13 and the stance he took, braced against the railing with his arse out, certainly lends itself to her theory just as much as mine. Still, the way the groupie is holding it doesn’t really work with that… Not that it makes much difference in the grand scheme of things given where Sherrie sticks the JD bottle during Hate Myself For Loving You… :P. Either way he’s dangerously hot. And I can’t believe I’ve actually written a whole paragraph about it. G-d I love this show…!

Anyway… Something I’ve always loved (which I’m sure Dylan used to do, but he can’t have been the only one), is when Stacee does the finger countdown to Wanted with a twist. I think Sam’s three is just a normal three (although I’m sure Dyl used to do the shocker – on which note I kinda miss the way Lipkin did that in response to Sherrie’s declaration that she’s an actress… And I think one of the Drews (Ross?) used to confusedly copy it as if he didn’t know what it was…? I digress), but two is rock horns and one is the finger and the point is, yay. Although on the flip side, in this production Stacee plays his part of Every Rose very straight. He’s still clutching the Arsenal record and swigging from a bottle, but it’s JD, not a bottle of plonk in a paper bag and he seems pretty sober. Gone are the days of him stumbling in from the back, passing out next to a random audience member and making them jump (he’s up top near the screen now). No longer does he pull himself to his feet only to collapse crying at the front of the stage before stopping halfway through his lines to throw up. Do I miss it? Yeah, kinda and especially the wandering through the audience bit. Would I change it back? Not on your friggin’ life. I assume I’ve never heard a Stacee sing the end of the lyric live, but Sam gives me f***ing tingles when he does it. The way he sings ‘we both made our separate ways’ is so different and sooooo beautiful. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Although to backtrack for a moment; when Sherrie refuses to dance for Stacee, Sam pouts at her and I nearly died. I didn’t notice it on Thursday and I couldn’t see it on Saturday, but dear heaven, it’s the cutest, sexiest, cutest f***ing thing. My mate and I had a squee fit at each other over it on the way out. How is he so cute?!? He’s Stacee Jaxx, he’s not meant to be bloody cute, but awwwww! Although he did counter that fairly quickly by pushing one of the other dancers away without even looking at her and completing the movement by giving her the finger. And then I forgot all about cute when Sherrie started her attack. When she dug her heel into his leg, he cried ‘my knee’ twice in a pained manner, only to abruptly change his tune entirely for the third cry as he suddenly seemed to discover his masochistic side. After that he just seemed to be getting off on everything she was doing to him and she really doesn’t hold back…! Kinky bastard :P. On which note, I swear Sam gets hotter as the show goes on. I mean he’s hot from the get go, obviously, but there’s something about him by the end… Incidentally, I couldn’t tell if he caught me watching him when he was on the Bourbon stage in Here I Go and then again at the very end of the show… Not that there’s any reason I shouldn’t be watching him when he’s on stage, but I’m apparently in self-conscious mode at present, because I felt the same when I was trying to watch some of the ensemble boys when they weren’t necessarily supposed to be centre of attention.

Speaking of ensemble boys… who aren’t actually ensemble boys… err, so apparently Luke is a riot officer too… and I totally noticed him in that scene on Saturday and not just Sam… (I did not notice Luke on Saturday. Oops). In my defence, I wasn’t expecting to see any unexpected leads in that bit so it never even occurred to me the lead would be in it. Anyway, it’s not important. What is important is how absolutely f***ing incredible Luke’s vocal was this evening. I mean he was great last week, but he completely blew me away tonight. He’s so awesome. I think I could get rather attached to this one and quick.

He’s frickin’ cute too and it’s a bit ridiculously adorable when he’s on top of the Hollywood Hills with Sherrie and can’t get his wine cooler open, so she has to do it for him. Although I’ll confess the whole cooler situation confuses me a tad, since the bottles they have in that scene are clear with swing tops and the ones Stacee steals off Drew at the Bourbon are dark and look like standard beer bottles (and neither of them resemble the cooler I had in Vegas). Admittedly I might be being a bit picky, but they are both outright referred to as coolers and it’s just so confusing… :P. Also I kinda miss the wine box. I know it was a British-ism from the West End, so of course it wouldn’t be in this production, but still. Whichever Drew it was that used to way overfill his glass always cracked me up. Anyway, back to being ludicrously picky; when Stacee spots Drew at the Venus, he calls him ‘Jean Jacket’, which is an excellent observation, Drew is indeed wearing a denim jacket, but I liked the suggestion that he remembered Drew from before and referred to him as such (Stacee used to call him ‘Wine Box’ in town). And since I’m already reminiscing about the past, I’ll also add that I really miss Drew’s muttered ‘I could probably help you with that’ in response to Sherrie not knowing what ‘suggested fellatio’ means. And I will stop now, sorry…!

So I think I’ve already mentioned the way Franz & Regina relocate to centre stage at the end of Final Countdown, but they got some applause today. Andrew looked rather delighted by it, grinning as he looked around at everyone, before his expression abruptly dropped and he snapped back into the moment. It made me giggle, as did the choreography in Hit Me With Your Best Shot when Franz sings ‘like the one in me’. He crosses his heart, then mimes dropping it on the floor at which point Hertz rather emphatically stomps on it. Everyone gasps dramatically, which then sets Franz up quite nicely for his ‘that’s ok’s.

On that theme, Franz and Regina also make me grin after the finale of Hit Me, when they both belatedly realise that they’re barely dressed. I don’t think it’s that different to what I remember, but she pings the elastic on the edge of her leotard as she tugs it down a bit, while he awkwardly covers his crotch with his hand and it’s all a bit cute. Although generally the two of them are almost painfully awkward together, from their little nose rub after Hit Me to their total failure to kiss before he leaves for Hamburg to the stilted hug they exchange when Hertz finally abandons his plans. It’s possibly more awkward than I can comfortably enjoy (I don’t like it when things make me cringe), but they do make a cute couple.

One thing I really liked, that I’m sure didn’t happen the first night in Bromley (but may have happened my second, I don’t remember), was after Franz followed Dennis’ ‘dreams are like rainbows’ speech with his own tale about his confectionery store in Hamburg, he stopped Regina’s ‘why aren’t you there, Franz?’ with a hand in her face and a ‘hold on, where is my Oscar?’. He looked at Lonny who just shrugged awkwardly until with a sigh, Franz informed Regina that she may continue. It really made me laugh. Also while I’m on the subject of dreams; It amuses me how Dennis touches the right side of his chest when he says ‘lives right here’, only to awkwardly pause and switch hands to touch the left side instead. Then later when Hertz does his bit, Regina pointedly takes a step back, out of the circle of his spotlight.

While I’m on the subject of Hertz, I much preferred the way Vas played him tonight. He’s toned it down a lot since Bromley and in my opinion it’s so much better. There are still the little hints of Nazi (with the heil and the goose stepping) and he’s still got the helmet, but it’s just little jokes rather than the whole character and I think it works far better. Vas’ whole performance seems to have relaxed too and I enjoyed it a lot more today.

A few very random bits and bobs; I really like the Les Mis style V formation they take in their protest choreography (I do love a good stagey reference). Also I think Joshua has a new shirt for his stylist track and perhaps because I picked up on that I found myself watching him more in that scene and he’s gloriously camp. On that note, I do really miss the sound effect on the ‘Z’ in Street Boyz though. They do the hand movement, but not the noise. And speaking of sound, they had quite a few mic issues tonight, which were annoying if not catastrophic. Although it probably helps that I know the show pretty much word for word (give or take a few of the changes) and they could probably do the whole thing on mute and I’d still know exactly what they were saying… not that I’m suggesting it, obviously. It would be a tragedy not to hear all those killer vocals.

I had a flyer handed directly to me again today, but opted not to keep it. They’re not at glam as the old ones so I wouldn’t get one signed for framing purposes (not that I ever actually framed the old ones either) and I already have one from Bromley so I didn’t need another. I do really want a poster to get signed though, especially since the one currently on my wall is just generic artwork from the Shaftesbury era (because I couldn’t find one with the cast on). The trouble is, it obviously needs to have Sam on it and the production photos are horribly lacking on that front. He’s in one. Without his wig. It’s really not good enough! I can probably try and pull together a poster of my own using one of the backstage photos instead, but I don’t know how well that will work and that’s really not the point. Also it’s really annoying there isn’t a decent production shot of the whole cast either. I mean really, who photographs this show without an act break shot? Not mid-Here I Go Again when half of the ensemble are blocked by the leads at the front, but the actual end. With or without jazz hands, but very much with the full cast. I mean this is the best we’ve got…

Credit: Richard Davenport

Anyway, it was a rather quiet audience; shocking for a Tuesday night in High Wycombe, I know. And whilst I wanted to get up for the end, I wasn’t sure when was appropriate and I’m really not brave enough to do it on my own… Until Lucas got down off the stage, at which point I decided that was my cue and fortunately plenty of other people took it that way as well. He gave me a hug when he passed me too, so that was appreciated (plus he smiled at me a lot from the stage tonight too, I wuv him)! I also threw in some horns this time, mostly because I couldn’t help myself and Danielle grinned at me from the stage, so I’m taking that as approval for my helpless enthusiasm.

Stage door went fairly well; I managed to catch Ryan on his way out, so I got him to sign my programme. I acknowledged that obviously I’ve not seen him yet, but I’m sure I will. He told us he’s on all next week, but when I checked where, he said Darlington, so I admitted I’m not going there… I mean I’d love to but sadly it’s just not feasible on a work night. I also made some headway with the band. I saw Barney and chatted to him briefly about how great the show is. He had a show watch the other night and said he was laughing out loud, so I’ve decided I like him :P. He asked when I’m back and when I said tomorrow night he told me he’s got another show watch then so it’ll be Liam (the associate MD), which hopefully means I can catch another one for the collection…! I also stopped the bass player, Elliot Mason, although I only recognised him because I did my research when Barney first announced the band on twitter. As we said to him, it’s really not fair that he’s the only one who doesn’t get on stage at all (at least Barney gets to come on for a bow), but he said he’s absolutely fine with that! Anyway, I got them both to sign, but missed Drew (Guitar 1) because I was talk to Sam and ya know, priorities :P.

Lucas was running for a train so didn’t stop for long, but he said hello and I got a couple of hugs. I assured him I’m in tomorrow anyway and he blew me a kiss as he was leaving too. As for Sam, he stopped when he saw us, which was something of a relief because I suddenly got shy and didn’t know if I should say anything to make him stop… And then I panicked he wouldn’t recognise me anyway… I mean, to be fair I have coloured my hair since the last time I saw him, but even so… *shakes head at self*. Anyway after all that, he came out, looked straight at me and stopped to chat, so as usual I was worrying for nothing. He remembered my mate too, which I’m sure had nothing to do with her ‘fellatio’ comment the last time she met him… that I obviously recorded for posterity in the blog, so if he read the whole thing, he’d have been reminded of it. On which note, if I’d had any doubts over whether he’d connected digital me with real life me, they were dashed when he thanked me for my kind words (or something along those lines). I told him there would likely be more blogs, but that they’ll get increasingly more fangirly (see above…) and he probably shouldn’t read them. Whether he listens or not is another matter, but at least I warned him, right…?! When he was about to go, my mate said she’d see him in February, then corrected herself when she remembered he wouldn’t be in it anymore (waaah). He said yeah he’s only doing til 9th December, so I decided that was the perfect opportunity to mention that I’m really tempted by Berlin. He said it would be fun… which strangely enough did nothing to help dissuade me from the crazy :P.

We hung around for a little longer after he left because I was hoping to catch Paris, since I only need her, Drew and Amanda (drums) to complete the collection, which isn’t too bad going really, but I didn’t spot her. Although it did occur to me that I’m going to have to do this twice more to cover all the cast changes. Anyway, we were still hanging around when Danielle came out, so joined in with everyone else that was waiting for a bit of a group chat. She said again how much she’s loving it and talked about how great the music is. Someone said she should do We Will Rock You, so she told us she’d actually played Meat at school, but hadn’t done the show professionally yet. She did say she preferred ROA to WWRY though. Yes, girl! I really do love her enthusiasm, it means a lot when the people on stage are loving it just as much as I am.

So I’m not sure if it comes across here since, as ever, I got caught up in all the little details, but I was a tad overwhelmed by the whole evening. I spent the journey home giddily making blog notes and trying not to play air guitar too obviously, before getting even giddier when Lucas went on a liking spree on twitter. I bloody love that boy and he’s so amazing in this show. He just owns that part and I’m loving watching him (and everyone else) so damn much. I’m so frickin’ happy right now!

Peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll,
Trouble xx

Rock Of Ages Returns [ROA:76/1]

Disclaimer: I was so giddy & overwhelmed after the show that it took me ages to even consider trying to write this all up, by which point I’d had time to calm down a bit too much and the result is therefore not as ridiculous as it probably should have been. That kinda sucks, so I shall endeavour to write these up a bit quicker after the next tour stop, but for now this will have to do. Also, needless to say, this contains spoilers and fangirling. Proceed at your own risk!

[ROA count: 76. Tour 2: 1]

So I was really rather nervous in the lead up to tonight and I have to confess that when I got to my seat in the middle of the front row I had some serious regrets regarding my choices…! I knew this was an entirely new production (directed and choreographed by Nick Winston) and given that I still do bits of the old choreography (and not always just in my head…!) whenever I hear the music, I was terrified that it just wouldn’t feel the way it used to. I think I’m pretty easy to read and front row centre was a hell of a gamble when I was a little bit terrified that I might hate it… Only then it started and even without the David Coverdale intro, I knew I was home. I loved it, so so so much. Yes it’s different, no I don’t love all the changes, but it’s still my show. It’s still Rock Of Ages at heart and even from those first notes I knew it was all going to be ok. Sure there was a bit of nail biting before Stacee’s first entrance (although I needn’t have worried, I mean holy f***!), but aside from that, I grinned from start to finish and in fact well beyond the finish. I am so ridiculously, overwhelmingly happy to have my show back and I don’t even know where to begin or how to even try and put this all into words, but I want to record my initial thoughts as best I can, so here goes nothing. Let’s do this!

So it was impressively slick for a first preview. I mean sure there were a few fluffed lines and minor hiccups, but nothing dramatic or at least nothing that appeared to be dramatic. Lucas nearly flipped over the table/chair thing in the Bourbon when he sat on the end of it, Stacee’s hat must have fallen off at least a dozen times, Justice’s light-up umbrella (which I’m pretty sure they stole from Ghost, although that doesn’t make me want one any less) didn’t light up and apparently something went wrong at the curtain call, which admittedly did seem rather odd since they all bowed together, then just sorta drifted off while the band played on for ages, but I figured they were just doing a Hamilton with the bows…! I gather that was not how it was supposed to be however, so hopefully that’ll be sorted by the time I come back. Still, that’s hardly a catastrophe and all in all, it was a great first performance. It certainly wasn’t just me that seemed to be digging it either and people were already getting up to dance during Don’t Stop Believin’. The whole audience must have been on their feet well before the end of the show and whilst I’m not really sure how I feel about that (I’m all for standing ovations, but the show was technically still in progress), I can’t deny the atmosphere was amazing and I was thrilled for the cast & band too.

Admittedly there weren’t many people there that I recognised, but a ROAdie I know was sat a few seats down from me with her hubby and she loved it just as much as I did, so we could be giddy together in the breaks. Unfortunately My Friend had to bail last minute because she got stuck working late and couldn’t make it to Bromley in time, but my mate came instead. She’d never seen the show before, so it was kinda exciting getting to introduce someone new to it. To be fair she was giddy before I even met her because she saw Killian at the station (we spotted him again on the way in and he was sat a few rows behind us at the theatre), but I was thrilled when she loved it too. So much so that she agreed to come and see it again with me in a few weeks!

So as I said, despite how scared I was beforehand, I absolutely loved it. I think what I didn’t realise till tonight is that the real heart of the show is in the music and the script and as long as that remains intact, it will always be my beloved show. I mean sure I missed the old choreography like hell and I’m not sure that will ever entirely go away, but the new stuff is good and there were even one or two tiny fragments that fit with what I remembered. Besides there were plenty of elements that I feared would be no more but were still there, from the Michigan hand movement to the leotards in Hit Me With Your Best Shot. I was also thrilled when Dennis (Kevin Kennedy) popped up at the end with a handheld confetti cannon (one of the twisty ones like they had at the last night of JCS). Admittedly he couldn’t get it to go off (and there was no Thacko to do it for him :P), but the intent was there and I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it.

Of course, what’s really important in such cases is the cast and this one is pretty damn awesome. Naturally Lucas as Lonny is nothing short of brilliant. Once upon a time (back in the Idiot days) I dream cast him in the role and I am delighted to say I was completely right about how perfect he is for it. He’s devilishly cheeky with excellent comic timing and needless to say his vocals are totally kick-ass. I’d have loved every bit of his performance even if he hadn’t picked on me…! Which is something that needs an in depth write up because I want to remember every glorious detail, but it’ll be long and probably a bit meandering, so I’m gonna stick it at the bottom of this post so as not to break up the flow too much.

Now, it’s still early days and I don’t want to get too overexcited too early, but I think Sam Ferriday might be one of the best Stacee Jaxxs I’ve ever seen. He’s hot as hell, his vocal is absolutely delicious and he acts the part perfectly. He’s so painfully arrogant, even just in the way he holds himself and the way he moves around the stage. I love the almost disdainful expression on his face even when there are girls falling all over him and he’s so beautifully superior… I know it’s ridiculously cliche, but I can’t help it; the way he sings, the way he moves… He really does just f***ing sparkle! And I was nearly on the floor watching him. In fact, I don’t think this paragraph comes even close to doing his performance justice. Stacee has always been my favourite character and Sam is pretty much everything I could possibly have asked for in him. I’m already gutted that he’s only playing the role this year, but I sure as hell intend to make the most of it while we have him.

As for Drew and Sherrie… I loved Luke Walsh as Drew, although I do wish he had a wig…! The short cut looks a bit too ‘now’ for my liking and I mean, it really isn’t a ‘decent amount of hair’! Still, he’s very cute, he’s got a gorgeous voice and his rock screams were seriously epic, plus the note at the end of Oh Sherrie was long. I also rather appreciated his side to side rocking at the start of Here I Go Again. I do wonder how much that has to do with the fact he’s played Drew before as opposed to current stage directions, but either way, I hope it stays. I also really enjoyed Danielle Hope’s take on Sherrie. I didn’t actually see her in her previous Kansas farm girl role, but I like the attitude she brings to this; she’s sweet, but she’s got a bit of fire in her too and of course she’s also got one hell of a belt. I was also really impressed by Zoe Birkett as Justice. I do think she’s a tad young, but she has enough attitude that I think she pulls it off. For example when Sherrie didn’t want to dance for Stacee she really put her foot down, her attention very much on the thick wad of money she’d taken from him and really not giving a damn about Sherrie’s feelings. It was harsh, but it kinda explains how she got to where she was. Besides which, she looks gorgeous (I think her costume might be my favourite in the show too), she’s got a stunning voice that rises beautifully over the company in the big numbers and she certainly makes the role her own.

