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Post by Being Alive on Dec 27, 2018 19:52:03 GMT
Very topical right now, but it was Mary Poppins. It was, and still is, my favourite film as a child, and I always watched it at my nans house when she used to look after me whilst my parents were at work. Move forward 10 years and Mary Poppins lands on stage, and is the first piece of theatre I ever see. It remains one of those evenings I’ll always remember, with Scarlett Strallen flying over my head in the Prince Edward.
Move on another 14 years and Mary Poppins comes back to me in the form of the brand new film, which is the perfect nod to the thing that introduced me to this world in the first place!
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Post by littlesally on Dec 27, 2018 22:57:10 GMT
Company at the Donmar. Completely blew me away.
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Post by david on Dec 27, 2018 23:25:53 GMT
As a kid, it would have been watching all the classic Disney animated stuff on video or at the cinema (watching Beauty and the Beast was a big favourite growing up. It was the ballroom scene animation during the title song that blew me away). For live action, Mary Poppins and Grease were the go to musical films for me (and still are).
Theatre wise, my first musical must have been back in 1996. It would have been Grease (with Shane Ritchie) at the Manchester Opera House. It was a week or so after the I.R.A. Manchester attack, but the atmosphere inside the Auditorium was something special. It wasn’t just the show (and being able to listen to those great songs from the film) but the sense of the city trying to carry on in the wake of the devistation caused and the ability of theatre to draw people together in a positive way even for a few hours.
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Post by poster J on Dec 28, 2018 8:08:11 GMT
I'm not ashamed to say it was a touring production of Mamma Mia in 2001 or thereabouts. First production my parents took me to and I was hooked - I just enjoyed it so much that I purchased the cast recording and the rest is history.
I started going regularly to the touring productions that came nearby after that, saw shows on my first trips to London and New York and have become a much more regular theatregoer since moving to London.
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Post by tonyloco on Dec 28, 2018 13:33:12 GMT
Readers of this Board will know that I am always pleased to get an opportunity to talk about my theatre-going career stretching back many years so look away now if you have heard all this from me before!
It all started back in Sydney in the late 1940s when I was a very small child, born in 1937. My mother frequently took me to variety shows at the Tivoli, which did twice-daily performances for the entertainment of American service men who were in Sydney both during and after the second world war. She also liked musicals and I can clearly remember seeing White Horse Inn which featured a rain storm with real water forming a curtain of rain just behind the footlights, and a revolving stage to show something like four different sets and for the finale, the set revolved showing each of the different scenes one after the other. I can also remember The Desert Song, and was surprised when at the end of the first Act the Red Shadow broke his sword across his knee to show Margot how strong he was. The sword was made of wood, which even to me didn't seem very realistic but it made for an impressive dramatic moment!
But the real milestone for me was the 1947 Australian production of Annie Get Your Gun with the wonderful Evie Hayes. Although being aged just ten I can remember seeing the show several times and not only were all the songs big hits on the radio but we also had a copy of the vocal score which provided the basis for sing-alongs around the piano for our neighbours! After Annie we had a succession of the Broadway productions of Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Paint Your Wagon, Brigadoon. Call Me Madam (Evie Hayes again) and Kiss Me, Kate among others. It was always a matter of great regret that Sydney did not get to see either Carousel or Guys and Dolls back in those days, at least until I left Sydney in February 1960 to come to London where I have been frequenting the theatre ever since.
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4,799 posts
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Post by The Matthew on Dec 28, 2018 16:30:05 GMT
I became interested in musicals as a result of being left at home during school holidays with nothing but the TV and a shortwave radio for company. At that time it was common to have old movie musicals on TV in the afternoon — Deanna Durbin and the like — so I watched a lot of those and developed quite a taste for musicals.
