Months ago Pauline and I paid nearly £80 for nosebleeds seats to see her highness perform at Wembley Stadium. When I say nosebleed seats I mean it – I think we were about ten rows from the absolutely last seat at the back of the stadium. I suspected these tickets were seriously over-priced but it wasn’t until the show tonight that we just realised just how much of a rip-off it was.

We got to Wembley Stadium relatively early to grab some grub also keen to see who was supporting Madonna. It turned out to be Paul Oakenfold – well we think it was as 1. we could barely see the stage and 2. the sound was awful and we could barely hear the music. We thought it was only for the support act and that they’d beef up the music for Madonna when she came on. Boy were we wrong.

Oakenfold’s set went for about 40 minutes and then we were left to sit. And wait. And sit. And wait. And sit. And wait. For nearly an hour and a half!!!!! It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d at least put some sort of music on to fill the void but we were given nothing. As it turned out Madonna was about an hour late coming out on stage – which turned out to be annoying in more ways than one … including creating transport chaos at night’s end with many people left stranded and with expensive taxi rides home when the Stadium emptied out after public transport had stopped running. I was lucky enough to get the last tube home.

Considering Wembley Stadium is one big @rse venue I was expecting there to be speakers utilised all over the stadium with giant screens everywhere so everyone could see what was going on on stage. Instead the stage was set at one end of the stadium with two of the tiniest screens set on each side of the stage. The sound system was very disappointing – some songs we could hear and others were just a buzz in the background. Due to the size of the stadium it was also difficult to feel the show. We would have been better of in the standing section on the ground cause at least there was some atmosphere down there. Pauline and I really did try to get into it but you feel kind of foolish getting up and dancing and singing when you can barely see and hear the show. Lots of people left about halfway through the show and never returned. Truly disappointing.

Here are some pics of those who were about 1 m from the stage:

I wonder what celebs Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson, and Fergie thought of the show from their tents near the front. We might as well have been at home watching the show on the tv – probably would have got better sound and vision. Additionally, and I don’t know if it was because of the rubbish sound system and our distance from the stage, but I’m fairly sure Madonna was lip-synching most of her performances. Not that I would begrudge her that if this was actually what she was doing – she really was hitting the dance moves something fierce. For a 50 year old she can realy move.

As for the show itself – from what we could make out the show would have been really quite good. Original and fantastic I’m tempted to buy the DVD just so I can see how good it was and also so I could give her dancers a closer look – all giving the impression that they were tight and fiiiit!!! The show was broken into four parts mainly showcasing her latest releases but featuring a few oldies including the ever popular Vogue and Like A Prayer. Projections and videos helped lift the concerted and great melding of scenes into the next. I don’t want to take away from Madonna’s effort because she really did leave everything on stage. Just a shame she was let down by everything else. It should have been an amazing show. Never will I go to Wembley Stadium for a concert again – felt like I was just part of some giant money making scheme.

Nate and Caro took me out to see Monkey – Journey To The West at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden tonight in a great throwback to my childhood.

Monkey, or Monkey Magic as we always referred to it, was one my favourite shows as a kid though thinking back now the themes (monsters, evil, gluttony, lust etc) were a little bit more adult than I realised. It told the story of a motely crew of characters who are brought together by Buddha to help Tripitaka, a priest who has been tasked with undertaking a pilgrimage to fetch holy scriptures. The lead is Monkey, a monkey king who, having the ego the size of the planet, declares himself the equal of heaven takes it a step too far and is imprisoned by Buddha until released by Tripitaka, Pigsy who has been expelled from heaven for lust and gluttony and the crew is rounded out by Sandy, a water monster, who had some sort of other transgression that caused him to be expelled from heaven. There is also a dragon/horse who accompanies them.

So this show, Monkey – Journey To The West, is in essence a chinese opera/acrobatic/circus version of the classic chinese novel on which the tv show was based. It brings a collaboration too of the West (in the form of music by Blur frontman and Gorillaz collaborator Damon Albarn and visuals/costume/animations by Gorillaz collaborator Jamie Hewlett) and the East (in the form of writing and direction by Chen Shi-Zheng and Chinese singers/acrobats/martial artists.)

From a story-line perspective I’m not sure how much newcomers to the Monkey Magic story would have gotten out of it. The show is meant to be quite spiritual. I always remember each Monkey Magic episode having some sort of moral at the end. This doesn’t quite come across in the surtitles (the show is sung/spoken in Mandarin) and when translations came up on the surtitles a lot of what came was almost too deep and too philosophical (typically Chinese I guess) so didn’t make it at all easy to follow the story line.

