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A great day

Late last night – or possibly very early this morning, I saw what looked like a photo of today’s Daily Telegraph*, showing Andrew Lloyd Webber, Danielle Hope and Michael Crawford together, with a headline about Michael “following the Yellow Brick Road”.

For the uninitiated, Lord Lloyd Webber has been using BBC talent shows to cast the leads in revivals of musicals he’s been doing over the last few years; Danielle Hope won the role of Dorothy for a new production of THE WIZARD OF OZ.

So I Googled and searched Twitter and so on but couldn’t find anything about Michael and Oz. This morning brought the news that he’s been cast as the Wizard in the new production, previewing from February next year. I wasn’t really interested in seeing it as don’t know the story, but come on, Michael Crawford! The West End legend – an oft-overused term, but appropriate here – is returning to the stage after seven years away. I now have my ticket for the first preview.

The second thing is this, a photo of writer Neil Gaiman on the TARDIS set. Who else is excited for his DOCTOR WHO episode next year?

The third thing is the return of THE OFFICE last night. I’d seen the cold open in full yesterday afternoon, but the full episode was amazing. I know friends who haven’t seen it yet, so #nospoilers as usual, but you should get on that quite soon. It’s going to be a wonderful send-off season for Steve Carell, whilst not being all about him, as it should be. I can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen and I’ve already watched last night’s episode three times.

* at the time, there was just the first post in the thread. I don’t know why people are being negative there. No matter what you think of Phantom or anything else Michael’s done, there can be no denying his fantastic voice, and casting proper musical theatre actors is surely better than random people like Amanda Holden and Nigel Harman in SHREK THE MUSICAL – no matter what their other talents may, or may not be.

Update: about thirty seconds after I published this entry, I saw this photo of Charlie McDonnell with Neil on-set. What?! The world is WEIRD!

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Phantom from the beach

Today’s blog is not about Florida, because I’m sitting on a beach near St Petersburg and have done nothing interesting.

Instead I’m going to talk about a week or so ago when I saw THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on stage in London. I’d wanted to see it again ever since I first saw it in August last year. As soon as I got home that night, I downloaded the original London cast recording and it’s become one of my most listened-to albums.

On Saturday, 4th September a few of the cast were leaving and I was determined to see them at least once. Gina Beck who had played Christine when I first saw Phantom was leaving, as was Rebecca Lock who started as Carlotta in September last year, after I saw the show.

I first met Rebecca when she was the second actress to play Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut in AVENUE Q’s London production, two years ago. I really wanted to see her in a completely different role, so I was extra excited.

The show was amazing, of course. It’s always interesting to note the differences between the original cast albums and the current show. Many of the lyrics to THINK OF ME, for example, are very different, and this is something you can usually only see in the live show. So I finally bought my ticket for their last performance, the evening show that night.

Afterwards I went to the stage door of Her Majesty’s Theatre to wait for the departing cast members. There were a few other people there, most of whom I vaguely recognised from their Twitter avatars.

After a while Gina came out and chatted to everyone individually whilst Will Barratt – the current Raoul – did the same. It was great to finally meet her and she said it was good to put a face to a (Twitter user)name at last. We talked a bit about the show and her future plans we both said, almost at the same time, that we hope we’ll see each other at another stage door soon. After hugs and goodbyes, she moved on.

During our time stood outside, Ramin Karimloo arrived from his own stage door at the Adelphi. If we’d been more alert and not cold, this would probably have prompted cries of “He’s here! The Phantom of the Opera is here!”, but alas, it did not.

About an hour later the Diva strolls out. Some people had brought along presents and gifts for both Gina and Rebecca, and these were much admired by all. My turn came and I started to say who I was and she said “yeah, I know”, which made me laugh because I hadn’t spoken to her face-to-face for over two years, but she meant because of Twitter. We spoke a little about her next project, the film SURE FIRE HIT which she is going to be in with Jennifer Ellison and Chris Noth, talked about the last time we met and so on. It was nice to catch up and I hope she doesn’t stay away from the West End for too long. After 24 years Phantom is as strong as ever, but Rebecca was definitely one of the finest Carlottas and Gina a fantastic Christine, and both will be missed at Her Majesty’s.

Here are some photos of my view right now (there’s wifi on the beach, inexplicably)