Theatre: The Season......

A Royal & Derngate, Northampton, and New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, co-production

A New Musical by Jim Barne & Kit Buchan

It’s Christmas Eve and Dougal has travelled from Ipswich to New York for his father’s wedding. At JFK Airport he’s greeted by Robyn. Tomorrow her sister becomes his stepmother and Robyn’s dreading it. Dougal can’t wait. But then Dougal loves Christmas and Robyn’s the original Grinch.

Thrown together for a wild weekend in the city that never sleeps, their adventure becomes a musical whirlwind of confession, frustration and maxing-out credit cards in Macy’s. Will these two endearing misfits provide the ultimate test for the theory that opposites always attract?

This brand new romantic comedy is filled with heart-warming and hilarious songs, from writers Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, winners of the 2018 Stiles and Drewe Mentorship Award, celebrating the very best of emerging British song-writing talent.

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Robyn is played by Tori Allen-Martin and Dougal is played by Alex Cardall and they are both brilliant character actors with amazing voices and in this performance they have totally believable chemistry together!
In fact they are the only two characters in the whole play.
We thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Itchy feet?......

In this instance itchy feet meaning can't sit still.....or no opportunity to 😉
We got back from our Spanish holiday in the early hours on the Sunday, our wedding anniversary, but we didn't celebrate apart from Hubby buying me some flowers when he went shopping. I processed a lot of laundry!

Then a call from Daughter, who was at Kentwell Hall performing in the month long Halloween Scaresville event. R was also there but had overdone the physical stuff chasing customers through cages while dressed in a rat costume (I'm only repeating what was told to me), so Hubby went to get her and she moved in here. She didn't have any clothes with her apart from what she was wearing, so I shopped.

Monday I needed a fasting blood test which meant crossing town during rush hour. 
Tuesday E messaged to see if we could pick her up from Ipswich train station after her all day journey back from Scotland. Hubby did and she moved in here too. Poor thing was suffering with a head cold. Hubby and I were out that evening with our usual Wednesday gang although yes it was Tuesday. To give one of these friends I needed a birthday present I hadn't actually bought yet, so R and I made a dash into town and it was bought wrapped and given within a couple of hours.

I checked that O was happy staying with M and as D was with them too and they were boys together playing techy stuff at the CCC lab they were more than happy to stay as they were, however, M said the dog wasn't as happy so Wednesday Tilly moved in here. Which also meant making R her bed on the floor downstairs.

Obviously there was plenty more laundry to do as E came home with a suitcase and R had a few changes now. There were meals to cook too. I was also backwards and forwards to my surgery as they are trying to control my very high blood pressure. Hubby is taking Tilly out for a very long walk (often with a bit of a run) every morning so she had been quite relaxed for the rest of the day, although not always this relaxed hahaha

M, D and O had organised to go to Comic-Con in London on Saturday and late on Thursday M contacted the girls to invite them along. E declined as she was still full of cold and R accepted, so we took her home Friday to gather up the previously prepared but unfinished costume. Between me and R we made the Garfield cat ears. She looked great, even though I still have no idea who her character is.

Sunday R seemed to sleep nearly all day and sounding like she's getting the head cold. E was up at a reasonable time and had a two hour driving lesson. Hubby was out most of the day with his blood runners team mates. And Son came for a visit arriving lunchtime and staying for a good chatty few hours.

Hubby took the girls and the dog home after we'd all had dinner. The house seemed quite empty! But they were all back a few days later and again for Halloween.

The other reason for itchy feet is far more literal. As I've said we are trying to control my blood pressure, so the doctors have been tweaking the pills I'm already on, doubling dosages and also adding extra........so not only do I now rattle but I'm also getting side effects which include increased joint pains and some persistent itching mostly my scalp, hands and feet!
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Theatre: One Under.......

A bold revival of Winsome Pinnock's play about the need for atonement, The Stage.

Sonny and Christine want to escape. They have a night to remember but underneath the surface things aren’t what they seem. Cyrus is frantically trying to piece together the truth about that night. Unexpectedly a tragedy is about to unite them all…
An evocative thriller of intertwining stories, One Under explores the unanswered questions left behind when someone vanishes from our lives.

A brand new version of the 2005 play by award-winning writer Winsome Pinnock and directed by Amit Sharma (The Solid Life of Sugar Water, Cosmic Scallies), this powerful story explores human relationships and sparks pertinent, timely conversations on mental health and well-being.

Graeae is a world renowned innovator in theatre and its productions place creative access at their heart. This play will feature a creative use of captioning and will have audio description on offer at every performance (ask the Box Office for details).

4-stars “One Under is a keenly enjoyable experience – and being brave enough to leave parts of the story untold pushes this drama into a different league. Complex and darkly satisfying, One Under proves that when drama moves beyond formula, anything can happen.” The Spy in the Stalls

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Yes it was wonderfully acted and yes it was certainly deep and meaningful, however,  90 minutes without an interval is a long time to take in all the heavy dialogue and the constant changing of people and the different times of events, all overlapping within such a minimalist set. I found it interesting but repetitive.....friendT hated it.
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Theatre: Murder, Margaret and Me........

Agatha Christie turns sleuth in a play by Philip Meeks.

Agatha Christie and Margaret Rutherford should never have been friends. But they were. Their paths crossed when they found themselves at the heart of one of British cinema's most successful franchises. However, the Miss Marple films almost didn't get made.

Murder, Margaret and Me is a story of friendship, identity and the achievement of women in the long-lost world of the silver screen.

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Lin Blakely played Agatha Christie. I knew her from her long running Eastenders character. Sarah Parks played Margaret Rutherford, and Miss Marple was played by Gilly Tompkins.

They were all brilliant, bouncing off each other to deliver a very funny script that also had some deep emotional stories to tell too.

For anyone expecting a typical Agatha Christie murder mystery they would have been surprise but I hope not disappointed at this private look behind the scenes at the unlikely friendship that developed.
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