So of course there are things that I miss from the original production, some big, some small, some more than others and I’m not going to list them all, but there were a few things that really stuck with me. For one thing, they seem to have cut Renegade… Which is really not remotely ok! It’s still on the song list in the programme so for now I’m going to hope it was a technical issue/preview-related blip and not a last minute permanent cut. I won’t pretend I’m not concerned though and if it is gone for good I will not be at all impressed. I do not appreciate having any part of Stacee cut and they’ve already taken Sherrie’s dad away from him. Admittedly it makes far more sense for Hertz (Vas Constanti) to pick up that track, but that’s not the point! Also, while we’re talking about hot rockers losing out, Joey Primo has lost his big moment too, so that sucks. Alexander Day is rather easy on the eyes too and I really wouldn’t have minded watching his Beaver Hunt. I mean technically he still does it, but it’s just a video on the screen at the back with a vocal you can barely hear and then he appears on stage with the band, but very much in the background. Lonny gets all the lines instead (so it could be worse…!) and they’re slightly tweaked to fit (it’s Arsenal that s*** money now, rather than Primo himself). As for Lonny, I miss him tying the scarf around the microphone when setting up the stage for Drew, like that was the most important part of his job. I also miss Sherrie and Drew having their ‘oh m G-d’ moment over them both saying ‘no s***’, but if I had to pick one thing that I really wish they’d put back the way it was (other than Renegade, but I’m in denial that that’s actually gone), it would be Lonny saying ‘actually you did’ during the pre-High Enough argument. Sherrie gets that line now and Lonny doesn’t even appear. I mean, sure it technically makes more sense, but it ain’t half as funny.

All that said however, there were plenty of other changes and additions that I adored and even some that had me laughing out loud. Dare I say it, there were moments that may even have been better than the original…! For example, I was far too amused by Regina (Rhiannon Chesterman) & Franz (Andrew Carthy) at the end of Final Countdown. He was lying with his head in her lap while he sang the last few lines, only partway through they suddenly ‘realised’ they weren’t centre stage and hastily moved into the spotlight before continuing the scene as though nothing had happened. Another bit that nearly had me in the tears I was laughing so much, was at the station in Oh Sherrie. She was sat on a bench waiting for her train and one of the ensemble (Bobby Windebank) sat beside her and started eating a sandwich. When Drew showed up, Bobby ended up stuck between the two of them while they sang at each other across him and all the while, despite all the weird looks he kept shooting them and his efforts to get out of their way, he never stopped eating his sandwiches. It was brilliant!

So I’m sure you’ll all be thoroughly shocked to discover that I also very much appreciated the male additions to Regina’s protest group. Even if nothing funny had happened I’d have been happy, but there was also a mightily entertaining moment when they all got tugged round unexpectedly and Joshua Dever ended up on his knees with his face two inches from Bobby’s crotch… twice! In fact, if I’m not muddling up actors, Bobby gets rather ‘lucky’ in this show, because a similar thing happened to him in the bathroom with Stacee. Incidentally, I loved Bobby’s ‘Golf Sale’ sign in amongst the ‘save our strip’ themed placards too. It’s such a little detail, but I found it so amusing. I also rather liked it in I Can’t Fight This Feeling when Dennis ‘tripped’ behind the bar and was temporarily replaced by one of the ensemble (Alexander?) for a rather impressive dance break. Although how they’ve managed to retain the bit when Lonny sprawls on the floor with his finger in the air, whilst simultaneously cutting the Sistine Chapel moment, I don’t know.

Anyway another change was that rather than threatening to throw herself off of the Chateau Marmont, Regina doused herself in gasoline instead and pulled out a lighter… Only I’m almost certain I’ve seen that before? She then (off stage) leaned over an open pit barbecue, before running ablaze across the screen until she fell into a fountain (and called out ‘I’m ok’), which also seemed very familiar. In fact, a lot of the graphics on the screen seemed vaguely familiar, only I’m not sure they’re from London… which left me wondering if perhaps they used the artwork from Broadway or Vegas? Or maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, who knows?

Anyway, speaking of American productions, they’ve lost the British-isms this time around. There’s a new Arby’s, not a Burger King and they drink Slurpees, not Slush Puppies. Drew’s manager is Ja’Keith, not Paul and the other fine city than Hertz renovates at the end is New York, as opposed to London. Unfortunately I don’t think that joke lands very well without the local reference and whilst I can’t recall what they did on the last UK tour, I think if they just stuck with London it would work better than Times Square?

As for the set (designed by Morgan Large); it’s different, but I like it. When they posted a picture of it on social media it got a lot of flack because it wasn’t the Bourbon Room anymore and even at the time I thought people were overreacting. It’s still pretty much the same shape as before, only rather than a platform at the back below the screen, they’ve got one on either side. It looks a bit like a rock concert stage now, with amps everywhere and bits of truss and scaffold. The bar is still where it always was and there are sections that come out as needed for the doors to the various venues, the restrooms at the Bourbon, the mayor’s office and a booth in the champagne room at the Venus. I think it actually makes it far easier to distinguish between the different locations during the show and the only issue I really have is with the way they’ve set up the band. They have a stage at the back as expected, only it slides backwards to be hid by a curtain in the non-Bourbon room scenes. Even worse than that is the fact that only the guitarists and the drummer are on stage. The MD (Barney Ashworth) and the bassist aren’t visible at all. Needless to say, I’m unspeakably glad Nick did not get this gig, I mean can you imagine?! I don’t think I’d have ever got over the heartbreak! Still, even without a distraction of any kind, I’m pretty miffed that half the band have been relegated to the wings, while the oher half keep getting put away as if they’re not needed any more. It also rather spoils the ‘have you guys been there the whole time?’ line. Hmph.

Anyway, I suppose this comes more under ‘props’ than ‘set’ but rather than Drew’s car in Waiting For A Girl Like You, he has a little motorised, light up motorbike with a sidecar for Sherrie to sit on. Neither of them really fit on it properly and it’s rather adorably funny. They do seem to have got a deal on mini-cars though, because they also had a tractor for Sherrie to make her entrance on and another one later on, but I can’t remember what it was now [Edit: it was a digger type thing that Hertz rode in on at the start of act 2]. Also, on the subject of riding things (behave…!) Stacee comes on ‘riding’ a llama in Don’t Stop Believin’… by which I mean he’s got one of those costumes where his lower half is dressed like a llama and there are little fake Stacee legs on the llama’s back. It was rather brillant…!

So I probably have loads more to say, but the whole evening was so overwhelming and I was so giddy, this is the best I could pull together. No doubt I’ll have plenty more to say about it over the coming months. For now, however, on to stage door, which went far better than expected given one of the staff told us the cast would all be going straight to the bar. Of course my priority was seeing Lucas, but needless to say I was also rather keen to meet Sam. In the end I managed to catch a fairly good number of the cast and my autograph collection is already looking surprisingly healthy. I also managed to catch Marc Le Guerrannic (guitar 2), but I didn’t spot any of the rest of the band.

Anyway, I talked to some of them, but I was kinda high, so I’m not entirely sure what I said…! I definitely mentioned to a few of them that I was the girl Lucas picked on. I do remember that Danielle said it was her favourite job ever, so that’s always good to hear! I know I must have said something nice to Sam too, but I have no memory of it at all… I figured that I probably told him that Stacee is my favourite character and that I thought he was amazing? If I didn’t, I should have, but I was in such a daze, I really don’t know what I said. I do however remember that my mate told him she loved his ‘dead eyed’ facial expression while he was getting ‘fellatio’ on the stage at the Bourbon Room during his gig… Seriously, she said that to his face… And I thought I had no filter…! I mean she has a point, his drugged up rock star stare is perfection, but even so, I can’t believe she actually said it…! Although on the plus, he didn’t run away screaming and continued to chat to us after that, so hopefully that means he doesn’t scare too easily…! He might be a keeper :P. Fortunately my mate’s other comment was a little less crude and she just asked if the gun tattoo on his arm was real. He told us that it wasn’t, but he kinda wished it was. He added that he’d put them on in a rush and messed up the one on his other arm, which was a heart that I think was supposed to say Stacee, but it was smudged so I couldn’t read it properly.

Of course when Lucas appeared he got a big hug, after which I told him how brilliant I thought he was and presumably gushed at him a bit. I don’t really remember much of what I said to him either, but I recall him saying he’s so tired right now that he almost felt like he was on something, but that just helped him get into character. He also said what a lovely cast they are to work with, which is always lovely to hear, especially when I know I’ll be seeing a lot of them! We also discussed him picking on me, because after he molested me at the end, my ROAdie friend joked that I was pregnant now… Which she also told him, only he thought she meant literally & therefore he shouldn’t have jumped me… As if! I mean, that’s the most action I’ve had in ages :P. The misunderstanding was quickly cleared up, but it was rather funny and on that note, I promised a detailed description of what happened, so here it is…

There’s always been plenty of Lonny/audience interaction, especially in the UK, but this production takes it further than I’ve ever seen before (well except perhaps on Drewsday when Simon got one of the ROAdies in the front row to read some of his lines from the script… :P). It started with the ‘look at this one right here’ bit before Sherrie’s introduction, but it didn’t stop there and he came back to me over and over again during the course of the show. He started off asking my name and after initially shaking my head at him (and the woman next to me thinking he was talking to her… awks), I did answer, only I’m sure I didn’t say it loud enough, so it’s probably a good thing he knows what it is already… Although I did fleetingly expect him to call me by my twitter handle instead…! Anyway, once he had it and rather than making a crack about a slippery nipple (it’s a drink… or is it?) he said to get me a glass of fizz… and they did! A FOH person appeared at the end of the row with a free glass of bubbles for me, it was awesome! And like I said, it didn’t stop there. Of course he invited me back to his dressing room at the act break, only he invited by name (although he did tell me to bring the guy behind me too :P), but it went even beyond that. They had a scene change at one point and he came on with a board that quite originally declared ‘scene change’ and after a moment of bopping about with it, he flipped it over to show a printed ‘I LOVE’ with my name drawn on the whiteboard section below! Then while he was giving Drew the ‘do you think I got everything in life exactly how I wanted it’ pep talk, he referred to me by name again. Twice. Only Drew didn’t know who I was, so I got a ‘who’s K’ followed a few lines later by a ‘who the f*** is K?’ and it made me howl! Of all the ways that line could have been phrased, I somehow ended up with my very own ‘who the f*** is Nick Kent’ moment. It was glorious! Although that said, Drew may not have known who the f*** I was, but Regina evidently did, because when she was handing out her ‘Save our strip’ flyers, she asked for me by name and when I raised a hand, she handed me one personally. And finally, at the very end, Lucas jumped down off of the stage and ran along the front row giving people high fives, until he got to me, at which point he basically jumped me… Although I really wasn’t complaining! Of course, he’s set the bar rather high now and I’m not sure anything can beat tonight, but it was so wonderful and all the more so for being unexpected. Even if it only ends up happening the once, I’m glad it was tonight so I could experience the whole thing fresh. Still, I’ve got one or two more front rows to come, so who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky again ;).

So, that’s how our story wraps up… for now. I’m back on Saturday and I already can’t wait!

Peace, love and rock n roll,

K xx

A Failed Farewell [LM18/19:6]

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers

We started the day at the cafe and passed Oliver on the way up the road, although there wasn’t much in the way of barricade boy spotting other than that. Adam came in, but that was about it, although Lukey B popped up, so that was rather lovely. I caught sight of him as he was passing the window and I think he must have spotted us too, because he saw us as soon as he walked in and waved. We were just finishing up too, so exchanged greetings with him on our way out. Of course there was no Thacko, but at least I knew in advance this time. I mean, it still hurt like hell that he wasn’t there, but knowing made it easier and I cried a lot less than Wednesday. I really don’t think I’d have handled seeing that cover sheet otherwise. As for those that don’t make the cover sheet anyway; we had Oliver on for James today, plus there was no Ben, so Adam F was covering him and Rebecca was on for Grace.

//I’ll add the cover sheet & cast board later

So first off, I’ve noticed that Ciaran’s convict shirt has been completely falling off of his shoulder this week. Not that I’m complaining, but My Friend did comment that he needs a bit more dirt on his newly exposed skin ;). I also spotted that he caught the cork today in Master Of The House and I’m so glad that’s a thing again! In fact, it was a really slick movement; he grabbed it out of the air, popped it into the cup in his other hand, then took a drink. I was impressed. Other notable moments from that scene included Steve holding his hand over Antony’s mouth to knock him out (instead of smacking him on the back of the neck/shoulder). I also loved Steve’s belated ‘ow’ at the end of his line after Madame slaps him. It’s so forlorn, it’s adorable.

Afterwards, when Steve and Oliver were cuddled up in the corner of the tavern, Steve put his hand over Oliver’s mouth (that seemed to be a thing today). I thought Oliver must have been laughing from the way his chest was moving, but I couldn’t see his head and my mate (on the opposite side) said that he wasn’t, so who knows what that was about. I’ve also noticed this week that after Valjean arrives and Madame finally gets her husband on his feet, Steve takes a drink from the bottle in his right hand, so Vivien takes it off of him and thumps it down on the back table with a glare. Steve then picks it straight up again with his left hand and he does it so smoothly, it really makes me giggle. Interestingly, I was watching them later, after Javert’s intervention in Look Down and Steve seemed to be holding Viven’s head to the floor. There was something almost protective about it, but at the same time he was stopping her from getting up, which made me think he was doing it on purpose to wind her up…!

There was plenty to amuse me in the cafe too, most notably when Ciaran mimed playing a tiny violin at Toby during Red and Black…! It was brilliant! Something seemed to make him and Samuel laugh towards the end of it too, but I have no idea what happened. Samuel properly messed up Antony’s cloth today too and Antony did not look remotely impressed but because it was Enjolras doing the mussing (as opposed to Marius) he couldn’t really do anything about it and just had to quietly seethe at the back until there was an appropriate moment to smooth it out. It’s possible I’m too entertained by this, but once my friends started commenting on it, I can’t help noticing it and it is kinda funny.

Speaking of Antony, when Valjean appeared at the barricade and Enjolras allowed him to descend into their ranks, he shouted ‘he’s wearing a uniform, monsieur’ at Samuel. I don’t know if he was unexpectedly miked in that bit or something, because I’ve never heard him so stridently before, but it was rather amusing. I also noticed that Katie added a rather emphatic ‘shoot him’, although I couldn’t really hear her, I just happened to be looking at her and there was no mistaking what she’d said.

Something I’ve noticed before, but particularly picked up on today is the way that Raymond says ‘and so the war was won’. I’m used to it being delivered in a somewhat sarcastic, but ultimately jovial manner, but this was really bitter and angry. As though he thought it was the height of stupidity to be celebrating such a minor success when their imminent downfall was so inevitable. I have to confess I like it better this way as it makes more sense to me. As for the Drink With Me hug, I couldn’t really see Raymond’s face, but I could see Samuel’s and I really liked his expressions. I love his slight head shake before, as if he’s trying to dissuade Grantaire from making a scene, even knowing that Grantaire will always make a scene. Then his brief hesitation, before he finally melts into Raymond’s embrace.

Towards the end, I was watching Dean in the centre of the stage and happened to notice that Ciaran was behind him on his knees by the chair (that he ends up dying over), elbows on the seat as he prayed. I’ve never noticed him doing that before and My Friend said the same thing afterwards, so I assumed it was new, but then my mate said that he’s always done it, so I guess I must just have been distracted by other people in the past and missed it.

So Grace made her Fantine debut today and I very much enjoyed her performance. I loved the way she portrayed her and I really identified with her emotions. It’s kinda hard to explain, but I felt as if she was playing Fantine the way I think I would feel if I was in a similar position, so I found the character more relatable as a result. Also, while I’m on the subject of understudies, James’ Javert’s Suicide was fantastic once again. He fell near the beginning, the way he did the other week, and he was so angry. As hard as the last few weeks have been, it really has been a pleasure to watch such a strong actor covering the role.

Finally, on to the cheer of the wedding; When Sam was outed, he stopped at the end of the table and reached out to brush a strand of hair out of Samuel’s face. Oliver was having none of that however and poked Sam with his stick until he moved away! As for Adam; at the end, he acquired a couple of teaspoons and pinged them together to punctuate each line that the Thenardiers sung. It would have been funny anyway, but his delighted expression just made it even better!

Stage door was decent; I missed Dean, which was a shame and there are still plenty of gaps in my programme, but I’ve got a good set now. I’ve got all the newbies, helped massively by the fact that a bunch of the ensemble girls all came out together, although annoyingly I missed James, as well as Anna, Sophie & Rebecca. I’m also missing Ciaran B & Carley, but then neither of them were in today. I’m not sure what to do about the rest of it now though, because without Thacko I can’t get a full set anyway. Of course I could take it to whatever he does next, but since I haven’t seen him with this cast at all, I don’t think I’d really want that. At this point I’m thinking that perhaps I should just cut my losses and start a new one in the hope that at least I should be able to get ONE fully signed.

Anyhoo, I went over to Adam to get his autograph and spoke to him briefly about the spoons. Apparently he only usually does that once a week so we got lucky! I also managed to finally catch Vivien, although I had to chase her around a group loitering in the middle of the street. I was worried I wouldn’t get another chance though, so didn’t want to waste the opportunity. She was lovely and I ended up telling her that I’d seen it a lot this year and particularly loved her. We also called to Ciaran, but he was out like a shot as usual and didn’t hear me. I was going to just let him go, but the ensemble girls were still hanging around and called him for us so he came back. He commented on how good Grace was, which I agreed with and added that I loved the way she acted it. We then got high fives when he left… he’s adorably awkward sometimes :P.

