New York: Friday

I flew up to Manchester on Thursday night and spent a lovely evening with Nikki and Clare, then stayed over at Nikki's house and she gave me a lift back to Manchester Airport this morning where I met Mum and Jen for our flight to New York. The flight was fairly uneventful, just the way I like them. I watched Benjamin Button (very good, if a bit long - 2hrs 45mins) and Marley & Me (liked it better than I thought I would - and for a non-dog lover I still cried at the end), and our plane landed on time at 14:30.

Typically, we managed to pick the immigration line with the slowest immigration officer in the world, but we finally made it out of the airport and got our taxi into the city. Trying to get to Times Square at 16:00 on a Friday is not the easiest of tasks, but our driver made it in the end - just as the rain turned from a light drizzle into a heavy shower, and we got fairly soaked just getting from the taxi to the door of the hotel. The hotel was lovely; I had paid for a room on the 11th to 30th floors, but the lady behind the desk had us down for a room on the 31st to 50th floors. We didn't complain - the higher up we were, the less noisy it would be. In the end we were on the 50th floor of 57, but even so the noise from Times Square was still audible, so I was glad we weren't any lower down.


We just had enough time for a quick nap (although none of us slept; just rested our eyes for an hour) before going out for something to eat then going to see 9 to 5: The Musical. When we were looking at shows to see, we decided we should see things that we couldn't see in the West End - it seemed pointless going to see Jersey Boys or Billy Elliot when we can see them any time up the road (figuratively, at least) and it costs less to see them here. 9 to 5 has been showing previews for most of April but it only had its official Broadway premiere yesterday, so if we had come a day earlier we would have seen Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda etc. But we didn't, so we didn't.

Despite the absence of Dolly et al, the evening was fantastic. I'd never seen the film (although I recorded it off the TV a couple of weeks ago; haven't had chance to watch it yet), and in my opinion the storyline was a bit weak - I wanted the girls to be plotting a bit more and playing catch-up a bit less, more Home Alone-style, but I suppose there's not much to be done there when the show is based on a film which is based on a book. Still, what it lacked in that area it more than made up for in others, in particular the songs and the staging.

Dolly Parton wrote another dozen or so songs for the musical - the theme tune was the first song - and they were all really, really good. Surprisingly good. Judy and Doralee (Jane Fonda and Dolly in the film) were played by Stephanie J Block and Megan Hilty, who've recently played Elphaba and Glinda respectively in Wicked on Broadway, and they were superb. Violet, the main character (Lily Tomlin's part in the film), was played by Allison Janney, and she was the reason we chose to see this show over the others, because Jen and I loved her in The West Wing. It was clear that she didn't have the voice training that the other two girls did, but even so, her singing voice was not too shabby at all. And man, she was funny.

The staging was really something - they had a hole in the middle of the stage and all sorts of things came out of it (beds, photocopiers, desks etc) - and every scene change was so slick, really well done.

So if you're in New York with $100 and a few hours to spare, you could do worse than to see this show. Seriously, worth a look.