Long Time No Blog

Oops I've already slipped into bad habits of not blogging. To be fair it is of course the busiest time of the year, just before Christmas I came down with a nice bout of Laryngitis which meant I had a rotten time at my works Christmas party. I managed to stay for the three course dinner but after that I had to be picked up and went straight home to bed.

Soon after that Christmas was already upon us. My office is open all the days between the bank holidays but I decided to take them off for some lazy time. This turned out to be a great idea because the 90 minute Homeland season finale was on the night before Christmas Eve. The first hour was dull and nothing happened but I feel that lulled the audience into a false sense of security and then BOOM! (Quite literally.) This has raised some questions for the next series but I'm mostly looking forward to Saul becoming head of the CIA and Carrie basically mirroring the first series but this time she needs to prove Brody's innocence.

Christmas is a bit of a weird one in my house because my mum and sister had to work so we didn't have the traditional dinner or presents until Boxing Day. The morning of Boxing Day I headed to the sales, I wasn't really all that impressed, I was in town first thing and then annoyed that Lush & Cath Kidston didn't open until 11am. I did manage to get a nice half price purse & cushion from Ollie & Nic and I went to Primark but only bought a few non sale items. I also got myself a decent TomTom sat nav so I need to go on a road trip somewhere and the day after I picked up a good few bargains at the George (Asda) sale. I'm more of a giver than a receiver when it comes to presents so I enjoyed watching everyone open what I got them, particularly my younger sister when she realised I got her a ticket to see her favourite singer Rihanna. I have to admit I'm really looking forward to seeing her too and now don't have to worry about accidentally mentioning it, phew!

This afternoon I went to see Pitch Perfect at the cinema. I hate the delay in movies we get here, this film is already out on DVD in the US but only just release over here. It's the same with all the Americans who have already got to see Les Mis and we have to wait until the 11th, I really can't wait to see that! Anyway back to Pitch Perfect, the plot centres around a cappella group college competition, yes basically a more grown up Glee. I enjoyed the film and the musicals geek in me loved all the performance numbers. I think Fat Amy is my spirit animal and I spent the whole film thinking "I'm sure that guy (who plays Jesse) is familiar" and then it turned out to be Skylar Astin from OBC Spring Awakening. If you like a good modern musical number and some comedy then I definitely recommend this film.

It's almost time for New Years Eve. I'm not up to anything myself, does anyone else have any plans? How about plans for the new year? I've booked myself some theatre tickets so there'll be posts on those and I also plan to take part in the 365 project so maybe posts on that too.

Round up

It's that time of the year again when U.S. TV likes to take an irritating mid season break, well I don't know if it's always this time of the year, it just so happens two of my shows are affected so now I'll write about it.

First up I watched Revenge which has taken so many twists and turns now that I feel permanently dizzy but there's something about it that means I just can't stop watching. We've been left with Daniel successfully overtaking Grayson Global meaning the Initiative are now moving in on him, Jack has finally realised the Ryan brothers are bad news and an old flame from Nolan's past could possibly blow Emily's cover. At least we don't have long to wait to find out what bizarre twist the writers will throw at us next.

Unlike The Walking Dead, which is a brilliant, brilliant TV series. Seriously if you're not watching it then you need to question what you're doing with your life. I think I'd be going on forever if I wrote what has just happened in the last episode so my absolute favourite bit would have to be Michonne's fight with the Governor. I was hoping she'd chop his head off with her awesome sword or maybe just kill him once, wait for him to come back as a zombie and enjoy killing him again but unfortunately Andrea had to show up to ruin things. This of course led to him turning on Merle and I somehow missed in all the smoke and gunshots that they managed to capture Daryl. He's probably my favourite character and I'm now going to sulk until February when we find out what happens there.

In recent theatre news, Whatsonstage.com have announced their annual theatre award nominations. Any time any kind of nominations are released it reminds me I never get round to watching enough film, theatre etc. I guess it makes it easy in a way that I've only seen one nominee in each category. To view the nominations and vote click here.