So my main goal for today other than autographs was to get a few cover dates that particularly interest me, but that was something of a failure. I stopped Antony to ask if he had any Valjean shows, but he doesn’t as yet, so that wasn’t overly helpful. I also stopped Joe to ask him about dates, but it turns out he’s a stickler for the rules and he wouldn’t give them to me… I f***ing hate that rule. I honestly think it’s one of the most disgusting policies in Theatreland. In fact, a very big part of the reason I’d not seen the show in so long was because I was so angry when I heard about it that I intentionally boycotted the show. It bothers me no small amount that by coming back so often, I’m inadvertently accepting it. So the best I could get out of Joe was that he’ll probably be on for blocks of shows at a time, so he’ll post on the first day and then I can come… Except I won’t. Dropping everything for Jonny was one thing, but I’m rarely free last minute, not to mention how difficult it is to get decent, affordable seats on the day. Meh.

Anyway, we were just about to give up when Grace appeared so I got her to sign my programme too. She was chatting to another fan for ages though and in the meantime her friends arrived, so I didn’t really talk to her. I don’t think she had any clue I was the girl who didn’t recognise her though, so we’re good :P. We left after that and went to get pancakes and poffertjes at My Old Dutch, which was very much needed. Of course, I should have been going to the show tonight too, but after I saw Thaxton confirm on twitter that he won’t be back, I made the decision to swap my evening ticket. I was cutting it a bit fine, but the nice box office lady let me move it anyway, so I’ll get that second front row show after all, early next year when I’ve had more than enough time to move on from Thaxton. Twice in one week given how I’ve been feeling was possibly still excessive, but I’m not back for a month after this (unless I grab a last minute ticket for some reason between now and then) and I think I still needed some sort of closure so I wouldn’t have changed this afternoon’s even if I could have. I needed to make my peace with things before Bradley starts.

So I have to say that knowing he wouldn’t be back and that I wouldn’t have to deal with him not being here twice helped. Not as much as I could have done with, but I won’t deny I didn’t feel relieved when I saw his tweet. The nightly crushing disappointment was very much taking its toll and I really didn’t think I could handle having to check that cover sheet again today. It breaks my heart that I didn’t get to say goodbye to his Javert, but after all his stints on the barricade over the years, there’s a part of me that hopes I might get another chance one day. If nothing else, I never really thought I’d get a chance to see him at all, so as hard as it’s been for it to end like this, I’ll be forever grateful that it happened. And that is quite enough melodrama for one post.

Peace, love & goodbyes,
K xx

As I Stare Into The Void [LM18/19:5]

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers

Given that I thought I had absolutely no hope he would be back tonight, it rather took me by surprise when the cover sheet hit me so hard that I ended up in tears before the show had even started. I was so damn excited about seeing it from the front row again when I booked it too, I didn’t even care that it cost double what I would usually pay. The worst part is that later in the year I’d probably have appreciated it almost as much, but not now, not today, not like this. Not when I was terrified that one of the cast might catch sight of the emotion I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep off of my face.

In the end, it was even worse than I expected. I struggled not to cry for pretty much the entire show and lost the battle frequently. In my defence, work is stressing me out so much that even without this I’d probably be in a bit of a state at the moment. In fact, halfway through the second act I suddenly started panicking about Google Analalytics tracking on mobile devices… I can’t handle this much stress and uncertainty all at the same time. This is supposed to be my escape, my safe haven, my happy place… Only I’m staring into the void of a Thacko-less final weekend and it really f***ing sucks.

I really struggled to focus on anything today, because my attention was on keeping as firm a grip as possible on my emotions (or at least the visible reaction to my internal turmoil), rather than the stage. I lost count of how many times I ended up crying and that was just in the first act. I was basically an inconsolable mess until about halfway through Valjean’s Soliloquy when Dean managed to pull me out of myself with the strength of his phenomenal performance. It was the first time I really managed to focus on the show and although it was only a brief respite, I appreciated it nonetheless.

I made it through The Confrontation without crying, although I really don’t know how. I made myself focus on Dean, knowing that I’d lose the tenuous grip I had on my emotions if I so much as glanced at James, but even so I was surprised that I managed it. Part of what hurts so much is how excited I was about seeing Thaxton and Dean playing opposite each other, so watching Dean didn’t help as much as it maybe should have, especially in the scenes they had together. I feel horrible about it too, because James is brilliant and he deserved so much better than that. The end of Stars was beautiful, but I still couldn’t help crying over it and I forgot about Javert in One Day More completely (don’t ask me how, I have no idea… Maybe it was just my head trying to protect me by clinging to the things I could handle). Still, I was nearly ok until I was very much not. I focused on watching Dean gazing down at the doll in his hands, before passing it to Amara to pack away. Only Cosette isn’t holding up too well in that scene and there was something in Amara’s face towards the end that broke my heart; and my heart wasn’t exactly whole to begin with.

On the plus(?), the second act is significantly more miserable, so I could get away with more crying… Maybe? I mean this was cast change levels, but then in my head that’s kinda what today was, just without the person I was saying goodbye to so it was even harder. The Javert at the barricade stuff nearly killed me; the angles were so frickin’ perfect. On the plus, most of it happened after A Little Fall Of Rain and it felt sort of vaguely acceptable to sob from the first line of that. Javert’s Suicide is also an acceptable tear-jerker moment, not least because James was amazing. I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t give him the lead this year (not that I’m overly surprised *cough*Jonjolras*cough*). I mean sure I was a broken mess, but I could still appreciate talent and James has some serious talent. I really do need to go back and see him later in the year when I can enjoy his performance properly. It wasn’t just the Javert moments that’s killed me though, I was a state right through, so much so that I didn’t fully appreciate Dean’s final note of Bring Him Home until about halfway through it. I was so busy adding my own little bring him home prayer that I wasn’t paying him the attention he deserved, but holy f***. That note just went on, soaring over the music… It was beautiful. I never thought anyone could make me really love that song, but Dean is well on his way to doing it.

So what with everything else, the one thing I was praying for as I approached the theatre was that one of the swings I knew would be on for James'(/Andy’s) track, so of course it was Adam F. On the plus I was in such a state I figured it couldn’t get any worse and made myself watch him so at least that’s one positive that came out of tonight, because I did really like his performance. I mean I’m almost certain he’s not old enough to drink, but I suppose inkeepers in 1823 didn’t ID their patrons… and there probably wasn’t a legal drinking age anyway… He does look like a kid though (well either that, or I’m getting old…). That said, it made his bewildered expression particularly adorable after he got slapped. I’m kinda intrigued to see his Grantaire now too, having felt kinda funny about it prior to this.

So other than the little drunk, I picked up on a couple of other things in Master Of The House; Steve has started stealing a pocket watch from Antony when he first sits down and I’m sure that’s new since cast change. Then Andrew had a go at Antony for stealing Emma away from him when she was sat on his lap, swigging from his bottle (borrowed from Joe) during the slow motion bit. In fact, Emma causes quite the ruckus, since she’s also the one that Steve dances with prior to getting slapped by Vivien. The highlight though, was the return of the cork toss. He’s shaken it up a little since before and instead of aiming for the big table, he threw it over his shoulder towards Ciaran. Admittedly Ciaran didn’t seem to be paying attention, so didn’t catch it, but I think he managed to retrieve it without too much difficulty.

Speaking of Ciaran… I relied on him a fair bit again today, seeking him out whenever I felt particularly lost. In fact, when he first appeared as Montparnasse, I shamelessly stared at him pretty much the whole time he was hanging from the box… Even though it involved physically turning my head, which made it very obvious what I was looking at… and I’m not entirely sure it went unnoticed by him either. I kept an eye on him in the cafe too, although that was more out of genuine interest than necessity. He seemed very unimpressed by the flyers today. I’m not sure exactly what he was saying about them, but he was shoving one in someone’s face in a manner that made me think he was criticising either form or content. I imagined he was saying something like ‘would you read this? Look at the state of it. No one is going to take us seriously if we continue to distribute this rubbish’.

Sarah was on for Katie today and after she propositioned Ciaran in the brothel, she grabbed him by the tie and dragged him along behind her, which I rather enjoyed. I found I watched her quite a bit in that scene, along with Ben (who plays the pimp) and I’d never really noticed what they got up to after Bambi loses his temper with Fantine. They were both attempting to calm the situation and keep the trouble to a minimum. Incidentally, I’m still rather fascinated by Sam’s reaction to Fantine’s ‘child who sorely needs me’ defence. I need to explore it more fully in order to provide a proper description, but I liked the way he looked incredulously at Javert while gesturing towards her as if saying ‘are you hearing this?’. Also, on a side note, Sarah doesn’t cackle when she leaves the stage before Stars, so I guess that’s specifically a Katie thing. I mean I’ve noticed that before, but I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned it.

In other girl-based news, Vivien nearly fell over when she saw the inside of Dean’s wallet. Also Steve seemed unusually angry in Look Down, right up until his hushed communication with Vivien, after which he decided to suck up to Javert and consequently calmed down. I also continued to be enamoured with Amara’s Cosette and I loved the giddy little bounce she did when Marius first took hold of her hands in Heart Full Of Love. I really liked the way she knew exactly how to butter Dean up too. When she was trying to get him to talk about the past and told him he was ‘loving and gentle and good’, he smiled so cutely in response, he was temporaily like putty in her hands. Of course, it didn’t quite work out how she wanted, but then there was something in her face that made me think she knew full well that she was pushing her luck.

Back to the boys and I have to confess I’m growing kinda fond of the new Enjoltaire dynamic. It’s very different, but I feel like Enjolras puts up with Grantaire’s behaviour because he likes him, so everyone else kinda puts up with it too. Well, mostly. Raymond got rather miffed with Andrew when he interrupted them after ‘dogs will bark’, but then Samuel comforted him and they walked off with their arms around each other, so that was quite glorious. Incidentally, Andrew often seems to be in the thick of it. I found myself watching James N falling apart at the barricade tonight (I’ll confess I sympathised) and after he curled up on the floor, Andrew wouldn’t let him be. He kept tugging at his arm to try and get him up, but James was nothing if not stubborn and pulled out of his grasp, remaining in his little ball of woe.

Returning to my current ship of choice; Drink With Me was good tonight. Raymond continued to address his words to the group at large, right up until the last line when he finally turned his full attention to Samuel. In response, Samuel then seem to pull him into his arms without being asked and as such my interpretation of their dynamic shifted slightly from what it was before. It seemed like maybe there was some sort of relationship between them that wasn’t entirely secret, they just weren’t really the type of people for public displays of affection. Only Enjolras hated to see Grantaire in pain too much to let it go and comforted him despite the audience. I really liked it.

My proximity to the stage meant that I heard Raymond telling Gavroche to go home and after that I thought his death seemed to hit Raymond particularly hard this evening. Although that may have had more to do with things I picked up in other people’s responses than anything Raymond did differently. Ciaran kept grabbing at Raymond’s shoulder when he was sat drinking in his chair, but Raymond was having none of it, so eventually Ciaran gave up. Then when Joe came past, he grabbed hold of Raymond’s face with both hands in an attempt to get through to him, but had no more luck than Ciaran. It did nothing to lessen my desire to see the two of them play E/R opposite each other. On a different note, but something I’ve been meaning to watch out for; Samuel was already looking at Marius when he fell, so he was down like a shot to reach his side.

So as you may have gathered, I was a bit of a mess today, but I finally perked up a little at the end. I’ll confess it got easier after Javert’s death, when there was no longer anything to drive the dagger in any deeper. In fact, the goings on at the wedding even managed to make me laugh, mostly thanks to Adam & Samuel. Vivien gave Adam a sprig of greenery when she passed him and told him to tuck it behind his ear, which he dutifully did. Then when Grace gave him the bouquet a little later, he made several attempts at tucking that behind his ear too! When he inevitably failed, he gave up and put the bouquet in his cup instead and showed it to Samuel, who sniffed it a bit. Samuel then made me giggle at the end when he started bopping to the music and at one point he leaned forward slightly and breathed over the knob of Adam F’s stick. Unfortunately he kept getting blocked from view by the rest of the cast, so I missed what he did after that, but I was still entertained. There was also a wayward teaspoon that ended up right at the front of the stage after Vivien dropped her handful of cutlery, so she retrieved it and made a comment before giving it to one of the boys clearing up her mess behind her. I’m not sure it was entirely in character to actively return silver to its rightful owner, but it was still funny. Incidentally, I did watch the main action a little and I noticed that Toby saw through Thenardier’s disguise immediately and scoffed a bit when Steve attempted to continue the pretense with his little ‘I forget where we met’ speech.

I followed the crowd for the standing ovation at the end, getting to my feet when my immediate neighbours did. It made me feel rather exposed, but then it would have stood out just as much if I’d stayed seated and I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than strictly necessary. Besides, I couldn’t really avoid being seen at that distance anyway and it would have felt rude not to stand. At least being emotional at the end is acceptable! I’m pretty sure Dean saw me at the end and I’m almost certain one of his goodbye waves was specifically aimed at me, but I never like to presume. It made me smile, but still; I’d have much preferred to hide in the slips tonight. I was not remotely in the right frame of mind for front row centre and that sucked because I’m sure I would have loved sitting there at any other time. And really, that was the killer; it was such a waste. I might treat myself to another one some time in the future to make up for it… I mean the conductor’s head was very much in the way of anything really central and I couldn’t see some of the things towards the back that I’m fond of (Ciaran in Master Of The House, for example), but for an almost affordable price, it’s worth it as a one off treat.

Stage door was mostly about continuing the autograph collection, but I missed quite a lot of them whilst stopping others. I’d hoped to ask Joe about dates, but he escaped while I was distracted by someone else. I did make a point of speaking to Amara and told her I loved her… which wasn’t quite what I meant to say. I’d intended to add something to the end of it like ‘Cosette’ or ‘performance’ but it didn’t come out. Oh well! I did add that I’ve never loved a Cosette so much before and she looked happy and thanked me. I thought she deserved to hear it though.

I stopped Ray for an autograph and for want of anything else to say, I added that I loved him and Samuel together. He told me he’s a pain :P. I spotted the MD (Steve Moss), so asked him to sign and he questioned if I knew who he was, obviously not expecting it when I replied with ‘the conductor’. I admitted that I was sat behind his head this evening, but pointed out that I’d known who he was already. I also managed to catch Sarah, finally! Ciaran somehow went under the radar and I didn’t even realise he’d left, but the SD man kindly told us when they were all gone. I probably would have given up long before then, but was a having a nice chat with a stagey kid who was sharing my sharpie, so hung around longer. She was from Florida, but loves Broadway and was obviously very excited about finally seeing Les Mis live for the first time. Of course she wanted to talk to the leads, which made it rather awkward when Samuel and Toby (and Ben) were there and I had to explain I already had their autographs, which was why I wasn’t stopping them…! Incidentally, they have a new programme now – in a more standard shape and size and without the gloss, so mine looks weird in comparison. Several of the cast have commented, but I’m not planning on getting a new one until I finish this one.

When Dean appeared, I asked him for a hug, because I bloody well needed one. He said something about me not still watching Never Forget, but I didn’t quite catch it. It does confirm he’s connected stage door me with twitter me though, because I was tweeting him about watching it with My Friend the other day…! I stopped Steve for an autograph too, so couldn’t resist asking if Thaxton (or ‘David’ in this case… it’s still weird) was coming back. He thought he might be back tomorrow, depending on what the doctors said, as obviously he doesn’t want to do any permanent damage. I was so elated that I didn’t even care that much that one day could have saved me all the pain of tonight. I mean, I don’t want to count my chickens and there are basically no tickets left and I’m meant to be seeing Danny (Gruff), but if he’s actually back… Also Steve said he would bet his house on Thacko being on on Saturday so that’s definitely promising. I’m almost too scared to hope now, but at the same time I could fly…! Still that didn’t stop me altering the placeholder title I’ve been using for these blogs. As of today, there are no more ‘Les Mis Thacko <show count>’ posts. I just can’t deal with it anymore. Although there is at least some small amusement to be taken from the fact I’ve replaced his name with ‘1819’. Maybe it should have been eighteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen?

Peace, love and hope,
K xx

PS. According to my stats, someone read my introductory ‘hello‘ post for this blog and it piqued my curiosity, so I had a look. I haven’t touched it since I first started writing this thing way back in 2010 and it’s a little like a snapshot of who I was then. Of course in some ways it’s now very out of date, but at the same time it amused me how relevant some of it still is. For example, Les Mis got a shout out, as did Dean!

There’s A Pain Goes On And On [LM18/19:4]

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers

So I had a twitter exchange with Thaxton at the weekend in which he said he was planning to be back before the end, which gave me a little hope and managed to perk me up somewhat. Only then I realised that tonight was my last ever Smirky McSmirkface seat and Smirky McSmirkface won’t be there and I nearly cried. I’ve also had a really rough couple of days at work (I can’t believe it’s only Tuesday), plus my week was not remotely improved by the discovery that once again some front row tour tickets we booked have been moved at the last minute (this time for Jersey Boys at the weekend). Needless to say, I was not in the best mood by the time I rocked up to the Queen’s and I couldn’t even cheer myself up with a bit of ‘research’ because I didn’t want football spoilers so I had to switch off the internet at 7.

I didn’t have any expectation that Thaxton would be back, but what didn’t occur to me was what else might be affected by that. I probably could have worked it out given that I knew they were doing cover runs today, but I was still a tad startled when I saw Andrew’s name under the Bishop’s, rather than Antony’s. There was also no Sam, so Ciaran B was covering his track (I gather that he’s first Bambi now anyway & for the record, he was very good), plus Sarah was on for Emma (not that she was on the sheet, obviously, but I’m trying to write this stuff down for future reference since the board is no help). Anyway, I guess they’re past the emergency covers period now, which is rather a shame as I was still hoping for a shock return from an old fave, or even just a Ciaran!Marius (and yes I know I got a Grantaire, but I’m greedy).

So I know it’s been a while since cast change now and technically James was a new Bishop, but even so, I wasn’t sure I was ready for a new Bishop. In the end, I was intrigued enough to be distracted from any potential sulk (I was a mess after that, but I’ll get to that in a moment) and I thought Andrew was pretty good. His vocal was certainly up to scratch, but I thought he looked far too young and I found that quite distracting. I know I was close, but even so, I’d have expected his make-up to be more pronounced and I found it quite jarring. Of course he had the wig and he’d brushed his eyebrows through with grey, but he didn’t have the wrinkle make-up I’m used to and without it he kinda looked like a child playing dress up. I saw a photo of him later and he did have some makeup on, but it just made him look a bit dirty…! I don’t think his lack of beard helped either, but I’m sure more could be done with the make-up. Maybe he can get some tips from Antony?! To be fair, it probably looked more authentic from further back, but I couldn’t quite get past it.

