Oh What a Circus, Oh What a Show...

For the past year I've spent a couple of days a month in London, working from our Greenwich office. Every time I go, I resolve to see something at the theatre while I'm there, and I never get round to it. Then last month I noticed that the adverts on the Underground for Evita said 'only until 26th May', and that was one of the shows I really wanted to see, so I booked to see it last night at the Adelphi. I had to go on my own because Rob hates musicals - he'll see plays, quite enjoys them, in fact, but can't stand it when people burst into song - but I wasn't really bothered about going by myself, particularly as the alternative was not seeing it at all.

Elena Roger, who plays Eva, has had great reviews and she really was excellent. The role of Peron was played by one of my favourite theatre actors, Philip Quast, who played Javert in at least two of the performances of Les Misérables that I've seen (the current count is five - twice in Manchester and once each in London, Chicago and San Francisco). Matt Rawle played Che, the narrator, and was also brilliant.

The show itself was really well done - they didn't have much in the way of sets; they just used the same building/balcony set and brought in other props to highlight the scene changes - but this wasn't a bad thing; it just showed how much you can do with a relatively sparse stage set. Also the ending didn't seem nearly so drawn out and laboured as it did in the 1996 film - I really enjoyed the film, but when I watch it on DVD now I tend to stop it before the end because Madonna's at-death's-door-yet-must-carry-on-singing voice annoys me. All in all, this was a great performance and I'm really glad I saw it before it closed.