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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 21, 2021 22:05:32 GMT
Sorry I wasn't aiming it at you at all, more at the general conversation going on around holidays. Some of the Telegraph journalists are awful about this. You'd think that several foreign holidays per year were listed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights the way they've been moaning about not being able to go abroad. I feel like pointing out to them that it's only been a few months since they could go abroad whereas during WWI & WWII people couldn't go on holidays abroad for 5-6 years!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 21, 2021 21:59:38 GMT
A discussion I can get into. I've seen the following musicals before / without ever seeing the film on which they were based: Kinky Boots, Lord of the Rings, Made in Dagenham, Hairspray, Billy Elliot, 9 to 5, Bend it Like Beckham, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels From Here to Eternity, Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers, Sleepless in Seattle, Sunset Boulevard, Waitress and Whistle Down the Wind. I will add to that list unless I watch the film of The Prince of Egypt soon! I really wish I could go into Frozen without knowing the twist. I'm sure unlike when I saw the film everyone will know it is coming. I'm also not a film person. Out of your list LOTR is the only one where I've seen the film (well, the first two, after they changed some of the plot so much in the 2nd one I didn't see the 3rd) though admittedly I've not seen all the musicals either. Usually every time a musical based on a film is announced, & people complain it's boring because they already know the plot, I'm going "I've never heard of that film". The last time I went to the cinema to see a film, rather than a streamed opera or ballet, was in 2002 (Die Another Day).
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 19, 2021 12:47:12 GMT
Reading about all the hassle everyone is having with rescheduled tickets, I'm so glad I took refunds for all mine last year. Although it depresses me more than anything, I've decided to wait until things are more settled before I start ticket buying again. I don't have a single thing booked. Until I know when I will be vaccinated it's impossible to book anything. I can only assume people with loads of shows booked are either over 50s who have been vaccinated or under 50s who have no fear.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 18, 2021 21:24:07 GMT
>>I can only assume this is because I am plain & men aren't interested in me.<< I'm sorry to see you think that. While some harassment is triggered by a woman's looks or dress, elderly nuns have been raped, so sometimes the perpetrators just want to pick on someone they feel they can victimize. Oh yes, I agree that there are some perpetrators who will attack any one & sadly they sometimes seem to be the most violent attacks. I was thinking more of the being groped in a crowded bar sort of harassment, where I suspect men are more likely to go for a woman who has caught their eye because they think she is attractive.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 18, 2021 19:27:28 GMT
Seconded ^ At the end of the day. If you're not a woman (including trans) - you have no idea what we go through. No idea. Men need to listen, challenge others and be allies. The 'not all men' is a redundant statement. Don't pretend to relate to what we have to go through. You will never know. Not all women go through it though. All the recent talk of all women being sexually harassed or being scared to walk on their own at night rather baffles me. I've never been sexually harassed in my life (I don't feel the one time I got wolf-whistled at by a builder when I was 17 counts) and I happily walk from the West End back up to Kings Cross after evening theatregoing with no qualms (pre-pandemic, obviously). I can only assume this is because I am plain & men aren't interested in me. So "not all men", but also "not all women" view all men as a potential threat.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 18, 2021 16:34:05 GMT
I agree Rob would be perfect - his voice is sublime. (Anyway know what he's up to this Summer which means he can't come back for the Les Mis Concert?) South Pacific at Chichester, assuming Chichester have the same cast as was originally advertised.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 18, 2021 16:32:13 GMT
Interesting casting choice Haydn Oakley as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh! 😄 I think he's fairly suitable for the role. The incongruity is that they've cast a Reno Sweeney who is decades older than both the character was envisaged to be and than he is.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 12, 2021 12:40:16 GMT
I'm with you on Richard Jones. Yawn. Sweepstake for which design of wallpaper he'll go for this time?!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 11, 2021 20:30:12 GMT
1. Chocolate chip cookies, either Sainsbury's or M&S own brands 2. Nice 3. Jam rings (not Jammy Dodgers, they're not the same)
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 10, 2021 21:33:06 GMT
Matthew Warchus said it will be staged again "before the end of my tenure here at the Old Vic". The Zoom ended with Tim Minchin singing "There Will Be Sun". Quite moving really. When does his tenure end?
