In order to take a quick
refresher course before going to the theatre tonight, I had a look through my
daughter’s bookshelves to see if she had a copy of Tom’s
Midnight Garden; she didn’t. The new touring play arrived in
Nottingham today (until Saturday) and tonight was the press launch so I was
there to review it for The Nottingham Evening
Post (as I still call it). Mandi was looking forward to coming to
see this with me and I was looking forward to taking her as she very rarely
accompanies me on review stuff, but who doesn’t like a night at the theatre? It
was an early evening show starting at six, which considering it is meant to be
a children’s story is fair enough, although it does lead to a fair bit of
teatime rushing around.
The play itself was brilliant,
a real credit to the Birmingham Stage Company who adapted the book for the
stage. I wasn’t sure how on earth they would manage to translate this without a
huge amount of set changes, but manage it they did. By using the bare minimum
of props and by extremely clever use of lighting, the whole thing came to life
in the most captivating way imaginable.
During the interval we sat in
a specially roped off press area and had a glass of wine, having never done a
theatre review before it was nice to see this kind of treatment. This is
exactly the sort of hospitality that the Nottingham music scene should be
laying on for people involved in the promotion of the bands, a special
reviewers/broadcasters area set aside as a thank you for all our work.
There were a lot of children
in attendance of course, and it was encouraging to see how into the play they
were. It’s easy to dismiss today’s kids as idiots who need CGI and at least one
superhero from a television show on stage in order for them to care, but there’s
hope yet. It would be nice if parents could give their offspring a few lessons
in theatre etiquette though; no talking or fidgeting during the play would be
the first point, followed by eating sweets that aren’t individually wrapped up.
The show finished at about
eight o’clock, so it was nice to have seen a play and still be home for a meal
and Eastenders on catch-up at a reasonable
time.
My review will be online
tomorrow and in Thursday’s newspaper.
===
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