In retrospect that was probably a good thing, because evidently I needed the distraction. I miss Andy terribly and I don’t know why it’s so much harder with his track than it is with Jonny’s or Hugo’s, but I’m really not coping very well. I mean, I’m not coping all that well with Thaxton’s absence either, but that’s different because he should be here. Meh. Anyway, Adam F was covering Andy/James’ non-Bishop track today and I couldn’t even bear to watch him. After nearly sobbing over something ridiculously early on, I just avoided looking at him altogether. To be fair, I have to give credit where credit’s due and I thought his vocal in the Attack On Rue Plumet was excellent. I’ll be intrigued to see him in other more vocal tracks going forward (he’s first cover Grantaire, I believe), but I appreciated it with my gaze fixed very firmly on Ciaran.

I don’t even know why today was so hard, except perhaps the fact that I was a mess before I even got to the theatre and it was just downhill from there. I think part of it was that I had something special to focus on at all the shows so far; Lee’s Javert, Dean and the new cast in general, then Antony’s Foreman and then Ciaran’s Grantaire, but now…? Now I’m just running really f***ing low on time before Thaxton leaves and he’s still not here and I don’t know if I can keep doing this without falling apart completely. The limbo is so much worse than the countdown would have been. I don’t dare move a ticket til later in case he returns unexpectedly, I don’t dare book anything else for the days I’m currently free because I’d rather see him than do pretty much anything else (including seeing Nick & Matt at Knights), but in the meantime he’s still not here… And I’m scared he never will be again. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

I found that I kept looking to Ciaran whenever I felt like I was falling apart. In Master Of The House, I pretty much exclusively watched him, to the point that I couldn’t tell you anything else that happened on the stage. Although I heard Steven say ‘ouch’, I assume after Madame T kissed, then slapped him. Of course he must have known I was watching and as such he got distracted from his buttons twice, so barely ended up undoing any of them. Typical. I also found that Montparnasse helped distract me from my mood. I love how he pins Marius to The Wall after he gets punched, then turns his attention to Cosette beside him, getting right up in her face while Marius struggles helplessly against Ciaran’s grip on his throat. Of course I couldn’t see it properly from my seat, but I leaned and that was enough to see Ciaran’s face, which was all I really cared about just then. I don’t think I’ve ever given him quite so much attention before and (when I wasn’t busy sulking), I rather enjoyed it. The speed he moves when Eponine sounds the alarm, not to mention his agility at climbing up the set was very much worth watching. Admittedly I couldn’t see him properly once he did that wonderful lean of his at the top and when he first got up there he kept his back turned (presumably to avoid being recognised), but there’s always next time for that.

In contrast to the way I felt just after cast change, I found the student scenes easier to handle than the rest, but I still found myself watching Ciaran a fair bit. Admittedly, I’m always intrigued to hear what he’ll come out with and today I think he told Marius he didn’t care. I didn’t quite catch it, but that’s what it sounded like, plus I’m sure he told Samuel ‘you’ve got a point’ when he started singing about Lamarque’s funeral. Prior to that he also seemed to be telling Enjolras to speak to Grantaire when Raymond was standing on the stool at the end of his outburst. When Samuel didn’t immediately say anything, Ciaran told Raymond to ‘sit down’ himself, which I was rather entertained by.

So after letting it wash over me last week, I did a bit more overanalysis of Enjolras’ feelings for Grantaire tonight. I thought there was a real fondness in Samuel’s expression whenever Raymond caused a stir. Even the ‘don’t let the wine go to your brains’ line was delivered with an indulgent smile, although Raymond deflected the comment towards Ben again (like the other week, Raymond was pouring his bottle down Ben’s throat when the stage first revolved). He also looked fondly exasperated when Raymond was standing on the stool, seemingly perfectly content to let him get down in his own time, no matter what Ciaran seemed to think about that.

Still, all that said, I didn’t think Samuel had any particularly strong feelings for R, he was just willing to indulge him a bit. Like he had an inexplicable soft spot for him and as such let him get away with murder, but it wasn’t love. As the show got darker however, it exposed a different side to their characters and in some ways, their relationship. After Rain, Samuel kept running his knuckles over the end of his nose, like he’d been crying (or was trying not to). At the same time, when Raymond caught his eye and waved a hand out to the side like he was asking him ‘what have you done?’, Samuel seemed to really take that to heart and I’m not sure he would have been so affected by it, had the accusation not come from Grantaire.

Drink With Me definitely had something too. When Raymond finished singing, Samuel gave him a look, adding a slight incline of his head, that to me said ‘come on, don’t do this’. I mean, I don’t know what he didn’t want him to do; Fall apart? Destroy the morale? Expose their relationship? It could have been any or all of those things, but either way, Samuel couldn’t turn him away, succumbing to Grantaire’s needs and wrapping Raymond in his arms. Admittedly the hug didn’t seem to go on for as long as it has in the past and Samuel almost looked a little annoyed afterwards, but to me it seemed like that was because there was something more going on than he was willing to admit to in public. I’m not sure what that is yet, but I’m sure there will be further overanalysis in future. Maybe when I’m in less of a strop. Incidentally, I did notice that Samuel was at Marius’ side before Raymond had even finished lowering him to the ground, but I wasn’t paying attention to him before that so I’m not sure how he managed that, if he was watching Grantaire, Marius or just happened to be in the vicinity.

So I have to say; I hate Thacko being off, I hate being here when he should be here and he’s not, but James is a damn fine Javert and if I have to see a cover, at least he’s a bloody good one. The fact he’s a fantastic Thenardier as well speaks volumes about what a versatile and talented actor he truly is. Stars was excellent again and I really liked the softness in his performance of it, which was a marked contrast from his strong, authoritarian manner for most of the show. As for The Confrontation, he had a subtle, secretive smile early on; along the same lines as Smirky without being too similar. I felt like the expression came from the same place, but it was James’ interpretation of it; more grim satisfaction than exhilaration.

His reappearance at the barricade after the final battle was just as intense as I remembered and he seemed almost manic as he clambered over the bodies, searching desperately for Valjean. He even grabbed hold of Ciaran B’s head, tugging it back slightly so he could check that he wasn’t the man he sought. He didn’t seem much calmer when he rotated back into view either and couldn’t quite sit still in his agitation. At one point he looked up, as if asking the stars for assistance. I guess it worked too, because he then looked down and saw the grate. When he finally caught up to Dean, he was so angry and that only got worse after he let him go. He even ended up on the floor (I’m genuinely not sure if it was intentional or if he tripped and styled it out, but either way it was a damn fine piece of acting) and there was something almost violent in his manner as he prowled around before the bridge. He did calm down a little then, his rage giving way to his inner turmoil until he eventually cracked under the strain.

In other news, I finally saw what happened to the pillar tops. Which is not that big a deal really, but I’ve wondered for ages and I’ve always been too focused on the boys getting their rocks off in Lovely Ladies to watch for it. Today my mood was perfect for not paying appropriate amounts of attention to the stage, so I kept an eye out and saw the crew make the change. I never understood how it worked before; assuming that they just added the balls on the top, but being unable to work out how they were attached. Turns out, the entire top is removed and replaced. Who knew?! Well probably plenty of people, but now I know too and will never have to watch out for it again.

In my defence I did pay some attention to the stage and was somewhat amused by James N. Joe was in the middle of propositioning the new Lauren/Tegan when James N nipped in between them and snatched her out from under Joe’s nose. Joe chased them over to the back, but one or the other of them motioned for him to get lost. James N & Tegan seemed to have a rather good time of it and there was a hell of a lot of bouncing, but he didn’t seem at all pleased when he brought her back. There was a lot of swearing and he appeared to be complaining about something. Although she was sick enough to drop in the immediate aftermath, so if she didn’t catch that from him, he probably had fair reason to be annoyed :P.

Finally, a few random notes that have little to no relation to each other; Vivien’s weeping over their ‘pearl’, Cosette, seems to have taken a rather operatic turn, much to the general amusement of the room. I also noticed that she took a good look at Dean’s wallet when he opened it to retrieve the first 500 francs, so she knew he was loaded and could afford to give them more. Speaking of Dean, he was very gentle in his request for Marius not to reveal the reasons for his departures to Cosette and I really liked his earnestness. And on the subject of Marius… (I’m totally nailing these segues), I could almost hear Ciaran shouting after him after he punched Thenardier and ran out of his own wedding. I’d love to know what he said! Although I didn’t need to hear him when he first arrived to know that he was reprimanding drunk Adam for his appearance. Ciaran prodded at Adam’s rumpled shirt and flicked the ends of his undone cravat in clear disapproval and very much amused me in the process. He really did keep me going tonight, although that didn’t stop me missing Jonny’s adorable little smiley face in the Epilogue so much that it hurt. Waaah.

So I intended to stage door, I brought my programme and everything, but in the end I just couldn’t face it. Besides, it would have been another opportunity to have the football ruined, so I headed straight home. I had my headphones in before I even left the theatre to drown out any conversations I might otherwise overhear, but I forgot my iPod, so had to rely on my phone. I just hit play on the last thing I listened to and blasted it as loud as I could handle, but it’s possible that wasn’t my smartest move. As much as I adore Divisions, they’re not the chirpiest band and I was already depressed as f***. Plus listening to Thacko’s voice when I’d spent the whole night nearly crying over the lack thereof did not make me feel any better… I was crying by the time I got home and it didn’t help anyway. I might have been able to gloss over one lone wolf singing the ‘la la la’ bit of Vindaloo, but three drunk prats singing it at the top of their f***ing lungs in the enclosed space of a tube station was harder to ignore. Although I figured I could do with something going right today and then I saw the game…

I have to say, by the time I finally went to bed I was ready to sing Vindaloo (or rather Three Lions) at the top of my lungs, but it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. I was about ready to scream when extra time happened, I was so tired and I just wanted to sleep. In fact, I very nearly fell asleep on the sofa, but then penalties happened and I was so sure from the reaction in town that we’d won, but England and penalties…?! I was very much doubting my earlier certainty over the result until it actually happened (I screamed when Pickford saved that last penalty… At 2:15am in a flat… Oops) and then of course I was too excited to sleep. Naturally it wasn’t all perfect, because after a day like today how could it be? The win means we’re through to the quarter final on Saturday… which I’ll be missing because I’ll be sat in s*** seats at Jersey Boys… Seats I would never have dreamed of spending so much on for anything less than front row (and even that was a ridiculous indulgence). Meh. And if by some miracle we make it through to the semi final next week, I’m back at the barricade. It’s the only thing I have booked for the whole week too, for f***s sake. If we get through I’m moving it.

Peace, love and complex emotions,
K xx

PS. I know I’m moaning a lot right now, but I’m really struggling with this. I want to take a step back; I’m coming far too often at the moment, but as I said, I don’t dare change anything just in case. So I’m upset and feeling rather helpless and that means I rant. I know there’s nothing anyone can do, it’s no one’s fault and these things just take time, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

PPS. IT’S COMING HOME!!!

PPPS. The unexpected football high may have made the end of this post slightly schizophrenic…

Knights Of The Rose

So way back when I first heard of this show’s existence I figured that if it worked, it could be the best thing ever, but if it didn’t, it could be catastrophically bad… I’ll admit that as much as I hoped for the former, I expected the latter, so I was beyond delighted to be proved very, very wrong! Of course, on paper it had serious potential, so even before it was cast I knew I’d have to see it, because it had all the right ingredients for a new home; I love rock music, I adore Shakespeare and I will happily get behind anything involving choreographed sword fighting. Once they announced the cast, that only confirmed it; I’ve waited far too long to see Matt Thorpe back on stage (in a show) and I had a sneaking suspicion that a certain someone would be taking a summer holiday from Summer Holiday to join the band. Obviously that wasn’t confirmed until a few days ago, but even without Nick I would have loved this show (although he helped, obviously).

For a first preview, especially of a show this size, it was surprisingly slick and the few things that weren’t as smooth, I’ve no doubt they’ll iron out quickly. The first few transitions from olde English to rock song felt slightly contrived, not least because of the way they slipped opening lyrics into the text so you could see the approaching song coming a mile off, but it worked. Plus it settled into a rhythm fairly quickly and whilst I still giggled a bit, that wasn’t a bad thing. Someone missed a cue at one point, so the stage was empty for a long moment, plus I suspect a bit more practice at moving the large set pieces will help smooth things out too. Aside from that however, if there were many mistakes, I didn’t pick up on them and the cast appeared confident and seemed perfectly comfortable on the stage.

The story follows the battlefield and romantic exploits of the House Of Rose (I’ve tried not to spoil anything & as such this is quite horribly written, so if you’d rather keep the whole thing a mystery or just want to avoid my lack of eloquence, please skip this paragraph). Narrated by John (Ruben Van Keer), who seems to be a bit of a lackey to the House, the story tells of Prince Gawain (Andy Moss), son of King Aethelstan (Adam Pearce) and Queen Matilda (Rebecca Bainbridge) who has been off fighting a war for five years, but is now coming home victorious, alongside the knights of the realm, including Sir Horatio (Matt Thorpe), Sir Palamon (Chris Cowley) and Sir Hugo (Oliver Savile). Meanwhile, his sister Princess Hannah (Katie Birtill) and Lady Isabel (Rebekah Lowings) eagerly await the men’s return in hopes of lighting or rekindling the flames of romance. Of course, it’s never that simple and with multiple suitors vying to win the hands of their beloveds, it was just what you’d expect from a Shakespearean style yarn. In the case of Princess Hannah, there were certainly some parallels with Two Noble Kinsmen (which I coincidentally saw for the first time the other week [Edit: although I only realised later that the play is based on Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale. Oops]), with Sir Hugo and Sir Palamon (not that the name hints at his origins or anything…!) both fighting to win her affections. The drama only increases when it transpires that one of them is willing to do anything to be the victor. On the other hand, the orphaned Lady Isabel, having grown up in the royal household, was naturally destined to be with Prince Gawain, leaving poor Sir Horatio to pine hopelessly after her. So who’ll win the girl(s)? Who’s heart will break? How can it possibly all be resolved? Throw the knights back onto the battlefield of course and who knew which lovers would make it back alive…?!

So it’s safe to say that by the time the interval rolled around, I was sold. There were rock songs, soliloquies and boys in guyliner dancing around the stage with swords, making lots of rargh sort of noises. It was right up my street and in fact, there was a moment that reminded me very much of Les 3 Mousquetaires and another bit where my head expected the next piece of music to be from La Légend Du Roi Arthur and I was almost confused when it wasn’t. I loved the choreography and all the sword thrusting and what not, it was atmospheric and hot at the same time :P.

When they weren’t waving their swords around, they were quoting Shakepeare et al. and I thought the script was really well put together. The show was set in medieval times, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when I skimmed through the three pages of literary credits to find that large chunks came from Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale [Edit: I only know the film, hence not having a clue about the origins of Kinsmen]. There was obviously a fair bit of Shakespeare in there too and whilst I don’t pretend to be any sort of expert, I at least recognised a reasonable amount of that. There were lots of other writers in there too though and it was very nicely scripted. Like a jukebox play of sorts, but something more like Rock Of Ages than We Will Rock You, because they had the freedom to draw from dozens of different sources both literary and musical to create their tale, rather than trying to force a single artist’s hits into a ridiculous story. The narrative was impressively strong as a result and it didn’t feel jukebox-y.

As for the music, I didn’t know all of it, but it was primarily rock. That said, there were a few curve balls, such as a number Matt sang called Je Cherche Après Titine, which was in French? Maybe? [Edit: I had to look it up afterwards because I knew something wasn’t quite right about it…! It turns out that it was originally a comic French song, but Charlie Chaplin used it in his first talkie only the character forgot the lyrics so it was mostly gibberish with random words of French & Italian thrown in. Take a wild guess which version Matt sang… :P). Aside from that though, there was quite a lot of Bon Jovi alongside tracks by The Calling, No Doubt, REM, Black Sabbath, Robert Palmer and Bonnie Tyler, to name but a few. On which note there were naturally several songs about heroes, which I got quite a kick out of, but more on that later :P. Anyway, the music fit surprisingly well with both the story and the show as a whole, despite the theoretically odd combination of old and new. Once I got used to it, I forgot about the disparity entirely and the music really added to the atmosphere of the piece, drawing out my emotions. By which I mean that I cried… I tried really hard not to as well, but I couldn’t help myself *sniffles*.

So obviously Matt was brilliant. He provided much needed comic relief, did a good bit of floor cleaning and flashed his pants. What more could a girl want?! Well I mean, apart from the gorgeous vocal and depth of character. Because as funny as Horatio was, he had real heart too and I thoroughly enjoyed watching him. He got to keep his own accent too, which stood out quite a bit amongst the rest of the company, but if I recall correctly, Horatio is supposed to be illegitimate and as such, caught slightly on the outskirts of society, so it kinda fit. It also made him even more endearing and I couldn’t help rooting for him. Plus he’s pretty hot with the guyliner and the leather armour and the sword… I even liked the hair (shaved sides, long bit on top pulled back into a dinky little ponytail), especially with the tiny little braid hanging down over his forehead. It made him look like a barbarian warrior or something. Rargh.

I also thought Chris & Oliver were really well cast as the two leading knights and they played their contrasting characters perfectly. Oliver was gentle and calm, more than ready to leave the battlefield behind him for the love of a good woman, whereas Chris was full of anger and lust, relishing the fight as much as the girls and the glory that came with it. He was very ambitious too and would happily do anything to get what he wanted, so much so that he was downright creepy at times, but brilliant; so sinister. Maybe he can do the Enjolras > Javert thing one day, because I’d love to see his take on that. And yes, I am now somewhat sad I didn’t see his E. As for the rest of the cast, I thought they were all good. The girls certainly had their moments and I was more affected by the expression on Lady Isabel’s face than I was by anything else in one particular scene, so I can probably blame her for the crying. I gather Andy Moss is the ‘name’, but since I don’t watch much TV, his wasn’t a name that I knew. I liked him well enough though, especially in the softer numbers.

I very much approved of the costumes too and not just because all the men were all in guyliner. There was also a lot of leather, both in the form of clothing and copious quantities of accessories; cuffs, belts, shoulder armour, scabbards and whatnot. They also had vests made of a thin black fabric shot with silver, which I thought was a rather nice allusion to chainmail. They had some really cool horse head puppet things too, which they used when they headed off to battle and the enemy’s faces were obscured with scary looking metal masks that actually reminded me of Death Eaters. Plus of course the girls had beautiful dresses that I was very jealous of. I wish I could wear one of those… and have sexy guylinered knights falling at my feet while I’m at it!