Then my ex-actress mother took me to London to see the David Merrick / Gower Champion production of 42nd Street and I was hooked forever.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2018 17:37:28 GMT
In my late teens I poured every penny I could spare into concerts, as music was biggest passion. I’d always had three shows on my radar that I’d like to see though, Avenue Q, Priscilla and Wicked. I eventually saw Wicked and Avenue Q, and over time I grew tired of the scrum involved in buying concert tickets online and the lengths of time I’d spend standing in the evening of the gig itself. By the time I’d seen another three musicals (bought for me by my new boyfriend/now husband: WWRY, Chicago and Les Mis) I started choosing the shows myself. Eventually concerts were replaced by trips to the theatre, and now I see more theatre in a year than I ever did concerts. I went through a period of being less fussy with what I saw, and took more risks. Now I find its more of a balance between shows I’d love to see and a few risky ones thrown in.
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1,316 posts
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Post by tmesis on Dec 29, 2018 10:57:12 GMT
For me it was My Fair Lady. My parents had the London production LP with Julie, Rex and Stanley. It would be in the early 60s and I would be six or seven years old. I absolutely loved it, particularly the verbal dexterity of Lerner's lyrics for Higgins. My parents always used to play it before Sunday lunch, so it is always evocative of the smell of roast beef, and then we'd go on to listen to two-way Family Favourites, The Navy Lark and Round the Horne. So weirdly it always takes me back to my childhood in Derbyshire and it's strangely linked with Jean Metcalfe plus the theme tune (Rodgers and Hart's exquisite With a song in my Heart) Leslie Phillips and Julian and Sandy!
Later I got to see it at the Nottingham Theatre Royal - I'd be around 11 or 12 then. It must have been the original production on tour. I absolutely adored it even without Rex or Julie.
I also remember being outraged (aged 12ish) when I saw the film and it was Audrey (dubbed by Marni) instead of Julie.
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Post by robertb213 on Dec 29, 2018 11:01:10 GMT
Disney. All the blame/gratitude goes to Disney.
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Post by richey on Dec 29, 2018 18:49:32 GMT
Like a lot of others, it was Joseph for me too. Firstly when I was part of a performance of it, in it's original 20 minute version with our school choir and later when we were taken to see a very early incarnation of the Bill Kenwright tour (yes I'm that old, the paint on the set was almost fresh) My first West End musical was Phantom. I bought the OCR on LP when it was first released and played it endlessly and we went on a coach trip from the South Wales valleys up to London to see it about a year after it opened. This was soon followed by Miss Saigon, after which there was no looking back!
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Post by haz23 on Dec 29, 2018 19:11:35 GMT
Jumping on the Joseph bandwagon as after seeing a touring production at Ipswich Regent I was hooked and listened to lots of soundtracks after that, though didn't see my first West End show (Wicked) until I was 16 and haven't looked back since.
On a side note, when I was about 3 or 4 my dad took me to watch my mum in a recording session of A Chorus Line when she was working as a session singer for BBC Radio 2 and they sung One as a full ensemble with a big band. It's one of my earliest memories, and my dad said my jaw was on the floor by the end of it!
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494 posts
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Post by ellie1981 on Dec 30, 2018 11:11:07 GMT
over time I grew tired of the scrum involved in buying concert tickets online and the lengths of time I’d spend standing in the evening of the gig itself. By the time I’d seen another three musicals (bought for me by my new boyfriend/now husband: WWRY, Chicago and Les Mis) I started choosing the shows myself. Eventually concerts were replaced by trips to the theatre, and now I see more theatre in a year than I ever did concerts. That’s exactly my experience over the last 10 years or so. I used to go to so many concerts, but through my favourite artists dying young and the established ones I do like hiking up their ticket prices, I’ve almost abandoned them bar a few. I like the structure of theatre going a lot more these days. There’s a designated start and end time, so it’s much easier to plan an evening or even go to a show on a whim. I don’t mind paying £100 every now and then for a premium seat on a special night out to see a musical for a fantastic view. I do mind spending £100 to stand in a crowd of thousands of people, being generally uncomfortable where a band or artist might or might not start the show before 9pm.
