Priscilla and Phantom

Priscilla and Phantom. They couldn't be two more different shows!

 I think they might be my two favourites! ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS.

I took 45 leapyabouters to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at the Opera House, Manchester. It is a lovely theatre and our seats in the circle were fabulous. We saw that the red carpet was out when we arrived and a lot of men with cameras...... it was press night!! so we were on the look out for celebs. The trouble is, I don't watch soaps so I didn't recognise any of the Corrie stars and who the heck is Alex Reid?! Theresa made herself known to the ex-husband of Katie Price anyway, to the amusement of Michelle and Lynne. We weren't sure whether he was wearing Priscilla - style make-up to get in the mood (???) or whether he had had a cage fight which apparently he does?

The keep fitters loved it. There were about 20 dancefloor hits with  all the foot tapping songs we use in aerobics, spin and aqua. Fabulous timeless classics like Hot Stuff, I Will Survive, Always On My Mind, Its's Raining Men, Go West, Finally, DON'T Leave Me This Way (hilarious) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (and we certainly DID) (The lads loved it too. Husb wore a pink shirt. Woo!)

Although the bus was poor compared to the West End bus, there was much  more emphasis on humour and this performance included audience participation, where, in the style of ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS, the audience were left on stage by themselves. Great music, very funny and a real feel good show-it is worth going to see it for the amazing costumes and as well as being lavishly overthetop, the show actually has a STORY. I don't know HOW the men danced about in high heels, I can't even walk in them.

And Jason Donovan was brilliant. He recently said they use so much glitter in the show they actually have sparkly poo (glittery lippy which they can't help swallowing when they sing) =) 

It was so fabulous, darling, I am taking another bus load to the Liverpool show in May.

On Tuesday Husb and I went to see PHANTOM (without a bus load of friends!!) at the LIVERPOOL EMPIRE THEATRE. Well we've only seen it 6 times already so we needed to get our "fix" =) The star of the show in our eyes was Christine, played by Katie Hall. She was superb. Our Phantom was Earl Carpenter who hadn't been well. He was no John Owen Jones but I thought he was very good and from our seats on row CC we got a really good view of his face, his scars, his flesh. There was something just not quite right with the sound though, as the orchestra seemed to overshadow the vocals at times and I wondered how much the people sitting in the circle could hear - but we were fine in Row CC.

This was the stunning revamped updated 25th anniversary production. We preferred the original boat scene with the candles and the original masquerade scene on the stairs but if we hadn't seen it 6 times already we wouldn't be so critical. It was FABULOUS.... just not the same sort of fabulous darling as Priscilla!!  AND... we would MOST DEFINITELY go again!