The set was far more elaborate than I was expecting, with two large sections that moved around the floor; a two storey balcony/platform thing & a staircase, both with swords for railings, which I thought looked rather cool. They also made good use of projections across several layers of screens. Much of the imagery was static; the tents of the army’s camp, the moon etc., but they also did some really nice things with a sort of smoke effects too. It actually reminded me a little of the video I saw of Let It Go from Frozen on Broadway! I have to say, I’d love to see it from front centre circle, because I imagine it would look even more effective from there, but since I’m not made of money, I suspect that won’t happen :P.

There was a mezzanine at the back, which was frequently used by the cast and also held the band. The drummer (Josh Carpenter) was behind a screen on stage right, I think, although I only spotted him during one song. Guitar (Chris George) & bass (SuperNick) were on stage left, although the guitarist moved across to the middle every now and then. I assume the MD (Mark Crossland) was just past Nick, but I was in A3 and couldn’t see much beyond Nick’s elbow. There was also a bit of set either side of the proscenium arch containing a wooden door that hid a wall of roses and when the doors were open, they marginally impacted my view of Nick. Not that I could see him that well anyway…

And of course, I have to say something about Nick, because Nick! Lucas warned me before the show that I wouldn’t be able to see him much, which worried me a lot, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I mean the screens very much obscured my view and the half height one at the back was down for most of the show so that really didn’t help. He also had a music stand, which was rather in the way, but from what he said at stage door, I think they’re hoping to dispense with them by press night, so that’ll be better and hopefully give him more freedom to move too. Anyway, he may have been in shadow, but I could still see him rocking out every now and then and there was a song fairly early on with headbanging and even a bit of knee and oh dear heaven I didn’t know how much I’d missed that until I saw it again. He didn’t seem to have done too much to his hair either, because there was some serious movement going on. It was stunning and I couldn’t even see his face. In fact, I couldn’t even tell what he was wearing, all I could make out was that his right arm was deliciously bare and glinting beautifully in the half light. In any case it was still a joy to have him back on stage. Even half in shadow, I’ll take that over a pit job any day. Plus I really can’t express how deliciously entertaining it was to see him playing Holding Out For A Hero. It’s practically the fan club anthem! I may or may not have had a serious giggle when they reach the superman lyric.

Incidentally, Nick posted a photo with the guitarist and the drummer before the show and all of us had a bit of a ‘hello’ moment over the drummer, so I was on strict instructions to check the layout. So I did really well with that given that I didn’t even notice he was visible from my seat for most of the show…! Although in my defence I think the set blocked him early on so it didn’t occur to me to look for him later. I did notice that he popped out of his box with a cajon at one point though, so there is that!

After the show, I met a couple of Idiots outside (who I bumped into before the show, chatting to Lucas), so we waited to see our boys right next to the big Matt poster by the door. It was just a little like old times (although they’ve transformed the cafe several times since then and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I miss Wonderland, I felt at home there!). The band boys who were not Nick (or Mark – I didn’t see him at all, actually) were out fairly quickly, but Nick took a fair while to follow them. When he did appear I may have squealed with excitement, but fortunately he didn’t seem to mind :P. In my defence he was still wearing his guyliner and I’d forgotten how hot that looks at close quarters, plus I’ve barely seen him all year. We got our hugs (he does give a bloody good hug) and chatted for quite a while, which was rather lovely. I’ve really f***ing missed him, it’s so good to have him back again, even if it’s only for a couple of months (and at least Summer Holiday has a few nearby venues after he returns to the tour).

Nick asked us if we’d been in, so we assured him that of course we were. In fact, Matt asked the same thing, so one of my friends pointed out that we wouldn’t have just come… And I mean, I don’t think we’d have done that…?! Admittedly I did do that once when Hair closed, when all my faves were going back to New York and I couldn’t make the final show, but that’s different right?! Plus I used to swing by The Arts all the time on my way home when Tailor Made Man was on, but that was just to see if any of my friends were around. I couldn’t even look Dylan in the eye back then, let alone talk to him, so it’s not like I was just chasing boys… *ahem*. Aaaaanyway, I told him it was good to have him ‘home’ and we complimented him on the show. He told us that they hadn’t even had a dress run and they didn’t get the last bits of music through until around 4 this afternoon. They’ve been working 12 hour days too. I don’t know how they pulled tonight out of the hat, but it was impressive as hell. Congrats to the whole company.

I can’t remember how it came up now, but I told him I couldn’t see what he was wearing, so he’d have to post a photo. He told us it was a really cool leather jacket and pulled up a picture on his phone of the band in costume to show us. It does look rather hot; cut off sleeves with studs and patches and such, so I hope he does actually post a photo at some point so I can examine it at my leisure :P. I then admitted that all I could see was his arm, and from that the only thing I could tell was that he didn’t have sleeves!

When Matt came out, he was with Andy, so they both came over to us. Andy asked if we were the Thorpettes so we assured him that we were not! We then had a rather similar conversation with Matt to the one we had with Nick, both about the show (and the fact they weren’t sure they had one this afternoon) and his costume, because we discussed his little hair braid, his floor-cleaning and the fact he has clothes, although he still couldn’t keep his trousers up :P.

We then ended up waiting around for absolutely ages to see Lucas & Racky, but we were having a nice catch up so I kinda lost track of time anyway. As I said, I saw Lucas before the show (I spotted him across the crowd outside the theatre and then realised he was chatting to my mates), so I went over to say hello. He also walked by me in the interval, so I informed him ‘I bloody love it!’ as he passed. Anyway, it was really rather lovely to see him again too, especially as I’ve not seen him since Loserville (I saw Millie once before the tour was brutally pulled, but didn’t manage to catch him then). I’ve missed him! It was also rather exciting to chat about Rock Of Ages a bit. I’m so ridiculously excited about it! I dream cast him as Lonny way back when Idiot was still on (I admitted that to him today) and I still can’t quite believe it’s a reality! I mean, I’ve strongly suspected for a while thanks to the rumour mill, but it only got announced recently and seeing it in writing brought all that initial excitement back (plus I never like to get too excited until things are actually confirmed). Before the show this evening he was talking about doing a promo shoot for ROA and having to ad-lib stuff for a character he hasn’t created yet… with Simon Lipkin behind the camera! No pressure or anything, poor thing! I did reassure him later that having seen the show all over the place, with so many Lonnys, everyone plays it very differently and there’s definitely plenty of room for him to put his own stamp on it. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

We said we were leaving half a dozen times before we actually departed, because we kept getting swept up in conversations. I can’t really remember what I said to Racky, but we chatted about the show quite a lot and I gave her some feedback on the stuff I really loved (mostly in the hope it doesn’t then get cut during the preview process!). I made a particular point about the dancing with swords, because it seemed like elements of it might be up for debate and I certainly don’t want that to stop, it was glorious!

Peace, love & boys with swords,

K xx

PS. I headed into town early to check yesterday’s Les Mis cover sheet before they changed it, just in case, then went and had a wrap in the usual cafe while I waited for them to put up tonight’s. I had no expectation that Thaxton would be back, but I just needed to know. Because if he was back, I’d have to give it a shot tomorrow… but he wasn’t. Meh. Still, I did see Sam while I was in there so it wasn’t all bad. I’m growing quite fond of him, I think.

My Second (Cover) Saviour [LM18/19:3]

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers

So I was not in the best mood today and my faith that Thacko would be on tonight (after having been back yesterday) rapidly diminished as show time got closer. As it turns out, pessimism was the way to go, because Javert was the first name I saw on the list when I arrived. I mean yes I wanted to see James, I’d even have come Saturday night if I’d known he was making his debut then (they hadn’t updated the cast board when I checked at 6:15 & I didn’t realise so went to see Young Frankenstein instead – I’m kinda miffed about that, cos I missed Emma’s Fantine too), but not today. Not when every day that passes is another day closer to never seeing Thacko on this stage again. The one saving grace was that with Steven off too, Raymond was covering Thenardier (which, to be fair, I also wanted to see, but again, I wasn’t in any sort of rush – I have all year for seeing first covers) and therefore… Ciaran was on for Grantaire! Something I hadn’t really expected to get the chance to see again. Not that I was any less upset about Thacko’s absence, but at least I had something; a reason to be here today as opposed to some distant day when I wasn’t so conscious of who should have been swinging that truncheon.

So Ciaran did for me what Antony did last week, it was just a while in coming since the students don’t come into it til fairly late on (and in the meantime, he wasn’t on for Montparnasse either so he didn’t swing out from the old boxes next to me). Still, the fact is, as much as it’s killing me that Thaxton isn’t here, Ciaran certainly made it worth coming tonight. He’s such a brilliant Grantaire and I loved every minute of it, even if he did make me cry… Twice…!

He was a very merry and rather scruffy Grantaire. He had the fake stubble again, which he washed off for his other tracks, and his waistcoat was in a right state. They’re always wine stained, but his looked really faded too, like he’d left it in the sun a few too many times. Anyway, he was sarcastic but lighthearted, never taking anything seriously and he was easily amused. He was delighted by the opportunity to cause mischief and got quite a kick out of encouraging Marius. When he first revolved into view, he was standing on a stool with Joly’s book in his hand, holding it out of his reach. He moved over to sit at the side once the meeting came to order & began perusing his paper, but he looked up when Samuel mentioned wine, casually acknowledging that the comment was aimed at him.

Needless to say, I loved what happened next; He sat on Toby’s lap and kissed him right on the mouth, much to Toby’s dismay (pretty much how Paul reacted, really). He then perched on the corner of the main table, with one foot on the surface & gave the bottle (held in its standard crotch-level position) a good thrust, before climbing onto the stool and punctuating the end of his vocal with a little stompy thing. He finished with a beautifully flamboyant bow and a ‘merci, gentlemen, thank you’ and evidently I wasn’t the only one he impressed, because Adam F held a flyer and pen out towards him, as if asking for Ciaran’s autograph – I loved that! I also loved the way Ciaran winked at Samuel before consenting to get down from his elevated perch. He winked at him again later in the first act too, but I can’t recall exactly when. James N was sat in Ciaran’s seat when he got off the stool so he waved him off – that’s evidently a thing now.

Ciaran took a great interest in what Enjolras had to say, even if he didn’t seem to think much of the content. When Samuel questioned if they were fighting for a night at the opera, Ciaran wiggled his hand in a ‘wellllll, maybe, who can say for sure’ sort of manner. That said, as soon as he was no longer the focus of Enjolras’ attention, he tried to talk to Toby. He didn’t have much luck because he was evidently trying to be subtle, so every time Samuel turned towards them, he went quiet. And Samuel turned towards them a lot…! Still, it would seem he managed to get his point across and Ciaran looked delighted when Toby stood up for himself. Of course he was nothing but encouraging and got up on his stool to sing ‘red’, stepping onto the adjacent stool for ‘black’. He certainly took plenty of credit for Marius’ newfound backbone too; he looked quite thrilled that he’d had such an influence. Plus he threw in the cutest little cackle after the brandy line, which really resonated in the sudden silence at Gavroche’s shout.

So as you may have gathered, I love his physicality as much as the rest of it. He gave another sardonically flamboyant bow (he’s very good at those) to Samuel after the departure from the café, who evidently chose to ignore the sarcasm in it and clapped him on the shoulder regardless. I have to say, I thought there was definite potential there…! Anyway, later at the barricade when Ciaran was contentedly ignoring the soldier’s warnings he had something of a run in with Andrew who was highly unimpressed by Ciaran’s apparent disregard for his own safety. Andrew physically shoved him off of the box in the end, although Ciaran did then succumb, sprawling on the floor with his head propped up against the side of the box and his feet crossed in front of him, chill as you like. Incidentally I think Andrew had a go at Joly later on, after his desertion, but I’m not sure if I’m mixing that up with something else. Anyway, he may not have had much regard for his own safety at that point, but he was still keeping an eye on Gavroche and when one of the girls offered him the bottle after the Javert incident, Ciaran took it off of him before he could have a drink from it, which I thought was rather cute.

All that said however, I loved the change in him after Eponine. It was like he couldn’t hide from reality any more or pretend that the fight wasn’t happening and it was such a marked contrast from the joviality of before. The lightheartedness was gone and the sarcasm that was left was bitter and harsh, rather than entertaining. Admittedly I’ve read too much fanfic this week, most of which involved Grantaire struggling to cope with his certainty that Enjolras was going to his death, probably for nothing. It was all very angsty and I think that emphasised the darker side of Grantaire’s emotions at the barricade tonight.

After A Little Fall Of Rain, when Samuel started singing, Ciaran turned to look at him and just stared. Inevitably Samuel looked round and caught his eye, so Ciaran shook his head at him. Samuel looked away with a chastised expression, as if he couldn’t quite face Ciaran’s condemnation. Seemingly unable to resist Ciaran’s unwavering attention, Samuel looked back again a moment later, only for the same thing to happen again. And as for Drink With Me… On the plus, I was so distracted watching Ciaran that the memory of John at cast change didn’t make me cry… but then Ciaran made me cry, so I still ended up sobbing.

Ciaran started on James N at first, but addressed the wider group for most of it. Samuel still needed to be nudged to realise anything was amiss, but then came down to intervene and just took it when Ciaran turned his attention on him; like he was letting Ciaran get it all out before he comforted him. For his part, Ciaran seemed too upset to do much more than stand and collapse in on himself, so Samuel kind of beckoned him in to the hug. I couldn’t see Ciaran’s face, so I’m not sure what he was doing in the lead up to the hug, but I could see him shaking with the strength of his sobs against Samuel’s chest. So credit where credit’s due, Samuel held on to him for some time, stroking his hair and then hugging him tighter. He looked really sad too, like he genuinely wanted to help him and hated knowing that he was even partially responsible for the state Ciaran was in. He tried to take the bottle off of him too, only Ciaran pulled it out of his reach on his first attempt, although he managed to grab hold of it it on his second try. All in all, the whole interaction between them was pretty damn brilliant and all the more so because I didn’t really expect it to be so slashy.

When Ciaran walked over to The Wall, he didn’t bother taking up the bottle again and incidentally, I think the end of that scene and the bit with Gavroche & Javert were the only times it left his hand until he died. He drank from it constantly and at the barricade it looked increasingly like a drug addiction every time; as if he didn’t know how to cope without it. Anyway, when he reached The Wall, he stopped and stared up at Samuel for a long moment. He looked so lost and small and Samuel wasn’t looking back at him and that made me even sadder and when he finally gave up and slumped down onto the floor it broke my heart a little. I’m not sure when the tears actually spilled over, but my eyes were brimming with them through that whole lonely moment. I was a mess of emotions and when Dean started singing Bring Him Home, the tears certainly overflowed then. That song never gets me, but I think I kind of needed it after the mood I’ve been in the last few days. Not that I didn’t end up sobbing over the King & I yesterday, but that was just a sad story, I wasn’t upset about the production, whereas I AM rather upset about this one. As much as I loved getting to see today’s covers, I feel like I’m on borrowed time here and the fear that Thaxton won’t be back at all is becoming a little overwhelming. I’m struggling to believe I’ll ever see him and Dean together now and I want it so very badly.

And back to Ciaran before I fall apart completely… (what if I never get to see Thaxton’s Javert ever again and I didn’t even appreciate it the last time because I was too busy saying all my other goodbyes and I thought I had time… *hyperventilates* …I’m fine…). So Ciaran went to help Adam F with something at the barricade when he wasn’t too busy hiding behind the table. I’m not entirely sure what he was doing, but it was different, so I noticed it and wrote it down. Also Ciaran argued with Gavroche about him leaving, but didn’t actually drag him off so Gavroche just hovered at the side of the stage by the lights until Ciaran looked away and then he seized his opportunity and ran back on. When he volunteered to go in search of ammunition, Ciaran tried to climb up after him, but couldn’t quite get up that part of the barricade. I think Adam was supporting his back to stop him falling as the set revolved and I’m sure I heard Ciaran shout Gavroche’s name too. Afterwards he was just shell-shocked, staring into space in a daze. I don’t think he moved until the soldier’s warning startled him out of it (I assume Ciaran B did them today, I didn’t spot anyone missing and the other swings were both on). The hug with Marius wasn’t quite as grabby as it sometimes is and seemed more motivated by their mutual need for comfort, not just Grantaire’s. To me it felt like the hug was a shared expression of grief over the friends they’ve just lost – something no one else at the barricade can quite appreciate in the same way as they both can in that moment.

When Marius got shot, Ciaran was there to catch him, so that’s definitely a thing now. Anyway, Samuel was there pretty quickly too and seemed rather more agitated than usual. So much so that he slammed his hand on the floor in frustration. I kinda liked that, not least because it gave Ciaran the perfect opportunity to offer comfort. They then clasped hands over Marius’ chest and there was something a little ‘permets-tu?’ about it, especially when Ciaran properly chased Samuel up the barricade (although he did pause to take a swig from his bottle before he started the climb). When Samuel took up the flag, Ciaran urgently shouted him down (I know they all object to Enjolras’ brazenness, but the way Ciaran called to him particularly stood out for me today). Then when Samuel disappeared over the top, Ciaran was in his place in a flash and there was something about it all that just broke my heart and I ended up in tears again. I don’t really know what their relationship was today and I was actively trying not to over-analyse it, but it gave me what I needed and that was enough. I don’t know how Enjolras felt about Grantaire, but R loved E and he wasn’t completely sidelined or ignored. The rest doesn’t matter right now.

So despite my disappointment, I can’t deny that James is an excellent Javert, which was no surprise at all. I really liked the way he played him, with a real strength of character and conviction; very upright & regimental in both manner and stance. It was a beautiful vocal too and I very much enjoyed his rendition of Stars. At the barricade, James fought back quite doggedly and aside from that just looked generally unconvinced by everything Dean said. James kept staring at him with disbelief and even after Dean revealed his address, James still looked uncertain, like he was still trying to work out Valjean’s angle. Incidentally, I really do love the way Dean rests his head on Javert’s shoulder when he’s releasing him from the ropes. He did it with James tonight and given he did it with Lee the other week too I have high hopes that he’ll do the same with Thaxton. If that pairing ever happens… Meh.

