Tag: Shows

A Day Out in London – Titanique at The Criterion Theatre

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

I had been searching for a show to go and see, I looked through the various “Things To Do In London” websites but wasn’t feeling very inspired and so many tickets are now over two hundred pounds. A friend said she had loved Titanique, showing at The Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus. I booked tickets for myself and a friend costing about £110 each. Before heading over to the theatre we had dinner at our favourite Covent Garden restaurant Buns and Buns. It always feels lovely to be in this part of London on a warm evening.

Titanique is a musical spoof of James Cameron’s 1998 blockbuster Titanic based on the fated 1912 maiden voyage where approximately fifteen hundred poor souls lost their lives including my great great uncle, Alfred Maytum who was one of the butchers on board. I am always a bit unsure about the ethics of comedy based on tragedy but I supposed over one hundred years have passed and it was an accident rather that an act of war or something worse.

The gist of the show is that Celine Dion visits a Titanic exhibition and reveals that she was on board. This of course is impossible as she was born in 1968 as the other visitors point out. She insists she was a passenger on the vessel and witness to the romance between Jack and Rose. She then proceeds to enthusiastically sing her greatest hits. The whole premise is, quite frankly, delightfully bonkers. Celine is currently played by Astrid Harris. Harris is much more statuesque than Dion but, facially she looks uncannily similar and the wig designer got the hair spot-on. Harris has an amazing voice and something about the exaggerated, raunchy way she moves just made me laugh so much. My friend and I were probably the only straight people in the audience and the young man next to me was so friendly during the interval asking me what my favourite Celine Dion songs are, what other musicals I have seen etc. He recommended Hades Town. It was his and his boyfriend’s third time of seeing Titanique and they were laughing so much it was really quite infectious.

The iceberg is personified in the show by Ryan Carter. For some inexplicable reason The Iceberg is also Tina Turner with blue hair and Carter belts out “River Deep-Mountain High” in a glittery mini-dress. By this point I really was wondering if I had accidently ingested some psychedelic substance.

My friend didn’t enjoy the show so much describing it as a being pantomime-like and she isn’t really wrong. Rose’s mother was the dame played by Carl Mullaney. After a while it did all just start to feel a bit absurd. There are some genuinely hilarious moments, the mocking of Jack’s drawing skills, Rose’s mother being so broke that she had to shoot pigeons in Trafalgar Square to decorate her hat. The Heart of the Ocean necklace, famously featured in the film, is ridiculously huge in the show and Cal boasts that he bought it at Claire’s Accessories. I see that you can actually buy a copy of this necklace for seven pounds on Amazon!

I can see why Titanique has a cult following a little like The Rocky Horrow Show. I enjoyed it, laughed a lot but once was enough.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Six, The Musical and Dinner in Covent Garden

On By samanthaIn GOING OUTLeave a comment

I had been hearing such good things from friends about Six The Musical so I decided to go and see it for myself. The show is on at the Vaudeville Theatre in the Strand. I paid approximately £130 for two tickets for a Saturday evening performance. We were seated in the upper circle, the seats couldn’t really have been better.

We caught the train from our local station to Charing Cross and then had a mooch around Covent Garden. Most of the shops were closed but there was still an buzzing atmosphere with , street performers such as contortionists, magicians and musicians. We went to Buns and Buns and had a steak dinner with a large glass of wine which was delicious.

The first, and only negative, thing I will say about Six is that it is unnecessarily loud, so loud in fact I did actually worry about damaging my hearing when it started. The show was written in 2017 by Cambridge University students Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss and was first performed by the university’s musical theatre group at the Edinborough Fringe Festival. Six is the tale of Henry the Eighth’s six wives, all told through song and dance. It has a similar fast-paced, high-energy vibe to Hamilton. The performers playing the wives enter the stage wearing various sexy interpretations of Tudor costume. All the musicians are women too, it is definitely a Girl Power show.

Each “wife” sings a number summarising how she met Henry and what fate befell her. Some of the tales are extremely sad. Tickets to Six would be a great gift idea for anyone studying history and I learned some facts that I hadn’t known before. Ann of Cleves was chosen by Henry after he saw a portrait of her by the German artist Hans Holbein. When Henry saw Ann in the flesh he declared she was ugly and their marriage was eventually annulled. She was luckier than Ann Boleyn and Catherine Howard though who famously lost their heads. Ann of Cleve’s musical number is very night-clubbish and there is a strong element of fun and humour throughout the whole musical. There is strobe lighting at a number of points in the show. My favourite performance was from Thao Therese Nguyen, the actress playing Anne Boleyn who somehow managed to stand out on a stage crowded with female talent.

Unusually, the show lasts for about an hour an a quarter, there is no interval. To be honest, I wish more productions were like this. I imagine the theatre loses a lot of revenue though as theatre-goers aren’t buying drinks in their bar or purchasing merchandise. We had sped through some really interesting herstory, pardon the pun, and were back home by 9.30am. A pretty perfect evening.

Thank you for reading

Samantha