Wow! What a gig! Phenomenal!

After a support band for 20 mins (whose name I didn’t catch) he came onstage at 8.30pm, left at 10.20pm, then the encore lasted until 10.50pm – well worth £50 a ticket, I thought…

Starting with Reason To Believe from the latest album, he performed LOADS of songs from his Commodore days up to present day, including Easy (like a Sunday Morning); Hello; Penny Lover; Still; Destiny; All Night Long and Dancing on the Ceiling to name but a few. Alternating between himself, solo, on the piano and with the backing of his band, he delivered a polished and professional performance.

He constantly talked to the audience between songs and had them eating out of the palm of his hand… I didn’t mind this as I was one of them! When he sang Ballerina Girl (which is one of my all-time favourites), the emotion was too much and I blubbed through it. 😉 Pitch-perfect and strong delivery – every song had the audience buzzing, with plenty of opportunities to dance. We did not leave dissapointed – no wonder it was sold out… and having sold out, he’s now performing an extra date on 26th May.

so tempted…

Thoroughly enjoyed this fresh and talented cast – including the delightful Wayne Sleep (not doing badly at 58 and still managing to do ‘the splits’!) cast in the role of the lecherous ‘Uncle Willy’. It was less like the movie than I was expecting, so I felt the loss of missing songs such as Now You Has Jazz; Mind If I Make Love To You and High Society Calypso – however, this stage-version presented a light-hearted show with some catchy tunes.

Professional shows are usually noted for their fabulous sets but I did feel that this show was slightly lacking… in that the set was permanent (i.e. there was one!) – nothing moved. Also, not all of the cast can get away with an ‘American accent’ (Hugh Laurie they are not!) so about a third of the way through the performance it began to grate. Perhaps that was just me, though – having spoken to others since who didn’t notice, perhaps it is just me! Having said that, I really did enjoy the show and the principals were well cast, particularly Wayne Sleep and Paul Robinson (as ‘Mike Connor’).

High Society is at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, until 24th March 2007.

Yes, this is late to report back on but I did literally drag myself out of my sick bed to attend this gig last week…and even though I coughed all the way through it – I was DETERMINED. Toto have been around 30 years but I will never get the chance to see them again.

A mix of old material (including the obvious classics – Africa, Rosanna, Hold the Line and I’ll Be Over You) as well as songs from the new album Falling In Between, which their first studio record since 1999. Most notably, I liked the song Bottom of Your Soul, a rhythmic, pulsing, incantation which is likely to please the diehard 70’s/80’s fans of old as well as their newer listeners. Toto came onstage at 7.45pm and went off at 10.15pm – no interval – amazing!

If you’re interested, it’s worth checking the very short intro here live site – to see how they look and sound live. 🙂

On friday night I went to the BBC for a recording of the new series of the Armstrong & Miller Show, due to be shown on BBC in the Autumn. After applying for tickets on the web, I was delighted to discover that my tickets warranted “priority” which meant I didn’t have to wait in a huge queue outside the BBC and was quickly shown through to security. After depositing my jacket and handbag through the machine and walking through a detector – they asked me to roll-up my jeans as they were ‘bootcut’ and may have been hiding a gun(!) 🙂

Anyway, I was delighted to discover that my priority tickets meant I was sitting in the front row and I had a FANTASTIC time. I was worried that, as I had a cough (thanks to a chest infection I contracted on holiday in Budapest the week before), I may be asked to leave when they were recording. However, the Beeb had turned up the air-conditioning full-blast so everyone was coughing – recording sketches also meant that we could cough in between takes, so it worked out really well…except for Ben Miller who went through about 15 matches in one scene because of the draught. They’ll provide good material for the DVD out-takes though!

It’s been five years since the last series of Armstrong & Miller (Channel Four) which was released last year on DVD (still not sure why they released series 4 first, but who am I to judge?). Not that the guys haven’t been busy since then; Xander starred in Beast, Birthday Girl, Have I Got News For You, Life Begins and Saxondale to name a few. Ben starred in The Parole Officer, The Book Group, Johnny English, The Prince and Me, The Worst Week of My Life and, currently, Primeval – not to mention the recently resurrected “Monkey” adverts for PG Tips with Johnny Vegas (for those who don’t know, Ben is the ‘voice’ of Monkey).