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 10, 2021 20:43:20 GMT
That's good that it flopping on Braodawy hasn't consigned it to everlasting oblivion. As long as it doesn't return until after I've been vaccinated then I'll go & see it again. Although for the last year I feel like I've been living a Groundhog Day anyway!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 10, 2021 20:39:24 GMT
As I won't have been vaccinated when the ROH re-opens, and so won't be able to attend, I'm very pleased to see they'll be opening the ballet with Within The Golden Hour and two Pite works: I was lukewarm about the former and, after spending one of the longest half an hours I've ever spent in a theatre suffering Flight Pattern, have no desire to ever again see anything by Pite! As for La Clemenza di Tito, I find that depends so much on the production. I've found it gripping, dull, and several variations in between when seeing various different live and recorded productions.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 10, 2021 11:53:59 GMT
I also don't know if the Coliseum is a good place for it, seeing as it's the home of ENO, so many will expect the opera version. Best just put it into a mid-sized West End theatre. They could do a cost-saving 2-for-1 with the production: build one set & use it for both the opera & the musical!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 9, 2021 22:03:43 GMT
Have seen more boiler men in this last year then altogether in my life. I'd say it was extra usage but strictly off during the day. We may have used ours slightly more but not massively. It feels like the boilers are just being deliberately awkward!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 9, 2021 17:11:44 GMT
Yesterday our boiler broke for the second time in 3 and a half months. Fortunately the heating company were able to send a workman that afternoon and it was quickly fixed, just a loose connection. However I'm not impressed with the boiler for breaking twice during a pandemic after years of working fine!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 8, 2021 21:29:02 GMT
I don't own a car but if I did I really do not think I'd want to drive it into the centre of Birmingham, as the road system looks ghastly! Yes, I understand that, but from what I can tell, the whole point of this new thing is to plonk it by the NEC near the motorway, thus make it easily accessible by car without having to drive into a chaotic city. The only time I visited the NEC I was about 7 so I can't say I remember the road system around there. (And it would be worse to get to by train than central Birmingham for me.)
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 8, 2021 16:30:00 GMT
What is the obsession with Londoners being such an important part of the potential audience for this project? I don't think it's so much Londoners as Outside-Birminghamers. There's not really any good late-night public transport from Birmingham to anywhere more than a short distance away so, matinees aside, it would be a strictly Birmingham-only affair. Yes. I've been complaining about Cambridge to Birmingham being a pain to do, since that's where I happen to live. I am sure there are many other people living in places-that-are-neither-Birmingham-nor-London who would likewise have long journeys to get to Birmingham. Like cars don't exist in Britain? I don't own a car but if I did I really do not think I'd want to drive it into the centre of Birmingham, as the road system looks ghastly!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 8, 2021 13:10:49 GMT
One concern with Birmingham is - ... C Southerner’s by large (sorry here but it’s true) do not travel to Birmingham. Theatre loving fabulous folk like us don’t count. Not to mention the fact that although there used to be a good late-night train service south from Birmingham New Street on a Saturday night it now involves an eight-hour wait in Northampton. I think the last direct train from Birmingham to London leaves, or at least used to leave, at about 9.30pm on a Saturday night. A few years ago I remember legging it out of Symphony Hall at the end of a CBSO concert performance that finished about 9.15pm and just catching the last train that would get me home that night. (I had to go via London as the last direct train to Cambridge left before 9pm.) I've not seen Starlight Express but I presume it runs about the standard 2h30-2h45 that most musicals do, so would end too late to catch the last London train. I think the trains run later on weekdays but how many people would want to travel from London to Birmingham for an evening of theatre on a weeknight?
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 7, 2021 21:59:59 GMT
If Diana and Fergie (who were raised around aristocracy and royalty) were blindsided by what to expect and had trouble fitting in, I don't find it hard to believe that an American would be even more so. I would hope that having learned their lesson from those experiences, The Firm (both the family and the courtiers) would have tried to brace Meghan for what was to come (and all the rules and restrictions she'd be expected to follow). But when you're young and in love, you tend to think, "oh, it won't be that bad...". Until it is. There might have been good reasons why past royal families tended to marry other royal families... they knew what to expect and how to handle it (that was the women's 'jobs' and they'd generally been trained to it from childhood). That was a different era, before the age of digital media and social media. And both of their experiences are well publicised now, plus Kate had joined the Royal Family not that long before Meghan. It's naive in the extreme to think that Meghan didn't have a wealth of resources to tell her exactly what it would be like and what she would be giving up. She may have blinded by love into thinking she wouldn't have the same experience, but at the end of the day it was her free choice and she must have known what she was marrying into, or else a product of her own naivety or lack of research.