As for Javert’s Suicide, I thought it was excellent. He didn’t climb over the railing too early either, which I was immensely thankful for (not least because I now have hope for Bradley too). However, to backtrack a bit and put it into context, when James reappeared at the barricade after the final battle, there was an edge of madness to the way he conducted himself, his frustration and residual confusion leaving him in a right state. That continued through the run-in with Valjean in the sewers, finally boiling over into unadulterated fury when he was left alone. He was really angry at the start of the suicide, storming up and down while he raged out loud. Once he got to the bridge, he calmed down a little and there was an almost childish softness to his tone towards the end. At first he seemed to be thinking things through, trying to work it out logically, searching for an explanation that made sense to him, but when that all failed it was like he became so lost and confused and scared, that he regressed back to a time before he became the unmoving man he grew up to be. It was an excellent performance.

And speaking of excellent performances; Raymond was brilliant as Thenardier and very funny. He kept his Northern Irish accent again too, although he put a different one on when he was pretending to be someone else in Look Down. Other than that I didn’t pick up on many specifics, but as ever there are a couple of things I want to jot down. At the start of Master Of The House, he had an interesting take on the ‘right away’s. In recent history the ‘right away, you scum’ was always muttered, so only Andy really heard it, before he raised his voice with a fake ‘right away, Monsieur’. Both appeared to me to be in reference to Lee, who Thenardier didn’t seem to think much of, but money is money etc.. The way Raymond did it aimed the ‘scum’ line firmly at the drunk & the ‘Monsieur’ line at the new Lee (which I belatedly realised was not actually the new Lee, because Adam was in his usual spot at the table… I’m so confused with all these track changes). It does make perfect sense though; the new Lee presumably has a lot more money to part with than the drunk, so he wasn’t going to waste his manners on him. Raymond needed that money too, because when he went to pick Adam’s pocket while he had his arse in the air mid-arm wrestle, there didn’t appear to be anything to pick. He flipped back the guy next to him’s coat too (I can’t remember who that arse belonged to – Andrew, I guess?), but there was no coin pouch there either. Also, he put the cork back in the bottle after he’d poured it, but I forgot to watch what happened after that. I imagine nothing. Meh. I miss that catapult (launcher). The other thing I noticed was his expression when he bowed at the wedding. There was something so smug about his smile, like he (as in Thenardier, as opposed to Raymond, although he was also nailing his character) knew he was nailing his character and had the whole bow etiquette totally under control. It made me grin.

So I’m still loving Dean. His voice is gorgeous and I love his interpretation of the part. If I’m being picky, I wish he played it a bit angrier at the very beginning; I’d love to see him more rough and raw prior to his transformation, but that’s a comment rather than a criticism. I absolutely loved everything he did from about halfway through Valjean’s Soliloquy (when he started singing about the Bishop), through to the end. In fact, he nearly made me cry when he hugged Cosette in the Epilogue. He just looked so content to have her there with him and I got kinda swept away by it all again. Oddly it feels like far longer than a week since I was last in, but I guess I got used to overdoing it before cast change. It still doesn’t feel like I’ve been overdoing it though. Of course there are the bits I’m less fussed for, but the worst of that are At The End Of The Day & I Dreamed A Dream, which are over and done with pretty early on. To be clear, I don’t think they’re bad by any stretch, it’s just that section of the show doesn’t grab me particularly. Still, I never liked Bring Him Home all that much either, but Dean is so damn brilliant at it that I’m almost growing fond of it. He really does give a phenomenal performance.

I also have to mention his wig, which is a force of nature and occasionally made me laugh at inappropriate moments. I think it needs a bit more hairspray or something, because whenever he does anything remotely physical (The Confrontation, Look Down, the barricade…) it fluffs up like an overexcited parrot and as glorious as that is, it’s possibly not the look he’s going for?! He does look deliciously fluffy though, so part of me really hopes they won’t do anything to it…! And while I’m on the subject, I’m sure Carley stroked his beard before The Confrontation and now I can’t remember if she used to do that to Killian too…? Either way, good on her :P. Speaking of Carley; her necklace fell off at the factory, so she had to pick it up (twice because it got caught on her first attempt) and ended up holding it for half the scene. Eventually she put it in her pocket until she had an opportunity to put it back on, but I felt for her. It must be such a pain when costumes malfunction.

So I have a few other people to talk about; I really love Amara as Cosette. She’s got such a lovely voice and sweet disposition, but she’s got a little something extra too. When she was arguing with Valjean in In My Life, she was like a proper stroppy teenager and I liked the way she kept pointing at the floor to emphasise what she was saying. She’s very expressive too and it’s not difficult to believe she’s completely smitten with Marius from the moment she sets eyes on him. The way she looked at him in that first meeting was almost star struck and then her loved up smile and bubbly giddiness when she was flitting around her garden afterwards was so adorable.

Amara seems very young, but then so does Toby and that’s what makes them work so well, I think. Toby’s Marius comes across as very childish and naive, which is pretty much what you’d expect from that character and I really like him in the role. He’s got a bit of spirit when he needs it and the rest of the time he’s a silly, mooning romantic; just as he should be. The way he looks at her is just as soppy as the way Amara looks at him. Plus he really freaks out over Eponine dying, which highlights how sheltered he really is. They talk of battles to be won, but what do any of them really know about that, especially a kid like him? I love the way it takes a long moment before it sinks in too; he has that flash of sadness immediately after she dies when he kisses her head, but then he sees her blood on his hand and that finally seems to send the reality of what’s happened crashing over him and he starts to panic.

On a rather different note, in Lovely Ladies I really liked the way Sam looked at Javert when Fantine started talking about having a child. Bamatabois is leaving the scene, but evidently wants to know whether Javert is going to be swayed by Fantine’s sob story, so he pauses to await the outcome. Sam raised an eyebrow questioningly and looked very haughty as he looked to Javert for his reaction. Of course Javert coolly dismisses her protests, at which point Sam gave a satisfied nod and resumed his departure from the stage. I’ve also discovered that whilst Antony entertains me a fair bit, especially when he gets all commanding as Courfeyrac, I apparently only swoon over his Foreman. I’ll have to coordinate seeing that again some time.

So in terms of understudies, Adam F was covering Raymond’s non-Grantaire track, Montparnasse and Bahorel (Ciaran’s student track for those who didn’t know) and Oliver was on for Antony at the beginning (so he sang the first line) and then covered James for the rest of the show. I’m rather fond of his drunk in the inn too, so it made it marginally easier to not miss Andy too much. He nearly fell off of his chair in an increasingly dramatic manner when he got slapped, then when he was kneeling on the floor behind the table while Madame T was singing, he fell asleep! He woke up with a start when she sang ‘lifelong s***’ and made me giggle. Afterwards, he sprawled back in his chair with an arm around Raymond, which reminded me that I think James and Steven were all cuddled up together when they were on, but since I’ve only seen it the once, I can’t quite recall. Also, Rebecca was on for one of the girls, but I think I spotted Jessica Lee on the other side of the auditorium having a show watch (I mean she’s a girl, I don’t pay that much attention, but I think it looked like her and she had a notepad, plus I know a few of them have had show watches recently, so it was probably her). I wonder how long it will be til I see a full cast…!

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier with Adam in the inn, they’ve definitely messed about with some of the tracks and I’m still trying to work out what’s what. Between the cover shows and new faces, not to mention some, but not all, of the old faces doing new tracks, it’s really quite hard to work it all out. One thing I have picked up though is that there’s been a switch around in the Runaway Cart; Ciaran now helps lift the back of the cart where Jonny used to be and Antony now helps carry Fauchelevent/the new Danny out of harms way where Ciaran used to be… Which is not a straight swap, so there’s obviously more that’s changed that I haven’t wrapped my head around, but one step at a time, eh?! Anyway, Ciaran still chatters a lot even in his new position, so I’m not overly bothered by the change. I love Ciaran so much, I’m so glad he’s still here. Another thing I wanted to mention, which I’ve absently noticed in the past (pre-cast change), but today I picked up on it again and it stuck with me enough to remember to note it down; when the first gentleman arrives at the tavern (Joe, not Jonny as I just wrote – although in my defence I’m in the middle of proofreading a paragraph about him) the three girls sat on the bench at the back all stand up in unison, looking at him with palpable interest. I have to say, I didn’t blame them when it was Jonny and I’m not entirely sure I blame them now…!

So I’m not sure what was up with the audience today, but there was a huge cheer at the very beginning, which worried me a lot. Enthusiastic audiences are great, but not when they applaud and woop over all the big notes and drown out the talent on stage. They seemed to calm down a little after that though and were generally well behaved except for one person who felt the need to woop and applaud halfway through the last note of Bring Him Home. Let the man finish, damn it! Also, the woman next to me somehow knew from my body language that I’d seen it before – maybe because I tend to lean forward when I know something I like is about to happen? Anyway, I can live with being interrupted in the interval when I’m trying to make notes (although it’s frickin’ annoying), but she didn’t shut up even when the second act started. She’s lucky it wasn’t an Enjolras cover show or I might have killed her. At least she’d stopped by the time James started singing.

So Ciaran went the wrong way at the curtain call, which seemed to provoke much giggling amongst Les Amis, but was perfect for me because it meant I could see him :P. Plus their amusement made it even more entertaining for me. Then when the Thenardiers took their bow, Vivien pushed Raymond forward for a bit of extra adulation, which was rather lovely. Then Ciaran put his arm around Raymond during the second curtain call. They’re such a supportive group at that theatre, it’s such a joy to see the way they always raise each other up.

So stage door was busy, but I managed ok. I started the autograph collection in a very haphazard way, stopping people at random (Katie, Adam F, Toby and Samuel) and letting others go for no particular reason at all. I told Sam I’d seen the show a lot but it was only my third time seeing the new cast. I admitted that it was weird since I’m so used to all the quirks of the old cast, but I’m getting used to it and think they’re great, especially him. I then panicked that I’d get my characters wrong and didn’t elaborate, but I should have been more specific because I really like him as both Bambi and Claquesous. I stopped Barnaby too and I think he was impressed that I knew where he was in the programme, so I said that I follow them all on instagram, so I know who they are. In retrospect that sounded a bit stalkerish… Oops. Anyway, I did say hi to Adam as he passed, but didn’t get him to sign.

The crowd had thinned a bit by the time Ciaran appeared, so I’d moved opposite the door and he saw me, so said hi while he was signing out. He then came over to me and I gushed at him about how wonderful he was and how much I love his Grantaire and told him that he made me cry twice. He jokingly asked if he was that bad, but I was in such a fangirly flap that I was completely incapable of returning the banter. In fact, I was so frazzled, I don’t really remember much else of what was said. I know I told him I was so glad I got to see it again and he said something about the new cast being great, which I agreed with. I also know that I opted not to get him to sign my programme, since I’d rather save that for another time when I have nothing special to say, but want an excuse to stop him. Anyway, there was a guy waiting for Raymond (well I assumed he was; he looked rather like him and sounded very like him and I know Raymond’s brother was in, so I think it was a fairly good guess) so Ciaran went to talk to him, but said bye to me before he left. I’m a bit in love. In fact, he got a spot on my homescreen later, although I couldn’t find a pic of him as Grantaire on my phone, so for now it’s the one of him as Marius with Jonjolras (for the record; Andy and Hugo are still hanging on to the lock. Also Thaxton is on the case, so he’s ever-present).

I waited ages for Raymond until a big group of them came out together, which I think were all the D14 boys. I managed to stop James for long enough to tell him he was great, but there was a huge group (I guessed they were a couple of teachers and some drama students) one of whom knew Raymond so he went to talk to them. While I waited for him, I decided I may as well get Joe, Andrew & Ben to sign as they were hanging around right next to me. I chatted to them a bit and again found myself explaining that I’d seen the show lots, but this was only my third time seeing them. I added I’d seen it 30 something times this year because I love Thaxton and then for some reason I decided that they should know I was dying to see him and Dean together, but was worried I never would (meh).

I stopped talking to them after that, although I did nearly ask Joe if he had any Enjolras dates. In the end I wimped out, but at least it’ll give me an excuse to stop him again. Also, he really is bloody tall; my head is only about shoulder height! Anyway, a few minutes later I was trying not to photobomb a picture Raymond was posing for behind me, which prompted a conversation with a girl who was with the boys. I didn’t recognise her and she didn’t put herself forward to sign so I just assumed she was a friend of theirs or something, but then she said something about having two shows tomorrow and I belatedly realised she must have been Grace Farrell, one of the new ensemble girls… who incidentally I took note of today because I liked her voice… Awks. I really am terrible with girls. Of course, by the time I realised she was in the company, it was kinda too late for me to say anything. She seemed nice too, so I felt even worse. I’ll definitely have to get her to sign next time. So the conversation vaguely extended to the boys again and Andrew asked if I was local, so I assured him I was. They started talking about people coming from far away and their train tickets costing more than the show ticket. Apparently they feel kinda bad for making them travel (as if it was their fault…!). I nearly mentioned that I travel a lot for tours, but was too shy for some reason.

When Raymond finally finished talking to the women next to me, I stopped him before he disappeared off with his brother and dressing room buddies. I told him he was excellent and added how much I loved it. He mentioned that it had been a crazy 24 hours and he’d been in all afternoon rehearsing. I didn’t get him to sign either, again because it’s a good excuse for next time, but something he said made me think he remembered having met me before and then just before he left he gave me a hug, totally unsolicited! It was brilliant. I’m keeping him!

Speaking of keeping boys who hug; I waited another five minutes or so for Dean, but it was pretty late by then and I was the only one left at SD, so I gave up and went home. Still, hopefully I’m starting to make an impression with the newbies anyway so perhaps there will be more hugs in the not too distant future. It may have helped that my hair is freshly coloured too, although it’s purple instead of pink because I dyed it on Sunday for a costume party this Saturday, which has since been cancelled. Meh. I might have to see if Thacko is back instead…

Tonight was fun though and it made me realise that I’m not ready to give this up. I’m getting used to there being no Thacko and I’ve no doubt that Bradley will be excellent. Besides, I’m already growing fond of some of the newbies and with time I’m sure that’ll continue to grow. I mean I can’t keep coming weekly, it’s definitely too much to sustain long term, but I don’t know that I want to wait too long before I come back post-Thacko either.

Peace, love and new hope,
K xx

An Unexpected Saviour [LM18/19:2]

Disclaimer: Probably contains spoilers. Definitely contains sulking about missing the old cast

So West End Live on Saturday was fun. I got many costume selfies and I saw Thacko and I was happy. It also gave me hope that he would be back today… Wrongly, apparently. I mean, I was planning to come back this weekend to see Dean & Thacko together anyway, I refuse to wait til week 3 of 6 for that, but waaaah. Last week was new and exciting, this week it’s far far too close to the end. I really did think he might be back today too. Not that I was any less scared to check the cover sheet (and rightly so, apparently). In fact, I avoided getting to the theatre too early and genuinely considered not looking at all, but didn’t want to have to come down at the interval to take photographs. When I saw Javert’s name on that piece of paper though I nearly cried and my emotional state wasn’t exactly helped when I belatedly remembered that with James back, I can no longer pretend that Andy isn’t gone too. I was a total mess when the show started and I spent most of the Prologue trying not to cry. I need Thaxton back. I really missed him tonight and it’s scaring me now how close I am to losing him. I’ve been hanging on to that six week buffer like a lifeline, but it’s less than five now and I haven’t even seen him yet.

So it’s official: I’m adopting Antony after all, because holy f***. His Factory Foreman is hot…! I mean seriously hot. He was so rargh! There was table banging (with his hand, don’t get carried away) and everything, plus I rather liked the way he shoved Anna against The Wall after she was pulled away from Carley. I mean obviously he was still a douche, but so is Montparnasse and it doesn’t stop me thinking he’s hot either. There’s apparently a fine line between sleazy and sexy. I mean, there is a difference; he’s not as lecherous as some foremen I’ve see and even when he’s perving on Fantine, he’s not as grabby, he’s just a bit overly imposing. Not that I’m condoning that sort of behaviour in any way, but… well, let’s just say I really wouldn’t mind being Fantine in that scene. Or the Factory Girl for that matter. Because the fact is, he made me beam and I am not remotely exaggerating when I say that I was very nearly in tears for most of the show prior to that, so to make me that happy was no little undertaking. I will be needing to see him in that track again. And I really need to see his Valjean.

Speaking of Valjean, it was Adam tonight – I didn’t know who was taking over when I booked all these tickets, so I made sure to spread them out with the theory that if they got the casting wrong, I’d have at least one show where I knew the Valjean would be good (I didn’t know for sure it would be a Monday, but gambled on it being a weekday evening). As it turns out, they got the casting very very right, but it was nice to see Adam again and he was the best I’ve seen him in a while tonight. Apparently not spending all day in rehearsals helps an actor’s performance, who knew?! Seriously though, I thought his vocal was excellent and some of it really soared; Bring Him Home was beautiful.

So despite my devastation over another Thacko-less night, I was also impressed by Lee’s vocals. He had a great bottom end at the start of The Confrontation and Stars was excellent. It was good to be able to see him up close too, after last week in the UC. I noticed that he didn’t seem to be knocked out by Adam’s punch at the end of The Confrontation. He was stunned enough that he seemed incapable of getting up off the floor, but he seemed to be conscious, his hands cradling his jaw where he’d been hit. I also noticed that Lee doesn’t wear the dark brown coat at the barricade – not that I needed to be close to see that, but I didn’t pick up on it last week. I don’t know if I noticed him holding his truncheon against Valjean’s face in the Prologue either, but he did that today too. Anyway, much like the truncheon thing, I kinda wish Thacko would leave his coat behind at the barricade, not least because it would make Javertbear much easier! The only thing I still need to make for him (aside from the hair) is that damn coat. Although I should point out I’d also appreciate Thaxton in his shirt sleeves, it’s not purely crafting related.

The lead up to The Wall was good, although I couldn’t actually see The Wall again; Lee got suitably angry and threw the ropes rather violently on to a chair, before nearly tripping over a stool in his agitation, which only seemed to antagonise him further. I think Lee is generally rather good at authoritative anger; keeping his head held high with the knowledge that he is right and deserves to be respected by those he considers to be beneath him. That same anger flows through the beginning of Javert’s Suicide too, while he wrestles with the idea that perhaps Valjean isn’t quite as beneath him as he’d once thought. Incidentally, I noticed that he does the button up on his coat when he sings ‘I am the law’, which kinda emphasises the point he’s making quite nicely; as if he’s recalling who he is, what he stands for and what his uniform means. After running after Valjean, he’s something of a mess; coat gaping, hair ribbon untied etc. so the button is something of a visual representation of him attempting to pull himself back together. Although given the coat has to be open again before Javert reappears on the bridge (the drape of it over the railing lends itself to the ‘falling’ visual when Javert steps away from it), I still think it’s an odd stage direction, at least it seems so now that I’m so used to the way Thaxton does it. I feel much the same way about the early climb; Lee was over the railing before he’d even finished the verse before ‘I am reaching’ and whilst you could clearly hear the emotion in his voice (he sounded very upset towards the end), I still feel like he’d be able to do so much more with it if the climb was later on, but hey what do I know?