Having said that if you sort of sat back and enjoyed the spectacle maybe it would have been enough. The show is quite a amazing and is right in your face with all the dazzling acrobatics, martial arts, contortionists and amazing set and costumers.

A truly enjoyable night and great to see something, if not ground-breaking, at least a little innovative and inventive.

Perhaps its that I don’t really know what Cuban dance is all about but Mirela and I were certainly surprised about the show we got. We were expecting a lot of Latin dancing – a lot of salsa, a lot of rumba, and basically a lot of sizzling, sexy, hot dancing. Even now we’re not entirely sure what we got.

The first half of the show was strangely indigineous with a lot of African style music and African style dancing. No doubt about it the dancers were very skilled but the rhythm of the show was disrupted by the unusual and odd pattern to the performance. It got a little bit better in the second half, but not much. I did enjoy the Latin dancing very much (when it arrived) and the urban flavour was also good additon. Unfortunately for most of the show though there was supposed to be a journey … I’m not sure we were on the same path cause I don’t think I ended up at the same destination! I was also disappointed to find that spoken bits were in Spanish – I respect that it is a Cuban show and all and fair enough for the songs to be in Spanish but I don’t think it helped me understand what was going on. Mirela did her best to translate for me – didn’t help!

Though the show as a little disappointing (I certainly couldn’t get into it as much as I did Into the Hoods) there is no doubt that the performers – the dancers, the singers and the band were extremely talented and highly energetic. Very quick with the costume changes too!

There were also free salsa classes after the show which seemed quite popular – as expected though it was mostly ladies sticking around for the class!

Its not often that I’ll see a show twice but when Mirela asked me if I wanted to go see Into The Hoods again I didn’t really hesitate in saying yes. It has been just over a month since we last saw it but I didn’t really mind seeing it again as I enjoyed it so much last time. Mirela wasn’t sure what her Mum and Aunt would think about it but new her sister would get right into it. She really shouldn’t have worried – all three were very impressed.

To my pleasure the show left an impression on me as good as the first time I saw it. We had several cast changes (they obviously swap the kids around probably every evening) and one of the main cast must have been ill as she was replaced by another, plus we had several different dancers from the last troupe but this didn’t take away from the show at all. I know shows must have understudies etc. all the time but with this style of dancing its sometimes difficult to get timing absolutely spot on so I was impressed absolutely with their delivery tonight. All I can say is that it must take a whole lot of practise to get it all right!

Mirela and I have been looking forward to going to see Dirty Dancing for so long that I can’t even remember when we actually bought the tickets. Getting tickets to this show is ridiculously difficult and even with the nosebleed section seats we went for we still had to book it months and months in advance.

Here are some photos pre-viewing at the shoebox and on the tube on the way because Mirela was just so excited to be going! And actually she was so excited that we even made it to the theatre early for once! heh heh.

Dirty Dancing The Musical was also penned by the author of the original feature film that we all watched as young girls (or young boys maybe?) at our girlie slumber parties (ah to be 10 years old again and staring dreamingly at Patrick Swayze!) so the adaptation, you would have thought, could be in no better hands. In truth the movie has substantially been brought across to the stage with Baby, favoured daughter, and her family visiting a summer holiday camp. Baby is the perennial good daughter so when she falls for the so-called bad boy Johnny, camp lead dance instructor, father is not happy. Its just a shame that the chemistry, romance and sexiness wasn’t brought to the stage tonight.

What I remember most from the movie was the chemistry between the two leads played by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey and the pure hotness of the dancing. In tonight’s performance this didn’t come across at all. For some reason I just couldn’t stand the two performers tonight who played the Johnny and Baby roles respectively and admittedly though the guy who played Johnny could dance I just felt annoyed. There was one stand out performer for me and that was Nadia Coote who plays Penny. She was simply gorgeous and totally sizzled in her role as Johnny’s dance partner.

As the musical was pretty much exactly the same as the movie you also have all the great songs in there. The soundtrack to Dirty Dancing has definitely got to be one of the best ever and all the great songs were there. The singers were actually all very good but volumes on their mics were way too loud and so when they were really belting out the numbers I had to literally cover my ears. Such a shame because they had amazing voices!

There are some positives for the musical. The dances were well choreographed and the set design is imaginative, making the best use of the stage considering how many scene changes were required.

Overall, at tonight’s performance we did not have the time of our lives but we did see some spectacular dancing from Penny and the nostalgia it evoked can’t be overlooked either. Was it worth seeing on stage? Well, I guess there is nothing like seeing something live and I guess in that sense it was worth it. If only they could improve on the chemistry between the two leads (which is I think where most of my negative feelings come from) I would enjoy it more.

