Happiest musical memories

Julia McKenzie, Bob Hoskins, and Julie Covington in Guys and Dolls at the National in 1982. Not my earliest memory of going to the theatre, but I thought it was magical. My mother took me, probably on a day-trip from my grandmother's house in Suffolk (much closer to London than home in Greater Manchester); I'd have been about nine.

Here's one of my happiest and oldest memories - from 1974:

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in a local professional production at the Crucible in Sheffield.

At the end, when Joseph enters in his "chariot of gold" he entered in a gold Aston Martin car! Perfect!

I have a few. Seeing In The Heights for the first time. Seeing Dreamgirls with Amber Riley and being completely blown away. Then probably the first preview of Come From Away, which felt very special.   Oh and  there was a trip in 2017 to London where i saw Adrian Mole at the Menier and TCAABR and i just had the loveliest time, i always remember it. I don't know what particularly made it feel special but i always count that as my best theatre trip to London.

I have to say the longer i've been going to the theatre the less of an event or special occasion it's become. I still absolutely  love it obviously and it's my main hobby but it feels a bit run of the mill now and it feels sometimes a bit like just ticking things of a list. I love thinking back to a few years ago when i'd be excited about seeing something for weeks and it felt special, especially if it meant a London trip, and they are the shows and trips that still stand out.  (is it just me who feels that way btw?)

I often wish i could get that feeling back and funnily enough having this imposed theatre break for the next few months might do it!

What a lovely thread!

Les Mis at the Palace in '97 - having spent years listening to the OLC in the back of the family car - Mum, Dad, me and my sister singing along (Dad would turn the sound down to listen to me and my sister belt out the profanities..), it was our first family trip to the West End.

I cried from the first note to the last (and probably the 2 hour journey home).

First time seeing Starlight Express in the 80s when I was 11 (resulting in MT obsession for life).
Last night of Starlight Express at the Apollo Victoria in 2002.

(Surprising literally no-one!)

Great idea for a thread :-)

Seeing Bette Midler do Hello Dolly.

It really was 3 hours of HAPPY. and seeing the Divine Ms M in the flesh was pretty amazing.

Seeing 42nd Street for the first time back in 1986. It was my first West End musical and the way the curtain swept up at the start has stuck with me ever since. There's all sorts of technology in theatre these days but there's something about the elegant simplicity of a flown cloth that has a special pleasure for me.

Going to see A Little Night Music at the Theater 't Eilandje in Antwerp in 2001. It was the first time I'd even been abroad completely alone and when I got off the train at Antwerpen Centraal I realised I'd left my map at home and had to navigate my way to the hotel entirely by memory. One of the best productions I've seen, even in a language I don't speak. Great trip, great show, great Belgian beer in the bar with the cast afterwards.

The final night of Evita at the Adelphi in 2007. The applause just didn't stop, and close to ten minutes later the somewhat bemused cast came back on stage for a final bow. I've never seen a response like it.

And a rather low-key one: On the second cast change of Avenue Q when they pass the hat around I put a squeaky rubber chicken in it. Later in the show I discovered that it's amazing how clearly you can hear someone in the wings playing with a squeaky rubber chicken.

My first three shows on Broadway were musicals. I was very young, but I will never forget them. The first was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, at the very end of its run, with Dick Shawn in the lead. A great score, but the number that particularly engaged me was "Impossible."  The second was Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl, where as a young teen I was bowled over by "Don't Rain on My Parade." And the third, that same summer of 1964, was 110 in the Shade, where Inga Swenson singing "Raunchy" shocked me with the lyrics "I'll be so raunchy, sippin' Dr. Pepper mixed with booze, shakin' my cabooze..." 

One of my most memorable London musical moments was Denis Quilley as Vera Lynn in Privates on Parade.

HereForTheatre robertb213 @rnc

I totally get where you are coming from. Remember when I was a teenager I'd see a West End musical once, max twice per year. The anticipation, excitement, sense of occasion and reflection afterwards was incredible.

Am in my 40s now and would deffo describe theatre as my main hobby. Am lucky now to be able to afford to see one or two shows a week rather than a year! And it goes without saying that I still love it. But sadly it is often routine and that sense of total unparalleled excitement is definitely not there anymore.

And sometimes it can feel like a list ticking exercise. For example I kinda feel I should see all the big West End shows. Funnily enough, I have been thinking last year or so would be good to cut down really. As an example I have seen shows in the last year that I kinda knew wouldn't necessarily be my thing (Waitress, Big, Come From Away) and I was going to book for City of Angels, even though I really don't like the CD!

So anyway, I do think one positive of this enforced break is that it forces you to press the pause button and take stock. I could never go without musicals, but once this period is over, I will be a bit more selective and not see things just cos they are there - and I do think that will bring the spark back :-)

Whilst theatre is one of my favourite hobbies, I have to admit that I’ve had to take a step back from it over the last few months. Not because I dislike it or have grown bored of it, I just needed a break from it - I don’t think I’ve been yet in 2020.... and of course now I can’t go I’d quite like to go. I think going to the theatre became too routine and after a pretty extensive decade of trying to see as much of everything that I could I just needed to press pause on it all.

Going to see as much as I - and indeed we - do, I think I can become desensitised to the spectacle of it all at times. I can still recognise talent and great little moments in everything I see, but I think you become expectant of a certain standard and over time it can become easier to note why something isn’t working... but also when something really special comes along, it really is special.

One of those moments was Glenn in Sunset. I was having a crappy day, didn’t really want to go and the whole thing just cheered me up no end. Having a real movie star in the role I think really helps buy into Norma and the whole ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ was just magical.

Another one would be Company. I went into it not knowing what to expect but for it was one of those shows that starts strong and builds so it ends in an even stronger place. Musicals like that are a joy to watch because you start to suspect it’s going to be something special and as it builds and gets there it’s just a pleasure to watch.

Lots of happy musical memories for me. Too many to list really, but definitely seeing LuPone, Buckley and Paige in the 1990s epic take on Sunset Boulevard made for special memories. The set, the costumes, the seeing of these three musical divas in the role (I was young and had never seen anyone ‘known’ in anything I’d previously seen!) The world was a ‘bigger place’ before the Internet and I’d heard of LuPone and Buckley only via Dress Circle/cast recordings of well-known musicals. I’d obviously heard of Paige. To see these ‘names’ and to hear these voices that I’d grown up knowing (but not necessarily knowing what these stars looked like - except Paige) was a thrilling experience for a (not yet) gay young man! None of the ladies disappointed!
There are lots of other memories, but Sunset has always been my fave. Oddly enough, I saw Glenn at the Coliseum years later and she actually disappointed me in the role - maybe I was too far away from the stage.