Happiest musical memories

[horton]

Whilst we're waiting for life to move on, how about celebrating our favourite musical memories?


Who has the longest memory?


Not my earliest, but I remember the sheer, sheer joy, wonder, showbiz and warmth of Michael Crawford's Barnum at the Palladium (before the transfer to VP).  And when he rope-slid from the circle down to the stage- what a finale.  Whilst other stories might circle the old chap, I will be eternally grateful for the show MC put on that evening- he made some look effortless that all subsequent Barnums have struggled to match, even with very visible effort.

Not my favourite musical, but probably the best musical comedy performance I ever saw (though I may have forgotten someone else).

[sf]

Julia McKenzie, Bob Hoskins, and Julie Covington in Guys and Dolls at the National in 1982. Not my earliest memory of going to the theatre, but I thought it was magical. My mother took me, probably on a day-trip from my grandmother's house in Suffolk (much closer to London than home in Greater Manchester); I'd have been about nine.

[alece10]

Well no surprise to many but it's the joy of 42nd Street and the everlasting moment when the staircase appears. I still get tearful every time I think about it.

[schuttep]

Here's one of my happiest and oldest memories - from 1974:

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in a local professional production at the Crucible in Sheffield.

At the end, when Joseph enters in his "chariot of gold" he entered in a gold Aston Martin car! Perfect!

[Mark]

Hello, Dolly! on Broadway.

Every
Single
Time

[HereForTheatre]

I have a few. Seeing In The Heights for the first time. Seeing Dreamgirls with Amber Riley and being completely blown away. Then probably the first preview of Come From Away, which felt very special.   Oh and  there was a trip in 2017 to London where i saw Adrian Mole at the Menier and TCAABR and i just had the loveliest time, i always remember it. I don't know what particularly made it feel special but i always count that as my best theatre trip to London.

I have to say the longer i've been going to the theatre the less of an event or special occasion it's become. I still absolutely  love it obviously and it's my main hobby but it feels a bit run of the mill now and it feels sometimes a bit like just ticking things of a list. I love thinking back to a few years ago when i'd be excited about seeing something for weeks and it felt special, especially if it meant a London trip, and they are the shows and trips that still stand out.  (is it just me who feels that way btw?)

I often wish i could get that feeling back and funnily enough having this imposed theatre break for the next few months might do it!

[Paul]

Mar 20, 2020 9:40:34 GMT @theatremonkey said:

Victoria Palace "Annie" one Christmas. Fascinated and captivated by it all. The rest is history...

The UK tour of Annie, many years ago had me fascinated and captivated too. When those buckets hit the stage I was sold on a life of musical theatre addiction.

[stepha]

What a lovely thread!

Les Mis at the Palace in '97 - having spent years listening to the OLC in the back of the family car - Mum, Dad, me and my sister singing along (Dad would turn the sound down to listen to me and my sister belt out the profanities..), it was our first family trip to the West End.

I cried from the first note to the last (and probably the 2 hour journey home).

[tonyloco]

Horton asks 'Who has the longest musical memory?' and regular readers will know it is probably me, with my frequent references to being knocked out by 'Annie Get Your Gun' in Sydney in 1947/48 starring Evie Hayes.  I was all of 11 years old but I can still see and hear the whole show in my mind's eye, although I did see it about six times – my theatre-loving mother was very accommodating about taking me to see shows like that!

Before that, I have vague memories of the wonderful variety shows at the Tivoli with jugglers, acrobats, comics, singers and a line of Tivoli chorus girls who seemed like wondrous, glamourous creatures from some magic land of singing and dancing.  And before 'Annie Get Your Gun' I still have clear memories of seeing 'The Desert Song' and 'White Horse Inn', the latter with its revolving stage that presented four or five separate scenes and then revolved at the end of the performance to show each of the sets in turn.  There was also a rain storm where water fell just behind the footlights into a gutter across the stage. This seemed like pure theatrical magic to a small child aged about 9 or 10 – not to mention the cast singing and dancing behind the rain while holding up umbrellas!

After 'Annie' the most memorable musicals in Sydney during the 1950s were 'Call Me Madam' with Evie Hayes and 'Kiss Me, Kate' with Hayes Gordon and Maggie Fitzgibbon.

Well, I was asked!

PS  We will never get a chance to see the version of 'Annie Get Your Gun' that so bedazzled me because it is now politically very incorrect and has been sanitised to remove songs like 'I'm an Indian Too' which seemed a lot of innocent fun back in 1948, when small children played 'Cowboys and Indians', and 'Red Indians' were the villains in so many Hollywood Westerns and serials. 

Sorry for rambling, but it gives me something to do while I am self-isolating.