In this new series, there appears to be no ‘Martin Bain-Jones & Craig Children’; no ‘Nude Practice’ or ‘Chuffie the imaginary train driver” but, from what I saw, I feel the new characters will stand the test of time in their own right. Look out for ‘The Airmen’, ‘The Hapless Cuckold’ and ‘The 18th/19th Century Dancing Couple’ – that’s all I want to say as I’d hate to spoil it for potential viewers – the new material is fresh and original and will have you rolling on the floor.

The guys came out to speak to the audience early-on and the BBC made the audience feel very welcome – I only wish I could wangle working in London each friday for the next few weeks so I could attend all of the recordings – I guess I’ll have to wait until it’s screened in the Autumn.

Tickets are still available for the show from the Hattrick website if anyone wanted to go.

Top night! 🙂

I went to see Scrooge at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland, last night…what an amazing show. I’m a big fan of musicals and the Albert Finney version I have on DVD ranks up there in my top ten so, this ‘West-End Production’ had a lot to live up to. I am delighted to say, it certainly delivered.

Michael Barrymore entered to a round of applause from the audience and from that moment, we were hooked. His voice was crackly and hoarse (having had laryngitis earlier in the run as well as being into the 5th week of performance) but the voice of Scrooge does not need to be pitch perfect – he just needs a stage presence and Barrymore has that… in spades.

Highlights include Anthony Stuart Lloyd as The Ghost of Christmas Present– a powerful, yet velvety, baritone to sing I Like Life ; Barry Howard (from TV’s Hi-De-Hi) as The Ghost of Christmas Past – very entertaining, and Geoffrey Abbot as Bob Cratchit – a beautiful voice and a good actor. The rest of the chorus and cast gave a strong performance with such vocal clarity that the show would’ve still been a success without the story!

In addition, the sets and special effects were fantastic. One minute a chair was empty, in the middle of the stage, the next, The Ghost of Christmas Past was sitting in it – amazing! The effects were provided by Paul Kieve, an illusionist responsible for effects in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He works as a consultant to David Copperfield, Derren Brown and Guinness World Records.

Once we reached the graveyard scene that’s set into the future – I was gone, as desolate as Bob Cratchit – I blubbed all the way through the remaining 20 minutes.

I know there’s bad press/media surrounding Mr Barrymore at the moment, but I (and everyone there) didn’t think about that. I went to see a fantastic show, and that’s what I got. I wish I’d gone before Christmas so I could go again before the run finishes next week. Bloody brilliant!

JUST TO SAY – IT WAS CLASS!!

45 mins, then a 20 min break, then 1 hour 10 mins – 2 encores – amazing! 7 new songs (I particularly liked Faded); a great proportion of the classics (We Close Our Eyes; King of Wishful Thinking; Call Me; S.O.S; Goodbye Girl etc, etc.) and two covers – The Tracks of My Tears (which they’d previously released) and U2’s Vertigo – that was amazing, although I don’t think the theatre agreed as we could see sawdust falling from the ceiling due to the bass amps!

21st Anniversary tour – just as hot as they were back in 1985, even though I’ve seen them many times – I had an incredible evening. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Peter Cox can wiggle to the music in front of me anytime – and all the people I went with certainly agree! 😀

This documentary looks interesting…

FREEDOM OF SPEECH …but only if it’s positive, eh?

See the trailer here. …tsk….idiots!

Level 42 played at the Sage tonight, supported by Kenny Thomas – so I was in “Gillian Heaven!” 😉

Kenny was fantastic and I got to meet him signing CDs later. Level 42 were on about 1.5 hours and their songs ranged through the eighties, nineties and noughties from Kansas City Milkman (1985) up to the new album Retroglide – it was AMAZING!

The whole gig was incredible – I’ll have some sweet dreams with this under my pillow tonight!

🙂