I probably should have picked up on this last week given that I knew who Ciaran B was covering, but it transpires that the opening line has moved from Feuilly (Joe is one of the guards) to Courfeyrac. I couldn’t actually see Antony from my seat and I’m not familiar enough with his voice to recognise him by it, but I had my suspicions and it wasn’t too hard to work it out given who else was on stage. It’s odd seeing him as a convict though! As for James; he does make a brilliant Bishop and it’s really not his fault that I nearly cried through both of his scenes. I miss Andy. A lot. It sucks. Still, it was good to hear James sing it and it’s only increased my desire to see him as Javert later in the year (*mutters something about how Andy should have been a Javert cover*). I also really liked the stamp he’s put on the character and the way he emphasises certain words, giving it his own flair; he’s very much made it his own, which is appreciated. Incidentally, I also rather liked his drunk in Master Of The House; I forget why exactly, but there was something about the way he asked for his glass of rum that I really liked.

And you know what else I liked? Ciaran getting undressed again! Yay! I spent quite a bit of time watching him today, making up for lost time when I was too distracted watching my boys that were leaving, and I was absolutely delighted when he started undoing buttons. As I said before; YAY! Still that said, I think there have been quite a lot of changes in Master Of The House, I just don’t know what they all are. I always struggled to decide what to watch, so half the time I’m not even sure whether something is new or if I’ve just never noticed it before. For example, Steven & Vivien were in the kitchen together at one point and I’m almost sure that part used to be conducted in the main room…? But then I know Steven used to sing ‘bon-viveur’ into Hugo’s ear trumpet whereas today he sat between the two girls at the back (next to the old couple) with an arm around each of them.

Of course, as much as I’m struggling to wrap my head around boys that are not my boys and girls who’s names & faces I have yet to learn, it is interesting seeing totally new interpretations and all the quirks that go along with it. There are so many things I’m used to that I never even thought about until they went away; for example, Jacqueline used to sniff the bottle that Steven took off of her, so she knew exactly what was in it. Her smirk when he grabbed it even suggested that she was keeping hold of it purely because she knew that it would goad him into taking it. Vivien on the other hand, plays it in a less coy way and instead gets angry with him for grabbing it. As I believe I mentioned last time, she has a much sharper manner, although that’s not to say she isn’t attached to him, especially in that scene when she gets possessive over him when he gets overly flirtatious with other girls. I like the way she feels up the neck of the bottle on the table too, when she sings ‘not much there’ (incidentally, Jacqueline used to sing the line, but mouth ‘there’, whereas Vivien sings the whole line with a muffled tone to it).

On to the students and when they revolved into view, Raymond was forcefeeding his bottle to Prouvaire/the new Shaq/Ben Tyler, who was sat in Grantaire’s usual seat. After he was released he asked ‘what is that?’ with a rather nauseated expression, although I couldn’t see how Raymond responded. Of course when Enjolras then sang about wine & brains, Raymond pointed straight at Ben. Not that Ben seemed too perturbed. Skipping forward a little; when Raymond was done with his little operetta, he bowed to his audience of Joly, Prouvaire & the new swing/Adam F/Adam’s cover/the new Lee/these are getting ridiculous (I’m not sure what his barricade boy name is, I might have to ask), then turned to find Samuel with one hand raised in exasperation, giving him a look that said ‘come on, be serious’. In response Raymond lifted his own hands in surrender and dutifully descended from the stool. I’m pretty sure he then pointed Joly off of his seat, at which point James N scurried off to the sit at the next table, but I’m kinda losing track of things and I’m no longer certain if that was today or last week. Still, Raymond does seem fairly laid back and after they left the cafe (and he raised his bottle to Enjolras, who clapped him on the shoulder again), he grinned quite charmingly at Samuel.

I also have to say I really liked Toby’s passion in Red & Black. He gets quite heated, if a tad defensive. In fact he got so passionate that I think he was intending to leave in a strop after Enjolras reprimanded him. He made it halfway out the door, only he was intercepted by Antony who easily won him around and a moment later he was cheering Enjolras on with the rest of Les Amis. Although prior to that, Ciaran came out with another absolute gem; ‘Marius, have a drink and calm down’. Sage advice, if I ever I heard it.

Speaking of Courfeyrac & Bahorel; at the barricade, Ciaran stepped up to bang his gun against Anthony’s in Paul’s absence and I have to confess that I’m kinda glad they left it in, even if it is also something of an unwelcome reminder that Paul is no longer there. On which note, I found that more than once today when I was jotting down notes, I accidentally referred to members of the new cast with the old cast’s names. Of course it probably isn’t helping that I still keep referring to the newbies as ‘the new X’, not to mention the fact that I generally refer to characters by their actor’s names to the point they’ve become slightly synonymous. Still, it doesn’t make it any less of a wrench when I’m note making and suddenly realise I’ve written ‘Paul really freaked out’. Paul did not freak out. Toby on the other hand very much did. When he was cuddling Eponine after A Little Fall Of Rain, he touched her face and got blood on his hand as a result. It seemed to make what had happened really hit home and he was almost hyperventilating over it, which I rather liked. He was staring down at his hand, his shoulders heaving and although he wasn’t quite crying, his rapid breathing was audible and he was very much on the cusp of falling apart completely. When Raymond (not Hugo, which is what I almost typed. Ugh) tried to comfort him, Toby wasn’t having any of it and tried to push him away. They ended up almost wrestling each other and they only stopped when they were interrupted by Vajean’s arrival.

I wasn’t expecting to get too emotional over Drink With Me, given that I’d kind of calmed down by then (again; thank you, Antony), but I still can’t shake the memory of John from that last show. In some ways they all feel so far away now, like cast change was months ago, and yet I still miss them so much. Of course it’s only been a couple of shows, I know it’ll get easier as I get used to the new cast, but ugh this part is hard. The thing is, I want to get used to them, I want to love them, I want to keep this show. It’s so nice having a show that isn’t going to suddenly close in a few months time and leave me bereft again… but do I really want to go through this all again in a year’s time? And on my own too, cos my friends ain’t coming any more. It’s going to be hard enough doing Thacko’s last one by myself :/.

So before I descend into a pit of despair, back to the show. Raymond knocked the lantern off of the box when he was singing, but I wasn’t fully watching him at the time, so didn’t quite catch what happened. He just picked it up and replaced it, before turning on Joly, but James N stayed back out of his reach, so it wasn’t quite as aggressive as it can be. Not that it would have made a difference either way, since Enjolras wasn’t even bloody watching. The new Adam/Sam had to point out to Samuel that he needed to intervene and it was only then that he descended from his perch. Admittedly it was all good after that, but it still grated slightly. Anyway, after the hug, Samuel pulled back, but held Raymond by the arms and talked to him for a bit. Then after he took the bottle, Raymond responded with something of a resigned nod and I rather liked the whole interaction.

In the second battle, Raymond didn’t bother to hide, seemingly past caring about anything, even his own safety. He merely sprawled morosely in his chair and drank steadily. I was right last week though, he did catch Marius before he fell. Admittedly I forgot to look out for it again, but I caught it earlier today and Raymond reached Toby well before he fell, so he helped to lie him down on the floor. Interestingly Marius was still conscious, although obviously in a lot of pain, when Enjolras reached him, but naturally it didn’t make much of a difference to the ensuing scene; Raymond and Samuel did one of those arm gripping hand shakes over Toby’s chest, then headed off up the barricade. I got distracted after that admiring drapes, although I still can’t quite work out who they all belong to. I think I’ve possibly neglected to appreciate Antony’s stellar draping skills, but I may need to investigate that further. Plus I think Ben’s was quite intriguing, overflowing the edge of the barricade, although Joe appears to have abandoned his entirely and just ended up slumped upright in the corner (he still swapped spots with Combeferre).

On the subject of Joe, in Lovely Ladies someone was chatting up a girl, only to have her taken from in front of him by someone else, so he chased after them. I wasn’t paying enough attention, but I think it was the old Jonny/John combo with the weary girl, so I assume it must have been Joe talking to the new Lauren until James N stole her away…? Incidentally, Joe had a go at a crotch grab at the beginning, which was certainly a step in the right direction, but it was a bit half-hearted. I think he needs to have a bit more confidence in it :P. Although since I’m talking about grabbing; Sam does not need that advice. His Bamatabois is very lecherous and he had his hands all over Carley. I really liked it, in a ‘that’s creepy and horrible, but suits the character perfectly’ sort of way. On the other hand, his Claquesous really made me laugh. His long wig is brushed messily into his face, so you can’t even see his features and he always hangs back like a shy little mouse. I’m sure I read somewhere that he’s supposed to be almost mute and with that in mind, I was particularly entertained by Sam’s performance.

So as much as I’m struggling, I am enjoying some aspects of newness and one of the things I particularly enjoyed tonight was the dynamic between Cosette & Marius in Heart Full Of Love. They were both so ridiculously cute; so young and nervous, whilst still being adorably excited about each other. I don’t know if it’s just because they’re new to me, but they seemed even more naive and innocent. Although that may have been at least in part because they no longer have that kiss on the bench (which we’re pretty sure was a Paul thing anyway). Admittedly last week Toby did try and kiss her, only to be thwarted when Amara shyly ducked her head out of the way. Today however, he didn’t even try and they just gazed shyly at each other until they got up again. He did eventually kiss her when they moved round to the back of the stage, but I assume that’s always been a thing and I just never noticed it before this year because I assume I’d have been watching Eponine.

As has become something of a tradition, I shall conclude with the wedding; I never really paid all that much attention to the bit with the Thenardiers bows until Jacqueline fell on her arse and flashed her undergarments at the room (and Andy came forward to help her up… I miss him… have I mentioned that at all?), but they seem to be making quite the thing of it now and I’m not sure if it’s all new, or just the latter part…? The men in the room bowed first, so Steven bowed back, then the women curtsied, so he nudged Vivien to do the same. It all started off well enough, but then she just kept sinking and sinking until she got stuck on the floor and James had to give her a hand to help her up. It’s the expression of horror on her face as she slowly loses altitude that really makes it though!

So the new swing/Adam F got to be the drunk today and like Adam, I first noticed him sitting on the floor slumped against the end of the table. He did eventually pull himself up on to his knees, only to sway forward and face plant right in the flower display. He wasn’t completely out of it, because I saw him look up to see what was going on when Madame T shouted ‘pay’, but apparently that wasn’t enough to hold his attention and he face planted again almost immediately after. It was rather funny, although I then got distracted watching Ciaran and forgot to check up on him again until he he got caught up at the end of the party line. In the meantime, I liked the way Sam (the new ‘queer’) stroked the lapel of Samuel’s jacket after he was outed, only to get an interested smile back.

So stage door wasn’t exactly a roaring success, but that was entirely my own fault. I didn’t really stop anyone and I’m not quite sure why, especially since I went to the trouble of bringing my programme. Admittedly I felt like I had an excuse to be there as a friend of mine was there to see Adam and I was keeping her company, so I didn’t need to start on autographs, but the point of going and not getting signatures was at least to say hello to people and in that respect I failed quite miserably, so I may as well have started on the collection. This was particularly relevant given that I saw Sarah (who was on for Katie today) and I didn’t stop her. I’m an idiot, apparently. Although admittedly I’m far more bothered about her completing my old programme, which I didn’t have with me anyway. I have noticed on both occasions that Vivien really runs though, so I’ll need to catch her on a matinée day. Although maybe not on Thacko’s last day… Anyways, Ciaran ran, as usual, and I didn’t shout him, as usual, although Steven said hi when he passed, which was rather lovely as it feels like a while since we’ve exchanged greetings. I also managed to stop Antony to tell him how much I loved his Factory Foreman, which was probably the most important thing today. He said he was nervous as it’s only the second time he’s done it, but having watched it for the last three years, he’s wanted to have a go and I for one am very glad of that! I’m going to have to come back and see him again in the not too distant future. As for Adam, the friend I bumped into was only there for him so she stopped him to chat and was asking him about his album. I mostly left her to it, but my friends and I have had several conversations lately about how the boys with long hair manage their wigs so I decided I may as well ask. As it turns out, he puts his hair in pin curls under a wig cap, the same as the girls do, which is pretty much what I expected, but it’s good to know for sure! Although he did add that it feels good to be free once he gets out of them and at least he has his own hair in his usual track!

In other news, I meant to go to West End Live yesterday, mostly to see the stuff I missed when I ran away on Saturday (Eugenius, Knights of the Rose), but I lost an argument with my sofa and it took me prisoner (I was so shattered from Saturday that I couldn’t get up in time for Heathers and once I knew I’d missed Jamie Muscato, I couldn’t persuade myself that it was worth going when I felt so rough), so I stayed home and faffed. It meant I ran out of things to do that were totally un-productive (scrolling social media, chatting to friends, daydreaming etc.), so I fell down the rabbit hole of my old stage door photos instead. I can’t even remember what i was looking for initially; I think I was wondering if I got a photo when Scott Garnham did Never Forget (I did – and apparently I thought he looked like Stephen Gately), but I found a whole plethora of Dean photos. I got one when he brought Never Forget to London, I got one at La Cage (which I captioned with ‘he’ll always be Ash Sherwood to me’), I got many at Love Never Dies, I got one at Shrek and I got one at Adrian Mole, although I can’t find any from Working, so I guess that was before my stage door photo revival period (which began last time I realised how fun it is looking through old pics and resolved to start taking more). What I learned is that my selfie skills have massively improved in the last decade and that he is as cute as he’s always been, just in a more manly way than he was when he was in a fake boyband :P. Although he will always be Ash Sherwood to me, in some way at least! And amusingly, whenever I think that name, I will always hear Nancy Sullivan’s voice in my head saying ‘ohh Ash’…!

Peace, love and saviours,
K xx

A New Dawn [LM18/19:1]

Disclaimer: Probably contains spoilers

So the show count in these blogs has been a Thacko count in my head (despite the fact he wasn’t at 5 of them), because the default note title I’ve been using has been ‘Les Mis Thacko’. The trouble is, even with six more weeks, I couldn’t bring myself to keep the same show count now most of my faves are gone, so I’ve reset the counter, so to speak. I mean, it’s not like it’s a grand total anyway; I don’t have a clue how many times I’ve seen the show ever and even if I did, I wouldn’t know whether to include Broadway or the 25th anniversary production at the Barbican, so this seemed to make the most sense. So here we are, Les Mis 18/19, show 1. G-d help me.

I have to admit, I’m glad I didn’t book for Monday despite having every intention of going then, because the fact is, I wasn’t ready. I spent half the day trying not to cry and every one of the new cast’s instagram posts was a dagger in me. It’s only occurred to me recently that I don’t think I’ve ever done this before either. I’ve mourned closures too many times to mention, but not cast changes. I’ve been sad when people left and felt weird about new casts on tours, but it’s never been like this. The closest I’ve come to it was when Steve left Idiot, which was hard enough and at least I already knew and loved Matt (even if I had some complex feelings over him returning in such a manner). I’ve never had to watch a whole host of new people stepping into so many beloved sets of shoes before they’ve even had time to grow cold and I don’t know how to deal with it. I certainly didn’t deal well with Steve. My Friend has been through it before (more than once thanks to Killian) and has learned to leave time before she returns, but I can’t bring myself to do that when I only have six weeks of Thacko left. He’s still my number one actor right now and I want to appreciate him as much as I can while I have him…

So of course he was off today. On any normal day, I would have just postponed my trip, only they brought Lee back as an emergency cover for Javert last night and he was on for both shows today too. On any normal day, that kind of thing would be really rather exciting, but for the first show after cast change? I really didn’t know if I could put myself through it without Thaxton. I needed him, I was relying on him… But could I really pass up a one time only chance to see Lee…? Apparently not. So off I went to the Queen’s to buy a last minute crummy upper circle ticket and… It hurt. I’m not even sure if the cover sheet made it better or worse, because with only Lee & Antony on it, it could have been last week still. Only then I saw the full board and it’s weird and I don’t like it and waaaaah.

James has been off sick this week too and as much as I’m looking forward to seeing his new track, I hoped it would help seeing Antony as the Bishop, having already seen it so many times before. Plus James has taken over the rest of Andy’s track too, so it meant there was a swing on for that and I guessed it would be an old one. In that I was right and Ciaran B was covering, so I could almost pretend Andy was just off sick too… almost. It helped a lot more than it probably should have and I think I’m kinda in denial that Andy’s left at all now. I mean, I still nearly cried when Antony first appeared in his Bishop costume, but it was marginally less painful. What really threw me though, was the top of the show. I don’t know why it was him and not Joe Vetch/the new Jonny, but Ciaran B sang the first line of the Prologue and then it was Adam, who’s taken over Lee’s old track, and none of that sounded so horribly different from what I’m used to thanks to the mess of cover shows I’ve seen. Only then it was very much not John and not Danny and f*** that was hard. I can’t tell you what a relief it was when Ciaran’s beautifully familiar voice came in to sing his same old line.

Of course I was in the upper circle and although the only thing I really couldn’t see was The Wall, the audience meant that I may as well not have been there half the evening. I was so distracted that at times I couldn’t focus at all. I had high hopes to begin with, since both the seats next to me were empty and there was no one in front either, but then in the musical interlude at the start of At The End Of The Day, a boy and (I assume) his dad sat next to me and drove me absolutely mental for the rest of the act. [Begin rant] I gathered that they were late and just got dumped in the nearest empty seats, because thankfully they moved at the interval and seemed to have another half of the family on the other side of the auditorium. Admittedly, I’m not sure if the kid had problems or if he was just a total git, but his father wasn’t especially well behaved (feet on the back of the chair in front etc.) so it wouldn’t surprise me if he was just a pain in the arse. He had an arm in a sling, so that didn’t help him stay quiet when he wanted to open things (repeatedly), but even aside from that, he was crunching nuts for half the act and the noise was f***ing annoying. Although the fact he talked constantly at pretty much normal volume was significantly more so. I gathered English was not his language and I assume his dad was explaining things to him, but even when his dad shushed him (after glares from me), he’d do it again a moment later and they conversed through the quiet parts of songs frequently. And as if that wasn’t enough, he couldn’t sit still, or straight for that matter. He may as well have been on his sofa at home; his feet were all over the chair in front, he sprawled sideways across his dad, waved his arms around high in the air for extended periods and massively encroached on my personal space, nearly kneeing or kicking me on several occasions. I moved up one in the interval in the hope of creating a buffer, but moved back when I realised they had gone elsewhere. Only then I had a fresh sort of hell with the couple that materialised in the previously empty seats in front of me, because he really couldn’t give a f*** about being there. I realised this because he spent half of the act on his phone f***ing about. She pushed it away at one point so obviously the light was annoying her too, but he just turned it away from her a bit and carried on browsing. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had a cap on which she chose to remove and hand to him to put away during Bring Him Home, which involved much rustling & zipping [End rant]. On the plus, all of that meant I was too focused on being absolutely livid to be too upset about cast change. On the minus, I spent the evening being absolutely f***ing livid and still somewhat upset about cast change.