[Deleted]

First time seeing Starlight Express in the 80s when I was 11 (resulting in MT obsession for life).
Last night of Starlight Express at the Apollo Victoria in 2002.

(Surprising literally no-one!)

Great idea for a thread :-)

[robertb213]

Mar 20, 2020 9:49:41 GMT HereForTheatre said:

I have to say the longer i've been going to the theatre the less of an event or special occasion it's become. I still absolutely  love it obviously and it's my main hobby but it feels a bit run of the mill now and it feels sometimes a bit like just ticking things of a list. I love thinking back to a few years ago when i'd be excited about seeing something for weeks and it felt special, especially if it meant a London trip, and they are the shows and trips that still stand out.  (is it just me who feels that way btw?)

I often wish i could get that feeling back and funnily enough having this imposed theatre break for the next few months might do it!

I completely agree with you, I'd been feeling the same about my theatre-going turning into a list-ticking exercise, and I hope that this downtime makes the flame reignite once we can jump back into that world again!

[Being Alive]

Seeing Bette Midler do Hello Dolly.

It really was 3 hours of HAPPY. and seeing the Divine Ms M in the flesh was pretty amazing.

[Deleted]

I stopped going to the theatre as much a few years ago and to be honest its one of the best things I've done. I value it and appreciate it so much more now and have the enjoyment of it back far more than when it was 'routine'

[tonyloco]

Mar 20, 2020 12:23:48 GMT robertb213 said:

Mar 20, 2020 9:49:41 GMT HereForTheatre said:

I have to say the longer i've been going to the theatre the less of an event or special occasion it's become. I still absolutely  love it obviously and it's my main hobby but it feels a bit run of the mill now and it feels sometimes a bit like just ticking things of a list. I love thinking back to a few years ago when i'd be excited about seeing something for weeks and it felt special, especially if it meant a London trip, and they are the shows and trips that still stand out.  (is it just me who feels that way btw?)

I often wish i could get that feeling back and funnily enough having this imposed theatre break for the next few months might do it!

I completely agree with you, I'd been feeling the same about my theatre-going turning into a list-ticking exercise, and I hope that this downtime makes the flame reignite once we can jump back into that world again!

Gosh, that surprises me.  Looking back over a period of some 70 years of theatre-going, albeit with long gaps when I was playing piano most nights, I don't think I ever felt it became routine. If I wasn't enjoying a show I would leave in the interval, but for those that I did enjoy it always remained a special experience and I would try to go back and see my favourite shows more than once, although this was often not possible at places like Chichester, Wimbledon or Richmond.

And my many visits to 42nd Street recently just confirmed that my love for musicals hadn't diminished and I was still getting plenty of bang for my buck night after night at Drury Lane!  

But maybe it is the more frequent going to the theatre just to tick off seeing the latest shows that may become routine, and as I got quite aged I was no longer able to do this anyway.

However, each to their own and that's the fascination of a forum like this where we can all express our differing views!

[jaqs]

Mine isn’t a particularly old one but the first preview of Hairspray, I loved every second and went back the next night.

[Deleted]

Seeing 42nd Street for the first time back in 1986. It was my first West End musical and the way the curtain swept up at the start has stuck with me ever since. There's all sorts of technology in theatre these days but there's something about the elegant simplicity of a flown cloth that has a special pleasure for me.

Going to see A Little Night Music at the Theater 't Eilandje in Antwerp in 2001. It was the first time I'd even been abroad completely alone and when I got off the train at Antwerpen Centraal I realised I'd left my map at home and had to navigate my way to the hotel entirely by memory. One of the best productions I've seen, even in a language I don't speak. Great trip, great show, great Belgian beer in the bar with the cast afterwards.

The final night of Evita at the Adelphi in 2007. The applause just didn't stop, and close to ten minutes later the somewhat bemused cast came back on stage for a final bow. I've never seen a response like it.

And a rather low-key one: On the second cast change of Avenue Q when they pass the hat around I put a squeaky rubber chicken in it. Later in the show I discovered that it's amazing how clearly you can hear someone in the wings playing with a squeaky rubber chicken.

[BoOverall]

So many over the decades but my highlights are:

- the final performance of the original London run of Aspects of Love: saw it so often in those days and it’s my favourite ALW score. Oh and that set.....beautiful, evocative and just right.

-Emma Thompson after a performance of Me and My Girl at the Leics Haymarket in the early 80s, spilling a glass of wine over me at their bar when I was a young thing. Bless her, she even bought me a coke and my parents a bottle of wine to apologise.

- The filmed performance of Light in the Piazza in NY. Went to the show knowing nothing much about it but it was far and away the theatre highlight of that trip.

