Ghost, The Musical.

I have to yet again apologise for a bit of a blog absence; but I feel that this time I have more of an excuse. I was enjoying a BBQ with friends on the very first day of my summer holiday and had the misfortune to badly hit my hand and break it. For over a week I was plastered to my finger tips and found live very difficult with only one hand.

I have since been seen at a specialist hand unit and have been lucky enough to have my hand put in a splint instead. This has meant that I have the use of a couple of my fingers back, making life quite a bit easier. And I think it looks quite a bit better now than with a boring cast!

Everyone who knows me would agree that I was very predictable with my choice of colour. Unfortunately I return to the consultant to hopefully be signed off the day before I return to work for the start of the new school year.




Anyway, the title of this blog is Ghost, The Musical and that is what I intend to now focus on. I was lucky enough recently to be able to go to the Piccadilly Theatre in London to see this production. And wow, what a production it is. I'll try not to give too much away and spoil it for people but the staging and special effects are phenomenal. Travelling up with my Mum we were talking about what we were expecting and she mentioned that she was very interested in seeing how the dealt with the moment in the film where Sam first passes through the door. We waited and we were most definitely not disappointed. I have no idea how they did it but it must have been through very clever use of lights, psychloramas and good acting. This as not the only example of the excellent special effects, I feel that there were moments of exquisite drama, the way it was staged, directed and acted were entralling. To start with I couldn't get in to it as it felt a little like the music got in the way. There would be a line or two of dialogue and then they'd burst in to song again. The songs were good but at times to start with they didn't seem like they added much to the performance at that given moment. Thankfully this improved quickly.

Both Mark Evans as Sam Wheat and Siobhan Dillon as Molly Jensen gave very strong performances. Their chemistry was almost palpable and really gave the performance an added level and edge. The show was completely stolen by Sharon D Clarke in the role of Oda Mae Brown. She was absolutely brilliant, fantastic comic timing and a real life and presence on the stage. There were many tears of laughter shed during her time in the spotlight.

Special mentions should also go to Craig Stein and Ashley Knight as the subway ghost and the hospital ghost respectively. Both very strong performances in their own ways.

We were seated up in the gods and I feel that this didn't adversely affect our enjoyment of the performance too much. We were still able to appreciate all the details of the performance and the special effects. At £35 I was impressed with the seats.

This is a production that I would definitely recommend seeing but I would suggest that you should have a packet of tissues handy if you're anything like me and cry like a baby at anything sad.

 

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