So I genuinely thought I’d cry, but I was so fed up I didn’t exactly get into the emotion of the piece. I mean there were a few very close calls at the start, but then the brat turned up next to me and that was that. Still, before that, I was such a mess (especially over Not John – John’s got such a distinctive voice it really jarred) that I kinda forgot about the fact that under all the ‘waaaah, I want my boys back’ I was actually quite excited about seeing Dean on stage again. Of course I thought he was wonderful and his Bring Him Home was excellent. I really can’t wait to see where he takes it as he settles into the role more too. He’s already got a few little quirks that I enjoyed though, for example when the sniper popped up at the barricade, he watched for a while to see where shots were coming before he took his own aim and then when he did, he pushed Enjolras out of the way in order to get a clear shot. It was rather rargh. He also stared right back at Steven in the sewer so Steven sang ‘ain’t the world a remarkable place’ directly to him, which I quite liked. Of course, there were still so many little things that I missed that I couldn’t hope to mention them all (nor would I want to), but the one thing I’m really sad to have lost is the way Killian used to bodily protect Marius at the barricade. Dean does it the same way Adam does, collapsing off to the side until he moves to open the grate for their escape, but I’d have loved to see him do something similar.

In terms of Valvert; The Confrontation was very physical and I liked it a lot. Obviously I couldn’t see The Wall, but I very much enjoyed the way he all but rested his chin on Lee’s shoulder while he was freeing him. There was lots of tension between them, I thought; the kind of tension that can be interpreted in oh so many different ways…! Although I really can’t wait to see him with Thacko together now, because surely that can only be even better?!

Still, I am glad I got to see Lee and I thought he was fab. His voice is great, well suited to Javert and he has presence. He also played the scene in the sewer and then the beginning of Javert’s Suicide with a real anger, which worked well in contrast to the sort of rigidity that he had in some of his earlier interactions. It was only towards the end that the anger gave way to his inner torment, but like Shaq he climbed over the railing really early, so he couldn’t do much with his performance after that because he was clinging on. It never really occurred to me before, but I’m worried now that the late climb over is a Thacko-ism and Bradley will do it the same way as the understudies and therefore have the same problem. I also noticed that Shaq and Lee both buttoned up their coats when they were at the front of the stage, only to them have them undone again for the bridge. I remember the movement from a bygone era, so presumably that’s the stage direction, but I’m so used to Thacko not doing it that now it seems like an odd thing to do and jars slightly. I also think Lee was already wearing his scarf belt when he came in for One Day More and just put on the jacket (I don’t have a clue what Shaq did, I doubt I ever watched him that closely in that scene). I mean I’m not sure how I’ll feel about people who aren’t Thacko getting dressed anyway, I imagine it won’t pack quite the same punch, but it’s just a part of a much wider issue. Hopefully Bradley will have time to make it his own in a way that understudies rarely get the opportunity to. I guess we’ll see…

So as you may have noticed above, I think I’m going to struggle with names for a while, I don’t know half of them yet and even the ones I do know, I can’t help referring to as ‘the new <old cast member>’. You’re probably just going to have to bear with me in this one, I’m afraid, especially since they’ve changed up the tracks a bit so in some scenes I genuinely don’t know who I was watching.

It was weird not having my boys in Lovely Ladies. I mean, it was weird not having my boys in all the scenes, but I have something further to say about this one than just ‘waaaaah, some imposter had Hugo’s rod’. So in the absence of everyone I used to watch, I found myself tracking Ciaran a bit instead. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before and I love that it’s Katie that he goes off with (after she tells him it’ll cost extra if he takes all year). I gather she’s supposed to be the madame of the brothel and she’s rather more domineering than the rest of the girls as a result. She certainly kept Ciaran in his place, although he seemed to like it – not that I’m judging, of course. On the plus, the newbies seem fairly jiggly from what I saw, so there’s potential there if I end up adopting any of them. That said Joe/the new Jonny doesn’t grab himself when he comes on at the beginning, he just threw in a bit of a thrust at the end of his lines, so that wasn’t as fun.

Master Of The House was one of those scenes I was particularly glad that Ciaran B was on for Andy/James/this one is just weird, because I’ve always quite liked him in that track. He nearly fell of his chair after the second slap, which made me giggle. I also rather liked the new Lee. He was very posh, but in an amusing way. Still, it wasn’t all fun and games, because the cork went straight in Steven’s pocket, which was nothing less than devastating. And then Ciaran didn’t strip, which was even more devastating. I mean, I knew there was a chance that the motivation came from the girls’ encouragement, but I’d so hoped he’d still do it… Gutted. On the plus, the new Jacqueline/Madame T/Vivien Parry is brilliant. She’s very different and a lot sharper, but very funny. She pulled the chair out from under Steven to wake him up for Valjean and then when Steven was trying to convince Dean that Cosette was a gem to him, she kept audibly simpering at him.

I let Ciaran steal my focus for most of Look Down, which made it easier I think, although a couple of unexpected changes jarred. I’m sure Anna has taken over as Madeleine (which used to be part of Alice’s track) and when I looked, I’m sure there was no one sat were Danny used to sit on the landing of the steps. Not that I noticed where Danny used to sit at all until My Friend started swooning over him and I suddenly started picking up on all the interactions he had with Andy and Jonny, but that’s besides the point. Anyway, back to Ciaran; I’m not sure if he’s always done this and I’ve never noticed it before [Edit: I checked with my mate, he has], but when Ciaran first came up behind Cosette he took hold of a strand of hair, raised it to his face and sniffed it. It was kinda creepy and yet also weirdly hot. What is it about Montparnasse?! He’s nothing more than a common, seedy criminal, why is that attractive?! (Although in my search for an appropriate adjective for that sentence, one of the suggestions was ‘disreputable’ and that is kinda attractive… Fine line, I guess!).

Some of the hardest scenes by far were the student scenes and annoyingly I was too far away to hear any of the little asides in the cafe. I could have done with the distraction and besides, I think Ciaran had some good ones. It was also far more of a relief than I’d expected it to be when Antony arrived. He’s never been one of my boys (although I would still absolutely love to see him as Valjean) and prior to this evening my friends were teasing me that I’d have to adopt him because he’s all I’ve got left. I’ll confess I laughed along with them (when I wasn’t sulking over the fact he’s all I’ve got left cos nearly everyone else has left me), but I’ve never been so happy to see him before… I might have to adopt him after all! (Besides, as we established at stage door on Saturday, the man’s got arms…!).

As it turns out, this is also some of the hardest stuff to write. I want to give the new cast a fair chance and right now I’m far too biased to do that properly, so I’m just going to jot down a few things I noticed that I’d like to remember and mostly leave it at that. First off, the new Hugo/Grantaire/Raymond Walsh threw me for a loop when he first opened his mouth and a Northern Irish accent emerged. I mean, that’s his accent, it’s not that shocking, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a non-posh English student before and I suspect it’ll take some getting used to. Although Irish accents of any sort are terribly endearing, so I imagine it won’t take me that long and I did enjoy his performance far more than I thought I’d be capable of. He did a couple of cute things too; when Enjolras sang ‘don’t let the wine go to your brains’ he looked behind him at the new Shaq (I think?), pretending he thought the comment was aimed at him, whilst obviously knowing it was aimed at himself. He also offered his bottle to Enjolras after they left the cafe, who clapped him on both shoulders in response. So I guess there’s potential there…? Plus I’m pretty sure he caught the new Paul/Marius/Toby Miles as he fell, although I might be wrong as I only caught the tail end. I’ll have to watch out for that next week as I thought it was a nice touch.

Of course, Drink With Me was one of the toughest parts of the whole night. I still can’t think about Saturday without thinking about John and I think it’ll be a while until I can hear that song again without nearly ending up in tears as a result. As I said before, the new John/Joly/James Nicholson sounds nothing like John, so really it should be easier, but it just isn’t. I miss John far more than I’d have expected to. Still, the new Jonny/Feuilly/Joe definitely has some serious potential; I really loved his vocal and he’s not exactly hard on the eyes. I think he’ll make a damn good Enjolras too, so I shall have to acquire his dates early, so I can make the most of them. If I recall correctly, he gave the new Hugo/Raymond’s back a good stroke when he passed him at the barricade too. I forget the exact details, but there was definitely a moment that caught my attention and they seem to have had a dressing room switch up too, so he’s in D14 with Raymond (I believe Sam Harrison is the 4th boy in D11 instead. Adam has also moved in to D14, so I assume Antony is now in with the swings), which hopefully will lead to a beautiful bromance that can explode out on to the stage… Maybe?

On which note, back to Drink With Me… The hug was unexpectedly decent; Raymond threw one arm around the new Hyoie/Enjolras/Samuel Edwards’ neck, who admittedly looked awkward for a moment which worried me quite a lot, but then he hugged him back, properly, so that was a relief. I think Samuel even held him comfortingly and when he pulled back he had the bottle in his hand too. Although that went down better with me than it did with Raymond, who seemed more angry than at any other point in the show when he retrieved it later on.

The new cast have some decent drapes amongst them although I’m not sure which one is which yet, so can’t comment on specifics. Although I did notice that the new Jonny/Joe & the new Danny/Combeferre/Barnaby Hughes swapped places just before the end, so presumably for the sole purpose of dying in those places… It was rather random, although Joe is significantly taller than Jonny, so maybe it was just a logistics thing…? It did mean he died sprawled on his stomach the way Danny used to though, so no proper drape. Although that does raise an interesting question RE Enjolras. I mean for some stupid reason I’d hoped they’d sort out his drape, but of course they haven’t. Meh. I do wonder if Joe is tall enough to fix it though…? Although probably not. Meh meh meh.

On a slightly less morose note; Ciaran B was ridiculously pompous as the master of ceremonies (also known as Not Andy), which amused me despite myself. Also, Marius’ scarf got left on the stage so one of the girls picked it up and later put it on Adam, who is our new drunkard. It didn’t even occur to me that it’s now his track until I spotted him on the floor, propped up against the end of the table and looking absolutely hammered. He did a lot of pointing at the ceiling after the Thenardiers dropped their silver too. I’ll need to watch him properly at some point, he was funny. Other than that I also noticed that Raymond was first in the party line (Joe was way back), plus I was bemused by the new Hyoie/Samuel contentedly flicking his own lace necktie thing in time to the music.

Other than that, I noticed that Little Cosette had a new dress & hat, much the same as the old dress, but a bluey grey colour instead of black. I’ll confess there was confusion, especially after what they said at the tour, but then Big Cosette/the new Charlotte/Amara Okereke turned up in the same colour dress, so I guess that explains that. She’s got a new Rue Plumet dress too, but it’s not too dissimilar from the one Charlotte used to wear, especially in terms of colouring. I guess the mourning period is officially over…! Although dresses aside, I thought Amara was really good and I really liked the way she sang the part. I also thought the new Bamatabois/not exactly the new James/kinda the new Adam/it’s a bit confusing/Sam Harrison was fantastic. Admittedly I didn’t pay any more attention to him than I did to the rest of the ensemble in general, but I was impressed by his Bambi and I thought it was worth noting. (Incidentally, he gets to be Sam, Mr Edwards will be Samuel as that’s what’s in the programme).

Finally, I’m not sure who did the soldier vocals (I discovered this week that the official name is ‘warnings’, although I don’t know if I’ll start using that or not), but I assume it was an off-stage swing. My Friend thought Adam was doing them now (I’m not sure where she saw that), but I know the new swing (Adam Filipe) did them on Monday and Adam was on stage today, as was Ciaran B, so unless someone unexpected did it, it must have been the new swing/Adam F or Oliver (I don’t know his voice well enough to pick it out). To be fair back when I asked him about it, Andy did suggest they changed it up and it wasn’t associated with a track, but I’d have to check if that was before or after Lee got injured. And yes I’m still bitter that I didn’t get to hear Andy do it one last time near the end. Waah. [Edit: Adam Bayjou did them for the first time in mid-July, so I guess My Friend saw the same thing about Adam F that I did, but didn’t clock the surname].

So I wasn’t really sure what I was hoping to achieve from stage door tonight, but I knew I had to go. I wanted to see Lee at the very least and Ciaran was a bonus if I could catch him. Plus of course there was Dean. I bought a programme, but decided to wait on getting it signed until I needed a real excuse to stay and I’ve got time for everyone but Thacko anyway. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself though and I hate being back in this early limbo of wanting to talk to people but not knowing what to say. I did stop Raymond as he passed just to say I thought he was great, although I probably shouldn’t have admitted that to My Friend afterwards… :P. I’m not saying he’ll ever replace Hugo in my affections, obviously, but I don’t want to hate the new cast and I really did think he was good. I imagine he’ll get even better once he settles in and starts to play with the character a bit more too. Anyway, for some unknown reason I wasn’t brave enough to stop Joe, but he passed right by me and he’s huge. I mean really, really tall. Meanwhile Raymond is tiny (like Hugo *sniffle*), so I imagine they’ll look rather funny together :P.

I stopped Lee when he appeared, welcomed him back and made sure to tell him that I thought he was great. I added that I never thought I’d get to see his Javert, so I’m really chuffed that I did, but couldn’t help asking after Thaxton. Apparently he’s injured, but not badly and may well be back tomorrow. Lee was on standby on Monday, so I guess Thaxton must have already been hurt by then, but made it through that show. I overheard Lee explaining to someone else that he was an emergency cover and added that he met some of the cast for the first time when he was on stage with them. Crazy stuff!

I said hi to Ciaran before he could run away completely, which is a marked improvement on what I usually manage (aka nothing). He replied with a ‘you alright, love’ as he passed, which was good enough for me and at least reprints my face in his brain…! I didn’t stop Antony though and I have to confess I’m now regretting the fact I never really bothered to speak to him in the past unless I had something specific to say. My friends noticed at the weekend that he has arms (and tattooed ones at that) and I noticed it myself today… He does indeed have arms. I really do need to start talking to him :P. I didn’t really speak to Adam properly, but as he passed I told him I loved his drunk, so he paused briefly to catch what I was saying.

I didn’t stop Steven, but the group of girls I always see did and they were in earshot, so I heard most of what they were saying and he was mostly talking about the changes, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to record that part here since I found it quite fascinating (and probably would have asked him much the same thing had I thought to do so, especially about the cork). He said that some changes came from the director, whereas some he and the new Madame T/Vivien worked out between themselves, which is nice to hear. Of course, the cork was mentioned so he explained that it can cause problems when he pulls it out with his teeth if it’s too stuck in the bottle, because he can’t get it out in time to sing his next line. He also pointed out that Danny was good at catching it, but not everyone is. He joked that he might try throwing it to test them, but did say he might try working in again. I really hope he does, I have a soft spot for it, especially now there’s no Andy to catapult it (waahhhhhhhhh). They also talked about the fact that Vivien doesn’t grab him by the crotch after he starts dancing with Emma and instead kisses him hard on the mouth before slapping him round the face. The explanation was that the crotch grab wasn’t that visible from the stalls, so this provides a better visual for the whole auditorium. The kiss is her marking her territory, but at the same time she’s still pissed at him, hence the slap, which is additionally entertaining for it being unexpected.

I had to wait ages for Dean, but oh my was it worth it. In the interim, there were a couple of guys next to me who were also waiting for him (they mentioned Shrek a lot, so I gather one of them at least knew him from that) and at one point a random woman (I don’t think they knew her) came over to ask what we were were waiting for. She told us she’d won the Book Of Mormon lottery tonight (show off :P), but had seen Les Mis and wanted to know if Valjean was hot. The boys seemed a bit bemused by the question and didn’t reply, so I interjected an emphatic ‘yes’, after which she departed.

Anyway, they were right on top of door so he went over to them first, but caught my eye while he was talking to them and smiled in recognition…! I really didn’t think he’d remember me, despite the length of the time that I’ve followed him and I was rather chuffed. I’ve supported him since Never Forget and saw him rather a lot in Love Never Dies (don’t tell Thacko, but he was always my favourite Raoul :P), but even so I’m sure he didn’t know me prior to Working and that was quite some time ago now. Admittedly I saw him at Adrian Mole too, so that was 4 times in a relatively short period, but even so I wasn’t expecting it. Yet as soon as he was done talking to the two boys he came straight over to me and gave me a hug! A hug! I was delighted! Not least because I’d literally just messaged my friends to say how badly I needed a hug. I was a bit giddy after that and I’m not sure how much sense I made (I did a lot of hand clasping and tripping over words), but I believe I managed to tell him several times how great I thought he was and how much I loved watching it. I did for some reason find myself explaining that I’d seen it a lot this year because of Thaxton and it was weird being back after cast change, but hey ho. I assured him I’ve got a fair few more booked so I’ll see him again soon and he was very sweet and apologised for being so long. I let him go to see the other fans that were waiting after that because my powers of speech had stumbled to a halt by then, but it was more than enough. In fact, I was so giddy about that hug (which was a really good hug, by the way) that I practically skipped down the street to the station and given that I was nearly crying for most of the evening, it was rather a relief. It’s early days yet, but I think I might be able to move in for this year too. Just don’t mention cast change 2019…!

Peace, love & cuddles,
K xx

[Edit: I left writing this one up for longer than I meant to. I still haven’t quite got to grips with writing up cast change day so I’ve been putting it all off, but then figured I may as well try and get this one done before show 2, so skipped ahead to it. Anyway, after a week of being bombarded with photos of giddy new cast members on social, not to mention seeing them all at West End Live & at SD afterwards, I felt like maybe I was coming to terms with the newbies and this would be easier to write as a result. I was wrong. I miss my boys. Just writing their names gives me a pang (‘the new <old cast member>’ thing may have been a mistake), never mind all the reminiscing that comes with thinking about the show and recalling all the things I’ll never get to see again.]