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Post by andromedadench on Dec 30, 2018 11:43:40 GMT
Seeing a surprisingly good production of Grease in Belgrade in 1995 (everything else I had see before and long after that one at our only MT theatre was pretty awful) and also noticing for the first time that absolutely ridiculous Phantom of the Opera song video with Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley, thinking ''what ON EARTH is this???'' and getting a bootleg CD the next day (this was in 1996 or so) and my interest was finally cemented after watching Cabaret on TV during the NATO bombing in 1999, when I first realised what a brilliant and intricate genre musical is - narrative, songs and dancing all working together to tell a story. Before that I kind of thought that musical and dancing numbers were but amusing intermezzos which didn't impress me half as much as this realisation. So I blame it on a serendipitous half-amateur production of Grease, ALW's (and Sarah Brightman's) POTO work being weird, kitschy, over-the-top yet strangely fascinating, and Bob Fosse, Kender and Ebb being geniuses.
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Post by hal9000 on Dec 30, 2018 13:31:20 GMT
My parents would take me to watch local musicals and the big blockbuster tours in the “city” because I loved watching THE SOUND OF MUSIC on VHS.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2018 15:51:02 GMT
It was mandated during Gay Orientation
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2018 17:37:57 GMT
I was in my mid-thirties. I went on a trip to London for another reason. I had a spare afternoon so I put my bags into the left-luggage at Euston Station and went to the TKTS booth in Leceister Sqaure. I bought a single ticket to We Will Rock You. Afterwards I thought I would like to do that every Friday night.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2018 18:16:23 GMT
I was in my mid-thirties. I went on a trip to London for another reason. I had a spare afternoon so I put my bags into the left-luggage at Euston Station and went to the TKTS booth in Leceister Sqaure. I bought a single ticket to We Will Rock You. Afterwards I thought I would like to do that every Friday night. A handbag? Thank heavens you didn't leave them at Victoria station.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2018 18:18:56 GMT
I can't quite remember but I'm sure it probably had something to do with Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Strangely that's the same answer to the question "why do you have a criminal record?".
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Post by lunaemily94 on Dec 31, 2018 0:49:59 GMT
I’d always been interested in musicals from starting dancing at a young age so was always around the music even if I didn’t appreciate at the time. I think my first ever show was an amateur production of Annie and then my first west end show was Mamma Mia then Mary Poppins and Oliver!
I didn’t become properly hooked until I was about 13 and listened to spring awakening for the first time and that show opened me up to different shows like next to normal, les miz etc. It made me realise that musicals didn’t have to be all singing and dancing and happy all the time. Although I still love a big dance number and happy ending.
I’ve been obsessed ever since !
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Post by mistressjojo on Dec 31, 2018 1:02:01 GMT
I started out with musicals. Growing up watching all the MGM musicals on the telly and my Mum playing the records. I think I was the only kid at my school who knew all the words to Brigadoon! The first live musical I can remember seeing was Jesus Christ Superstar when I was about 7. But for some reason in my 20's I became more interested in straight theatre, so now I maybe only see 1 a year. BTW - never seen Wicked.
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Post by tonyloco on Jan 3, 2019 12:29:35 GMT
The classics were still common currency on the radio and people singing them to themselves etc, so even if you didn't know they were show tunes, you became familiar with the style of songs and singing. Then doing shows in school, then being taken to two. The monkey's comment about show tunes being common currency on the radio back in earlier times reminds me of an anecdote from my early days in Australia. As I mentioned in my previous post, the first big Broadway show to hit Australia after the second world war was 'Annie Get Your Gun'. It opened on Broadway in May 1946 and almost all of the songs, even the minor ones like 'Who do you love, I hope?' and 'The girl that I marry' were recorded by the major American pop stars of the day. These recordings appeared immediately in the Australian 'hit parade' so by the time the show itself opened in Australia in July 1947, the songs had already been and gone and seemed 'old hat'. This upset the Australian music publishers, who managed to get an embargo placed on all songs from Broadway musicals being performed in Australia in any way shape or form before the shows themselves had been staged in Australia. This ban therefore applied to all the songs from the 1956 Broadway musical 'My Fair Lady' which did not get an Australian production until 1959, and when Liberace arrived to give concerts in Australia in February 1958 he was horrified to find that he could not use 'I could have danced all night' in his act. Liberace's aggrieved reaction to this situation of course provided some useful media publicity for his concerts and Liberace just somehow managed to find something else to replace 'I could have danced all night'!
