Something's coming, something good

I have really been slacking with this blog, I was suppose to be off to see Taboo a couple of weeks ago  but then the snow came and shat all over that plan so I couldn't review that and then I've just been procrastinating and not watching all the movies that I planned to.

Anyway today's post is brought to you by the excitement of Broadway since we seem to be getting a lot of it coming to London this year. New York City is my absolute favourite city in the world, I've been lucky enough to visit twice but sadly haven't been for a good 7 years. Needless to say with a love of NYC comes a great love of Broadway.

Next month I'll be seeing Sherie Rene Scott at the Matcham Room, Hippodrome, I don't have tickets yet but am hoping to see A Chorus Line and Once at some point during February and March, I do have a ticket booked for The Book of Mormon in May and I'm also hoping to get a ticket to see Patti LuPone in June. Most, if not all, these shows I've seen come and go on the other side of the pond the last few years and now I'm rather excited that I get a chance to see them for myself.

Also yesterday the National announced their next season which also sounds incredibly, particularly the Tori Amos musical The Light Princess and the Simon Russell Beale/Sam Mendes King Lear. Unfortunately for me my entry pass membership expires when I turn 26 in May so no more amazing £5 tickets, here's hoping there are plenty £12 Travelex tickets to go around!

Silent Sunday

Review: Les Miserables

It's going to be quite hard to write this review without completely gushing, we're only in January and I think I may have already found my favourite film of the year. Les Miserables based on the stage show by Schonberg & Boublil follows Jean Valjean through decades as he's being hunted by policeman Javert. I saw the show in London a few years ago now and enjoyed it but was never a mega fan and I think that's the best way to see the film because from what I've seen online the mega fans are going to be more nit picky over the film.

Being a self confessed musical nerd, it's an exciting time anytime a show gets a big screen adaption and I think Les Mis is a particularly good one for showing all the people who can't stand them that they're not all cheese and jazz hands. That said if you're expecting to see some perfect belting singing then you will be disappointed, this film is all about the raw emotion of the characters and this was perfectly filmed with extreme close ups by Tom Hooper. I also think the live singing works well with this rather than having the actors mime to pre recorded vocals. 

The cast are all brilliant and I personally enjoyed playing spot the West End actor with all their cameos. In terms of the lead cast, Anne Hathaway is fantastic and she will be robbed if she doesn't win the Oscar for this performance. I also enjoyed performances by Hugh Jackman, Samantha Barks and yes although Russell Crowe cannot sing I think his Javert works well for this adaption. I left the cinema immediately wanting to watch it again and am hopefully going again next Sunday to see it in IMAX.

Award season

Only 10 days into 2013 and we're well into award season already. The BAFTA nominations were announced yesterday and the full list can be seen here, the Oscar nominations were announced today and can be seen here and finally the BRIT awards were announced this evening and can be found here.

Every year when we get the film based awards I realise how behind I am in seeing the latest films, I'm trying to make it up this year though and at the end of the month I'm going to take out a Cineworld card and try and see as much as possible. I'm very much looking forward to seeing Les Miserables tomorrow night and you can expect a review on it as I enjoyed seeing the show on stage a few years ago. I've also just seen the trailer for Lincoln the first time this evening and since that seems to be sweeping the nominations I'll have to get myself to that at some point too.

Looking at the BRIT awards I can't say I'm too enthusiastic about the list of nominees, I have to admit I am biased towards my favourite musical artists so when they aren't featured I'm not too fussed. We still don't have a release date for Lady Gaga's ARTPOP this year and I'm not sure if Florence's Ceremonials qualifies, if it does then it's an outrage they've only received one nomination. Emeli Sande leads the way with the most nominations and I think I'm one of the few who isn't bored of her and I've kept meaning to check out Paloma Faith's new album and seeing it nominated will give me the push to do that.

What does everyone else think of the nominees? Are there any films or music I MUST check out?

Review: Starlight Express - Brighton Centre

Whilst I was off work over Christmas and sales shopping, I decided I needed to book myself some theatre tickets for 2013 and I thought what better way to start than a musical on the first Saturday in January. 

Starlight Express written by Andrew Lloyd Webber is currently touring the UK with this Bill Kenwright production. I pretty much knew nothing going in except they're pretending to be trains on rollerskates. IMO ALW gets a lot of unfair stick in the musical theatre world, Evita would have to be my favourite musical of his and I would recommend it to everyone, it's a real stunning piece of music. It's a shame I can't say the same for this show, I was bored and thinking now I can't remember any of the songs bar one and I only saw it 3 days ago. I did read in the program that ALW wrote this for his children so maybe I'm just not the intended audience but then again that's no excuse for shoddy work.

Part of the reason I think is because it's a Bill Kenwright production and they're nothing if not know for being cheap. There was no set bar a giant LED screen and two half pipes to skate on, I imagine the show was stunning when it opened at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London but it just wasn't working for me at the Brighton Centre. When I walked in I was handed a pair of 3D glasses which are used to show the race part of the show but again I read in my program this was introduced in 1993 and needs some serious updating. It did amuse me that Pearl is blonde in the show and suddenly in the 3D film she's ginger.  The actors have my admiration for dancing and singing on rollerskates even though most of their routines did seem to involve skating in circles and I thought the costumes were good but again looking a little tired. All in all I can't say it was worth the £50 I spent on a ticket.

Looking forward to the other shows I've booked, next Saturday I'll be off to see Taboo in Brixton which has had rave reviews so fingers crossed I'll enjoy that one a little more. Also when I get paid I need to book myself tickets for The Book of Mormon, Once & A Chorus Line, they're probably the shows I'm most looking forward to in 2013.

What about everyone else? Has anyone else got any shows planned they're looking forward to? Or other TV, music or film that I should look out for?

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!