Into the Hoods was A-mazing! Totally enjoyed tonight’s performance and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime to go see it than Mirela who was grooving in her seat (I’m sure she would have jumped up on stage to join in given a chane) all night. Into the Hoods is a very smartly written urban version of the Stephen Sondheim Broadway hit Into the Woods which basically combined several fairy tales to form one story. Into the Hoods, instead of the usual fairy-tale background, brings you to the tower blocks of the Ruff Endz estate following a couple of kids who somehow end up at the blocks after running away from school and who must complete several tasks to earn their bus fare home. There they encounter: The Landlord, his Daughter Rap-on-Zel, Spinderalla (DJ wanna-be), The Prince, in the Basement – Jaxx (very funny!) and The Giant, Lil Red and Wolf (manager wanna-be who exploits Lil Red’s talents.)

The show starts with a poet who was surprisingly spontaneous even though I’m sure he says the same thing night after night. I was expecting this to be quite boring but his poem on ‘hoods was brilliant and takes you beyond what you would understand a hood to be – manhood, childhood, knighthood, priesthood etc. and sets the scene for the rest of the night.

What follows the poetry is an amazing display of hip hop dancing. I was truly impressed with how the performances really managed to incorporate the story into each act – it wasn’t just a case of here’s the story, and here’s some dancing on the side. It all integrated well together. As for the skillz – wow! The artists were so explosive with so much energy not to mention that they were fiiii-iiiiit! This was not only in terms of doing the very vigorous dancing for more than 90 minutes (and keeping it up) but also in terms of being very cut body-wise. Mmmm … very very nice abs and arms! A surprise for the night was the little kid who played Fairy G (Spinderalla’s fairy “god mother”). We couldn’t tell if she was a little person, a kid or a little kid considering she was half the size of the other two children who must have been less than 10 years old themselves – but she was very cool – from the attitude to the dance moves. Just fab.

Aside from the dancing Into the Hoods also delivers a fantastic sound-track combinining modern hip-hop and R&B with old-style funk, soul, dance and disco. The set was quite simplistic but they made great use of the space including innovative use of the video screen to project the image of the tower block and its many many floors plus the magic of having artists coming down a giant imaginary staircase to emerge in reality.

Absolutely infectious energy – so much so that I became a fan on facebook and Mirela is still practising her hip-hop moves even now – hours after the close of the show! Would definitely recommend Into the Hoods for fans of hip-hop music and dance.

Seeing Sound of Music The Musical tonight just reminded me how simply brilliant the score was in the movie. The songs are just so sing-a-longable (did I just make up a new word?) that it even had the dude behind us humming along (trust me – he was the last person you would expect to be humming along to Sound of Music!)

Connie Fisher’s run as Maria had ended just a couple of weeks ago hence the sudden availability of discounted tickets. The new Maria however, Summer Strallen, was equally up to the job. If you follow the publicity surrounding her you’d know that she was put into Hollyoaks as a character who was auditioning for and eventually won the Maria role in the musical and then her character, also called Summer, left the show and thus leading to Strallen actually making her debut in the musical we saw tonight.

I totally enjoyed the production tonight and it is definitely one of the premier musicals showing at the West End at the moment. The performances were superb with the singing often causing me goosebumps. Surprisingly I could even understand every word that was sung which shows just how clear and pitch perfect the singing was. The orchestra were fantastic and deservedly had a prominent position at the front of the stage. From an acting perspective most of the cast played their roles perfectly and I thought Summer in particularly really shined – her facial expressions and body language were exactly how I would have expected Maria to act (though I must admit much of my expectations come from the 1965 movie.) The kids were excellent as well though the two older kids were a little younger than I expected them to be.

Where Sound of Music totally stunned was the set – it was huge, it was magnificent, it was dramatic and very well thought out – including conveying the impression that you’re up in the mountains at the beginning and end of the show. The scene changes were just amazing – seamless and transporting inside and out the house, to the nunnery, to the mountains.

This is one fantastic musical and the standing ovationo the cast received at the end was well deserved.

I’m steadily working my way through the musicals on the West End with Cabaret the next one on my list.

Against the background of decadent 1930s Berlin, Cabaret revolves mainly around a young seemingly bisexual American aspiring author and his subsequent romance with the leading lady at a local cabaret club (the Kit Kat Club.) Secondary to their story are the stories of the owner of his boarding house in Berlin (Fraulein Schneider), her Jewish suitor (Herr Schultz) and one of her other boarders, a lady of leasure. Tainting all these ongoings is the threat of the rise of the Nazis. Emcee, providing a narration of sorts, is the very camp Julian Clary.