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Post by tysilio2 on Jan 3, 2019 16:28:31 GMT
I started playing cornet in my local village brass band when I was about 11. It was a low standard band of mainly old players past their best and children. One of the staples of the 'repertoire' was selections from musicals. The first piece I ever played was the Sound of Music selection and others including selections from Oliver, King and I, South Pacific and Oklahoma were regularly played. It was the melodies with these pieces that got me and has stuck with me ever since.
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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 3, 2019 18:44:44 GMT
I was laid up in hospital with a broken neck and some bought me the double cassette of The Phantom of the Opera.
I haven't looked back since.
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Post by BoOverall on Jan 3, 2019 19:11:30 GMT
Dragged as a youngster in 1983 to see “some musical” called West Side Story at the Leicester Haymarket. Boy did I strop at the time about going to see a musical, but as soon as it started I was hooked. And seeing Steven Pacey who I liked from Blake’s 7 was a thrill. Oh now THERE’s a tv theme of note! And camp sci fi of the very highest order, courtesy mainly of Servalan!
Saw WSS several more times during that run. Amazing.
Oh I have such fond memories of the Leicester Haymarket : which became almost a second home to me for so many years after.
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4,631 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 3, 2019 19:20:49 GMT
^History AND a pun, on good form Phantom of London . Funny how people break into theatre, isn't it. Was it the original cast recording? No the OPNR
The Original Press Night Recording
I had to break a leg to get it.
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Post by Raven on Jan 3, 2019 19:24:07 GMT
When I was 7/8, I was having a sleepover at my gran's and she had the musical Cats taped on a VHS. Around seven years later, my gran booked me tickets to see Cats at the Edinburgh Playhouse and I was hooked! Have been to see musicals ever since.
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Post by cheesy116 on Jan 3, 2019 23:04:19 GMT
My interest started with watching How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and all the subsequent versions of it! Finally going to see Oliver after Jodie won I'd Do Anything and my cousin being cast as Oliver at the first cast change, and I saw Sister Act the following evening. I've been addicted ever since.
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Post by beatrice on Jan 5, 2019 14:11:41 GMT
Starting here, because it seems like a good place to start (After meeting danieljohnson14 yesterday and deciding it was time to stop being a lurker - hey there!). My dad used to be a high school theatre person, so I grew up with Mary Poppins, West Side Story and Oliver! on repeat. When I was 16, my mom finally took me to see Wicked, and I've been home on live theatre since. Currently far from most productions, but I try to fly over to London a few times a year and see as much as I can!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2019 15:57:25 GMT
I need to revise my statement. I've always credited my love beginning with Phantom, however walking past a very big Easter Egg display earlier a memory sprung into life. At Easter as children, my sister and I would get a few eggs each. With that we would also receive a VHS to share. Starting with Disney films, Dumbo, Aladdin, Jungle Book, Bambi, Pocahontas, a different one each year as a treat. Then in 1998 that changed as we received the Cats Video and Joseph the following year. It was then a few months later in 1999 that the Phantom trip happened. I was conditioned into it as a child. Slowly, with animated musicals into 'live-action' films and so on.
I also have a vivid memory, which I think not many people believe but my mum can vouch for and is gods honest truth. Not long after my sister was born whilst in play school, I was taken on a trip to see Fireman Sam Live. The show was in the Liverpool Empire Theatre and I remember the coach trip there, part of journey through the Mersey Tunnel (first time on a coach and seeing the world go orange as we go travel through the tunnel). I also remember being inside the (seemingly enormous) theatre, sitting in the stalls, quite central but quite far back. I was 3 at the time. I couldn't tell you anything about the show, but I remember the event and that obviously made a lasting impression on me at an early age.
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Post by Musicality21 on Mar 26, 2019 8:28:15 GMT
Mine, like many others, was also Joseph. Like practically every other school on the planet, we did a production of it and I was the Narrator. I remember my costume being this ridiculously outrageous pink shiny jacket which at the time I thought was the best thing ever but looking back was blooming awful. Also have a vivid recollection of our headteacher banging out the songs on his piano like he was at some sort of epic rock concert! I also remember going to out local record store and having to actually order the cast recording cd into the shop as they didn't stock it. Ever since then I've been hooked on musicals. Joseph has got a lot to answer for!
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