Theatre: Teddy......

Elephant and Castle, London. 1956. Saturday night.

Teddy and Josie are about to hit the streets of London for a good time. Hair quiffed. Red lipstick. Dressed toe to head in the latest threads. So what if it’s pouring down, they’re totally skint, and someone wants them dead? A little trouble never stopped a Ted from having a good time. Desperate times call for rock ‘n’ roll.

From the writer-director team behind Boudica at the Globe and Frankenstein at The Watermill Theatre and Wilton’s Music Hall in London comes Teddy, an award-winning, punchy new musical that races through the dark and damaged world of post-war London: a brand new Britain bombed to bits by the Blitz, belts tight with austerity, but ripe and ready for revolution.

With electrifying original songs influenced by hits from the 1950s performed by the on-stage live band Johnny Valentine and the Broken Hearts, Teddy is the ultimate story of rebellious youth and the birth of a new musical era. Bursting with the energy of a live gig, this is theatre that leaves you on a high and jiving all the way home. 

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This is a hard one to give my opinion on.
The music was great, the musicians and voices all very good. The two main performers, Teddy and Josie, played their parts so well, both having to learn masses of dialogue, mostly spoken to the audience, often very aggressive, some of the time portraying different characters. The script was clever too, often rhyming in a Shakespearian way. Their dancing was also amazing, very talented!
However, there were no contrasts, no lows or gentle moments, just highs, loud and aggressive, so I found it monotonous and hard to stay focused.
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The Fantasy of others......

......this is my reality!

Yes I'm sitting knitting with my feet up while Hubby is vacuuming floors, walls, ceilings etc. He's also done two machine loads of laundry!

I'm spoilt hahaha.
But in my defence I had a fall a few days ago and still hobbling, so he keeps insisting I have my leg raised.
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Theatre: Rope.......

Presented by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and New Wolsey Theatre.

A chilling and spine-tinglingly gripping thriller by Patrick Hamilton.

Two well-bred young men murder a fellow Oxford student just for the fun of it. Placing the corpse in a wooden box, they invite a group of friends over to their Mayfair apartment – including the loving mother of the boy they’ve just killed. Supper is served on the chest holding the gruesome contents. But one of their guests is starting to become suspicious…

Will this daring pair get away with their cat and mouse games?
Based on a 1920’s real life case, this dark classic, brilliantly evoking a jazz age generation, was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1948 and remains to this day one of the most tightly coiled of thrillers.

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Hmmm well we didn't find it chilling or spine-tinglingly gripping at all. 
I'm sure Alfred Hitchcock used the very long pauses, or the non-stop crossing the stage to light a cigarette only to cross the stage to put it out in an ashtray to build nervous tension, but here it just seemed to drag everything out for the sake of it. And if they'd actually consumed as much whisky as they were drinking liquid from that decanter then at least three of the characters would have been completely comatose! 

My friends and I did all agree but I do think I was probably more critical because I took a nasty tumble on my way into the theatre on uneven ground and consequently sat through the performance with a very painful knee!
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Theatre: Quartet......

Mark Goucher and David Ian present
A Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Production

Paul Nicholas (The Real Marigold Hotel, Just Good Friends, EastEnders) Wendi Peters (Coronation Street, Oh What A Lovely War), Sue Holderness (Only Fools and Horses, The Green Green Grass) and Jeff Rawle (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Drop the Dead Donkey) star in a brand-new revival of the bitter-sweet comedy Quartet.
Quartet is the charming tale of four ageing opera singers. Cecily, Reggie and Wilfred reside in a magnificent retirement home in Kent, where the rumour circling the halls is that the home will soon play host to a new resident, and word is it’s a star. When Jean arrives old rivalries resurface, secrets are revealed and chaos unfolds, but in true theatrical tradition – the show must go on. A celebration of the twilight years and the hilarity of growing old disgracefully! 

The grand finale.  

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I haven't actually seen the famous film my friends were comparing this to so wasn't so critical, however I did think the first half was a bit flat with both ladies overacting. The men were brilliant. The script really funny at times and also raising a level of empathy as I head towards that age bracket (thankfully a way off yet).
The second half was so much better, it had purpose to all stage movements while the script opened up the secrets to old relationships giving the characters more emotions.
The finale was brilliantly performed by all.

So glad we braved the dreadful snowy conditions to get there. One of our friends couldn't come as buses were cancelled from her village. Online it had been a sellout performance but there half the seats were empty, such a shame.
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