The musical is dark, gritty and ultimately quite sad. The musical pieces individually were okay but overall I didn’t find this show to my taste or enjoyment. As our seats were third row from the front it also felt quite confrontational to me as we were within the sights of the actors/actresses and it was very hard hiding our grimaces. There were some positives – the band were excellent, especially the three who actually became part of the show itself and the actress and actor who played Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz respectively were very good.

Oh, there also seemed to be quite a bit of nudity – personally I though it was gratuitous but I’m assuming not everyone would agree to me. I’m sure there will be those out there who say the nudity demonstrated some sort of deeper vulnerability blah blah blah. To each his own I guess!

Not the worst musical I’ve ever seen but certainly not one of my favourites.

Jenny and I almost didn’t make it to tonight’s Afrika Afrika show which would have been such a disappointment. The Jubilee line was having a shocker of a day today and once that goes down, as we found out, getting to the O2 can be a giant mish. What should have been a simple one-hour journey turned into a three-hour mare thanks firstly to broken down trains, then traction problems and then finally power failures to practically the entire line. That we got stuck in the tunnels in between stations and in the dark for nearly half an hour was potentially horrifying and then the mob at Bank to get onto the DLR was nearly our undoing. I certainly felt sorry for the one station attendant who was valiantly trying to stop us getting on to the platform. Her efforts were wasted however as the mob managed to overcome her. I still don’t know if she ran when we broke through or if she got run over because I certainly didn’t see her
again! And speaking of not seeing people again – we were supposed to meet Mirela and Sabrina at the O2 but they didn’t even make it in the end!

It would have been nice to get to the O2 early to soak up the ambience of the show and its set up. The circus is hosted in the Tented Palaces at the back of O2 which have been themed to bring that African flavour to London. There is a café etc. there but there are also some hot food offerings which are basically dished out on to paper plates for immediate consumption. Surprisingly tasty (they even managed to make the cous yummy) and, though quite small in portions, at between £4-£5 a pop was not too much of a rip-off.

But on to the main event. I wasn’t actually planning on going to check out Afrika Afrika for some reason but Sandra pointed out a really good deal to get free tickets and to my surprise I ended up with six free! I’ve seen quite a few modern circuses in my life with the premier circus franchise being Cirque du Soleil so when I saw that Afrika Afrika promised to deliver an African feel to this formula I thought how could it possibly compare. To be frank I was surprised by just how good and enjoyable the show was. Sure some of the acts I’ve seen various versions of before (but I could still wonder at them) but more surprising to me were some of the imaginative spins given to the traditional circus skills.

We wondered at a game of basketball (including the slam dunking) played on unicycles (absolutely amazing) and then skipping with their unicycles, the man who spun giant plates (up
to ten at once I think) who also had this trick of spinning a plate on an umbrella and then spraying a fountain of water from his mouth (I still don’t know how he stored the water), the two contortionists – one man (who manipulated his way through a tennis raquet) and one woman (who was simply amazing – when you think of the term beside yourself she was literally beside herself on quite a few occasions), the acrobats who climbed each other and created human pyramids, and the pole artists (climbing poles in crazy ways and then jumping pole to pole). Added to this were the some less traditional circus acts such as tap versus stomp dancing, breakdancing, and dudes doing spinning and bouncing tricks with basketballs.

The audience provided some of the entertainment to me as well – in particularly screaming with wonder when the contortionists manipulated themselves into unimaginable positions. The largest screams came when the acrobats built themselves into a 4-5 man high tower and then fell forward like a tree falling over – as no man moved until they were practically about to smash their faces into the ground this caused quite a bit of a thrill to the crowd – in Jenny in particular!

Afrika Afrika wasn’t just about what was going on on stage. The music was brilliant with the most amazing singers and the atmosphere in the tent was very cool with projections of various pictures up on to the tent walls. The lighting was actually also very good adding to our impressions of the show and serving to highlight significant moments.

The only drawback, which we didn’t suffer from, is that it can turn out to be quite a pricey night with top tickets selling at nearly £60 and the lowest available being £19 (which is actually £1 more than the lowest price ticket available at the upcoming Cirque Du Soleil show Varekai.) Once you add drinks and food you could end up blowing your entertainment budget for the month.

Overall though the show is simply amazing and a very entertaining night. You will definitely walk away in awe of the skills and imagination on display in this show.