West End Live 2022

Oooooh it might be nice and quiet for the first time in many years (doubtful, but one can dream)

I see they have announced what trains are running and a lot of last trains out of London will be early afternoon 😡

Schedule announced for both days. 1 hour longer on Saturday as normal.

How come Six, Choir Of Man and Magic Mike are on both days?

Really looking forward to this now and with good weather forecast over the weekend it should be a great weekend of MT . A look through the weekend line up, I’m particularly on the Bugsy Malone slot tomorrow having booked to see the show.

What time are people getting to Trafalgar Sq? I’ll probably head down very early based on the crazy queues that happen on the Saturday’s.

I’ve seen on their website that there will only be one queue this year to get into the main section of trafalgar Sq and the only other queue will be for the accessibility section. I can’t even fathom how long one queue will be. It usually goes back to piccadilly so I reckon it could get to green park!

As usual I will be watching from St Martin In the Fields.

Should have taken my own advice. Despite getting up early enough to go to the bathroom, I was so tired that I fell asleep again.

Now, with 15 minutes until it starts I am in (quite possibly) the longest queue that I have ever seen or been in in my life!

There is a lovely post on the Wicked site showing Helen and Lucie getting ‘witched-up’ at the theatre and then heading to Trafalgar Square in a taxi in full costume,but shows like Grease just had the cast in a show t-shirt.Might shift some merch perhaps?

Is this a euphemism?

Was there any button pressing when you were dancing, our david?

When both the Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia! came on I danced without abandon like no one was watching! There was even some finger pointing during Dancing Queen.

After a good nights sleep I decided on another early start this morning so arriving at the square at 9am only to find everyone had the same idea and thankfully despite the very long queue this morning I managed to get into the square on time. Today was filled with more crowd sing alongs, dancing and Carrie Hope Fletcher.

Blessed with another day of good weather, everyone was again in good spirits and good voices (and no doubt full of PIMS) to celebrate the best of UK theatre. With Louise Dearman and Laura Pit Pulford taking on presenting duties. (Rachel Tucker was meant to be presenting but unfortunately had contracted COVID), It was great to see more show casts in full costumes today. Personal highlights were the Les Mis cast singing “One Day More” and Jon Robbins singing “Bring Him Home” and the WWRY set getting the crowd rocking near the end. It was just a great atmosphere to be part of this weekend and as someone from SOLT said, WEL is like Glastonbury but without all the mud.

The Great Gatsby cast decided it would be a great idea to get everybody in the square doing the Charleston. Now I’m all for the dancing but seriously trying to get people doing those moves did not end well for anybody particularly in that packed square (arms and legs everywhere, and that was just me) and no doubt a fair few people the worse for wear from drinking. I really do hope that there is no footage on YT for that part of the afternoon. It was not a good sight (and that was just me as well).

Having seen the Ursula sea witch show yesterday, they made a return today but in full costume. It looks a funny show and with puppets as well, it could be a decent time watching it.

I was very impressed by the 3 musical concerts to close the show. With excerpts from Chess (ONIB, IKHSW), Kinky Boots and Treason, all 3 concerts look like they could be a good night out if you are going. Courtney Bowman and Matt Willis performed the KB bit (history of wrong guys and step one) and was really impressed by them, particularly CB. With the issues of last years performance for CHF, she sounded great today both in a duet and her solo number to close the weekend.

As another WEL finishes, it’s been a great weekend of MT and chatting to plenty of folk as well about all things theatre as well as just having a great time seeing and singing along to all the songs. Live entertainment - you just can’t beat it. Well done to everyone involved in putting this event on. It’s just a really fun weekend in the theatre going year.