A Christmas Story - Waterloo East, 28 Nov - 22 Dec

Is this a new venue? Ive never heard of it.

Really? 8 years? Ok, not sure how ive missed it considering the location.

Hope Mill got pretty far down the line in marketing. Would there really be a clash between Manchester and London? I suspect it was something else that changed HM’s mind. 

First preview tonight cancelled due to technical difficulties.

The venue have been very good. Just emailed and telephoned me to make sure I knew.

Attended tonight (as a swap for the previous cancelled show).

First time I’ve seen this musical. Haven’t ever even seen the film (although might try and give it a watch now).

Also my first time at the Waterloo East Theatre which is a decent fringe theatre. Easy to find, just around the corner from the Pleasuredrome if you know that venue (I had heard of before but not walked past it - no, I didn’t have time to go in).

You hear the trains go past while the show is on.

Small lobby and bar area. The main auditorium is raked seating. Seats 1 to 6 in the first few rows line up best with the stage. The higher numbers are mostly past the side of the stage (won’t be a problem further back, but the view is much better near the front, seats 3 and 4 are perfect).

I was in B3 (front row) which is right in the action (one of the children even managed to land on my foot at one point).

The cast is 7 children, 6 adults. I’ve totally failed to find a cast list anywhere (and I heard that the printed programmes hadn’t arrived yet). No idea if there are multiple teams of children or not. Several of the cast (both adults and children) looked familiar, so they probably do these fringe type productions.

No children at all in the audience, which is a shame as it’s aimed at that audience. Out of politeness, I won’t say how many were in the audience, but there were lots of seat choices available. I hope it fills up.

The cast were enthusiastic nonetheless.

Lots of catchy tunes. A very traditional sounding musical. The performances and accents were mixed, but this is a show that heavily depends on the child performers.

I presume the guy selling/checking tickets, running the bar and making an announcement at the start of the show is the owner. I did hear him saying that Waterloo East already had the rights for the UK premiere of the musical before Hope Mill announced it, which was why the Hope Mill version was pulled. There may be more to it.

Show time is two hours (two 50 minute halves and a 20 minute interval).

There’s a small band in the wings (partially visible from the front row).

The gun warning. This musical is based around wanting a toy gun, one does get waved around, but never fired. There is a drum used.

Anyway, it is worth seeing. It is a fringe musical, it’s not likely to be up for any awards, so set your expectations around that. It’s a fun enough way to spend an evening at this time of the year.