I was going to also write my view on the latest Homeland and Misfits but this post is getting a little long now. So finally in book news, I got sent a copy of The Fault in our Stars by John Green, which I've seen so many quotes and rave reviews over on Tumblr so I'm looking forward to getting into it myself. I got sent it by Spinebreakers who are running a competition to #passiton, basically the person who has passed their copy onto the most people will win £500 worth of books to share which is pretty much my idea of heaven so hopefully my friends will help me out with this. Fingers crossed!

Review: Florence + the Machine - O2 Arena

                                                             Photo by me

Along with the theatre, I absolutely love going to gigs and when the opportunity came up to see Florence for the second time this year I just couldn't pass it up. I feel like a bit of a latecomer to f+tm as I didn't really fall in love with them until the release of Ceremonials and that's when I went back to listen to Lungs and realised what an incredible album that is too.

I made my way to the O2 yesterday and got there for about 6:30 when the doors opened so managed to get a decent standing spot only about 6 people back from the barriers. If you're not a seasoned gig goer I recommend aiming for the sides as you can normally get closer with everyone else aiming for the middle and as you can see above I didn't have a bad view at all.

After standing through the support act Haim (made up of 3 sisters and a lone male from California), who actually weren't all that bad but I was far too distracted by the bizarre facial expression the bassist kept pulling. It was finally time for Florence to take to the stage, the set and entrance were pretty much exactly the same as when I saw them at Alexandra Palace but who needs to focus on that when Florence is demanding all your attention. She's definitely up there in my favourites and just has so much energy bouncing around the stage it's impossible not to bounce with her in the pit. My personal highlights would have to be 'You've got the Love', 'Shake it Out', 'No Light, No Light', 'Sweet Nothing', 'Spectrum' & 'Dog Days.' As you can tell it's quite hard to pinpoint my exact favourites as I really enjoyed the whole concert. If you're a fan of the music then you definitely need to go see them live.

Review: The Magistrate - Olivier (National) Theatre

I begin my first review at the end, that is unless I decide to grab tickets to something last minute then this will be my last and 19th theatre trip of the year. Maybe I should find something else to see since I have an irrational hate of odd numbers. Anyway off to the National I went yesterday, as my time as an entry pass member comes to an end next May I'm trying to see anything and everything I can at £5 a show, well it would be silly not to.

The Magistrate by Arthur Wing Pinero promises to be a "fast, furious, brilliantly plotted Victorian farce" and whilst it's not the funniest thing I've seen on stage, I had an enjoyable afternoon. The story centres around how telling a little white lie can snowball into bigger things, John Lithgow plays the timid Aeneas Posket Police Magistrate and particularly shines when he gets to take centre stage near the beginning of the second act and recounts how he made an escape. I could find no faults in any of the other cast and enjoyed performances by Nancy Carroll, Christina Cole, Beverley Rudd & Joshua McGuire.

With only two different settings in each act I found the action not always as hilarious as it could be and the first half did start to drag a little, although this was certainly not helped by sitting up front in the National's uncomfortable seats. Each setting interlude was filled by a song from some Dandies which I enjoyed being more a fan of musicals than straight plays, especially the all cast number at the end of the play which guarantees the audience leaves with a smile on their faces. I can't finish this review without giving the impressive set a mention which often resembled a pop up book and certainly appropriately set the tone of the piece.

The Magistrate is a lovely piece of theatre and I believe this cast gives it that extra oomph that makes it worth seeing. It is playing at the Olivier Theatre at the National until February 10th and will be broadcast to cinemas across the UK and around the world on January 17th.

Curtain up...

Hello,

I'll start with the basics, my name is Stacie, I'm 25 years old and I live on the south coast of England. I graduated from University 3 years ago, I now work in a slightly dull job that has nothing to do with my aforementioned degree and as you might be able to tell, I've been bitten by the theatre bug.

It all started when I saw a little show called 'Wicked' in London a good 6 years ago now and I've just been addicted ever since. I average about 24 shows a year so I thought why not set up a place on the internet where I can tell everybody (somebody? anybody?) how much or how little I enjoyed these shows.

It won't all be theatre reviews, I'll also probably be posting my reaction to theatre and other showbiz news, maybe some gadget stuff and the odd life lesson. For now you'll have to bear with me whilst I get to grips with using Blogger and try and make this thing look at least a little decent.

Cheerio for now
xx