I also find the Diana/Meghan comparison in terms of marrying into the Royal family unconvincing because of the difference in ages. Diana was married when she was barely 20, whereas Meghan was 36. Surely a woman of 36, and especially one who had some experience of the media as an actress, must have had a much better idea of what she was letting herself in for than a girl of 20 would have done, even one who came from an aristocratic family.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 7, 2021 21:41:47 GMT
Seems like an odd idea to put it in Birmingham. Domestically it might be easy to reach, but tourists aren’t going to leave London for it. It's an hour on the train from Euston, just as quick as people from the suburbs getting in to London and easily accessible for anyone from London for a matinee. Which is a perfect illustration of how ridiculously London-centric the UK train system is. Cambridge to Birmingham takes nearly 3 hours, despite Cambridge being nearer to Birmingham than London is. While there is a direct train, I have on a couple of occasions actually gone from Cambridge to Birmingham via London when it's been cheaper as it takes about the same amount of time. All this money spent on HS2 to cut 20 mins or so from an already fast journey from London northwards when it's the east-west rail links in this country that really need speeding up.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 6, 2021 19:41:41 GMT
When Regent's Park did Into The Woods back in 2010 I seem to remember Helen Dallimore's Cinderella wearing something in the Doc Martins/Converse footwear line.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 5, 2021 18:59:32 GMT
Both my Amazon parcels have just arrived together!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 4, 2021 21:05:54 GMT
who doesn’t have a smartphone these days? Quite a few people, especially older ones.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 4, 2021 20:02:15 GMT
Out of curiosity, is there tracking? Have they been sent from the same warehouse? I can't tell. When I click on the "Track your package" button in the email the web pages that comes up for both just say "Dispatched today".
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 4, 2021 18:35:27 GMT
Email from Amazon 13.44: "We thought you'd like to know that we've dispatched this portion of your order separately to give you a quicker service". Email from Amazon 15.52: "We thought you'd like to know that we've dispatched the remainder of your items". How can dispatching one item 2 hours and 6 minutes earlier make any significant difference to its arrival? Both parcels are due to arrive on Saturday & it's been a long time since we've had more than one postal delivery per day so surely they'll just arrive together!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 4, 2021 18:27:16 GMT
I'd love to see this but Cambridge to Buxton by public transport is ghastly - I've done it twice for the Gilbert & Sullivan Festival - so sadly I don't think I'll be able to.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 4, 2021 14:07:16 GMT
TallPaul Sadly not. Though in fairness, a career as a cuddly toy sat on a bookshelf doesn't allow for much earning potential!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 3, 2021 23:12:28 GMT
Re packaging, our garage is now what feels like about one quarter full just of Waitrose bags!
Update on the external hard drive damaged by the lamp-knocked-over-by-a-falling-teddy-bear. I consulted my computer expert cousin who said it sounded like the casing rather than the drive itself could be the problem. (Consultation done via email as even though he lives just down the road thanks to lockdown I couldn't take him the drive to look at.) So I discovered that it's possible to break into the casing of an external hard drive using a kitchen knife! No stab wounds were incurred during this process. I'm now awaiting a hard driver docking station to arrive from Amazon to find out if my cousin's theory is correct. Fingers crossed.....
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 3, 2021 23:07:39 GMT
I'm at odds with the general consensus here. On the rare occasions I have been to a Sunday matinee I haven't enjoyed it at all, London feels all wrong, without its usual buzz (I'm talking pre-Covid, of course). I'm a midweek matinee gal through and through (OK, I'm retired, so that helps). On Sundays, though, I have travel issues, usually rail replacements and then the buses have stopped running when I finally reach my home station. Saturdays are better, apart from having to contend with football fans on my way home. I'm usually a lone theatregoer, so don't stay on for an evening show. Is there really any more buzz in London on a weekday matinee than a Sunday one? London is usually bustling on a Sunday! As someone who works (more than) 9 to 5, regular Sunday matinees would be a godsend. I've been to quite a few Sunday matinees over the last few years, because Mischief have been doing them since 2014. I also sometimes attend mid-week matinees when I'm between temp jobs. My overall impression is that in the West End there's not much difference in atmosphere between weekday & Sunday matinees. The most "dead" performances I've been to have been weekday matinees at my local theatre for less popular shows, where the auditorium has been about a quarter full & I've been one of the very few audience members under pensionable age!
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 3, 2021 21:52:58 GMT
It looks a bit like the folding scenery for The Comedy About A Bank Robbery. In that case it was necessary due to the Criterion having limited wing space & no fly tower. I wouldn't have thought the Gillian Lynne Theatre would have similar space constraints.
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