Dancing and Marilyn Monroe

For most of the other entries I've written about theatre productions, I've tried to use a line from one of the songs in the title of my blog entry to sum up my thoughts on the show. But I can't think of anything suitable for this one, so you'll have to make do with two of the common themes in the songs...

Last night was the girls' trip to see Blood Brothers at the Mayflower in Southampton. What started out as just me and Clare turned into a group of 15 of us going - most of the girls from the office, plus wives/girlfriends/daughters of most of the men from the office - and I think everyone enjoyed it. Most of us went for a meal beforehand at the Italian restaurant near to the theatre, then we met up with the others just before the show started.

Marti Webb played the female lead, Mrs Johnstone, and generally was very good, although not as good as Linda Nolan, who played her when I saw the show 5 years ago in Manchester. The two male leads, Mickey and Eddie, and their friend Linda, were all excellent, really convincing first as 7-year-olds, then as teenagers and later as adults.

When I saw the show in Manchester, I lost interest a little bit in the middle of the first half, but not this time; this was probably due to the fact that I've listened to the soundtrack a gazillion times and I know all the words - this time I had to force myself not to sing out loud so the people around me wouldn't complain.

The show is clearly a favourite among English/Drama teachers as it definitely lends itself to a 'what can we learn as a society from this play' discussion. There were lots of school parties there, which made being able to get a good view less of a problem as there were little people everywhere, but it did detract from the atmosphere a bit - there were giggles every time someone dropped a bottle of Coke on the floor, for example, and the entire balcony let out a collective gasp when Mickey told his mother that Linda was pregnant.

The last scene was fantastic. What's amazing about this show is that the first scene is the ending, so you know how the play ends, then the rest of the show is a flashback of how they all got to that point. But even though I knew how the show would end, and even though the kids all around me were doing their best to ruin the atmosphere, I still welled up when they sang Tell Me It's Not True.

Go and see this show. Worth every penny, even the second time around. And it will be worth it when I see it for the third time too, although I hope I won't have to wait another five years to see it again.