- a preview of Love Never Dies with ALW present. I said to him I loved the music (it’s still to my mind a ravishing score) but that ending needed badly tightening up...I even suggested to him Christine dies a bit quicker rather than that scene dragging out so much. Had the Lord listened to me..........🤣🤣

[Fleance]

My first three shows on Broadway were musicals. I was very young, but I will never forget them. The first was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, at the very end of its run, with Dick Shawn in the lead. A great score, but the number that particularly engaged me was "Impossible."  The second was Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl, where as a young teen I was bowled over by "Don't Rain on My Parade." And the third, that same summer of 1964, was 110 in the Shade, where Inga Swenson singing "Raunchy" shocked me with the lyrics "I'll be so raunchy, sippin' Dr. Pepper mixed with booze, shakin' my cabooze..." 

One of my most memorable London musical moments was Denis Quilley as Vera Lynn in Privates on Parade.

[Deleted]

The recent 42nd Street revival - both the first time I saw it (an evening made even better by an excellent gig from Rachel Tucker straight after) and the closing night. I've never felt an atmosphere quite like that last night, and to be in the front row with a whole load of other theatreboard people was special.

Wicked holds a special place in my heart as it was my first West End show. I'll never forget Rachel Tucker's last ever performance in the show.

The first time I saw Come From Away - no explanation necessary!

Being at the closing night of the original run of Les Mis last summer was special, as was the final night of We Will Rock You (yes, I unashamedly loved that show!)

Some of my favourite memories are also the first times I visited a lot of the smaller fringe theatres - the Menier, Southwark, the Donmar, Hampstead and the Bridge.

And also just the privilege of getting to see so many great actors on stage, always gives me a thrill.

[Deleted]

HereForTheatre robertb213 @rnc

I totally get where you are coming from. Remember when I was a teenager I'd see a West End musical once, max twice per year. The anticipation, excitement, sense of occasion and reflection afterwards was incredible.

Am in my 40s now and would deffo describe theatre as my main hobby. Am lucky now to be able to afford to see one or two shows a week rather than a year! And it goes without saying that I still love it. But sadly it is often routine and that sense of total unparalleled excitement is definitely not there anymore.

And sometimes it can feel like a list ticking exercise. For example I kinda feel I should see all the big West End shows. Funnily enough, I have been thinking last year or so would be good to cut down really. As an example I have seen shows in the last year that I kinda knew wouldn't necessarily be my thing (Waitress, Big, Come From Away) and I was going to book for City of Angels, even though I really don't like the CD!

So anyway, I do think one positive of this enforced break is that it forces you to press the pause button and take stock. I could never go without musicals, but once this period is over, I will be a bit more selective and not see things just cos they are there - and I do think that will bring the spark back :-)

[crabtree]

This eight year old's life was transformed at Drury Lane in 1964, I think, with Camelot, with Laurence Harvey and Elizabeth Larner. The scenic splendour of the first scene looking like a snowy Book of Hours with everyone in ermine, skating and sledging, and then transforming into the gold court. Wow. Do I remember someone being burnt at the stake? Or at least nearly being burnt. Camelot is most definitely not my favourite musical, but it threw open a door that has never been shut, and certainly developed a love of a good transformation scene - I was transformed truly.

[Deleted]

Whilst theatre is one of my favourite hobbies, I have to admit that I’ve had to take a step back from it over the last few months. Not because I dislike it or have grown bored of it, I just needed a break from it - I don’t think I’ve been yet in 2020.... and of course now I can’t go I’d quite like to go. I think going to the theatre became too routine and after a pretty extensive decade of trying to see as much of everything that I could I just needed to press pause on it all.

Going to see as much as I - and indeed we - do, I think I can become desensitised to the spectacle of it all at times. I can still recognise talent and great little moments in everything I see, but I think you become expectant of a certain standard and over time it can become easier to note why something isn’t working... but also when something really special comes along, it really is special.

One of those moments was Glenn in Sunset. I was having a crappy day, didn’t really want to go and the whole thing just cheered me up no end. Having a real movie star in the role I think really helps buy into Norma and the whole ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ was just magical.

Another one would be Company. I went into it not knowing what to expect but for it was one of those shows that starts strong and builds so it ends in an even stronger place. Musicals like that are a joy to watch because you start to suspect it’s going to be something special and as it builds and gets there it’s just a pleasure to watch.

[daisy24601]

I was listening to Memphis a couple of days ago and thinking back to how much I thought about it after the first time I went. It really stuck with me. I saw it again and again and never got bored of it. When I think of 2015 I think of Memphis. Happy times.

[Scswp]

Lots of happy musical memories for me. Too many to list really, but definitely seeing LuPone, Buckley and Paige in the 1990s epic take on Sunset Boulevard made for special memories. The set, the costumes, the seeing of these three musical divas in the role (I was young and had never seen anyone ‘known’ in anything I’d previously seen!) The world was a ‘bigger place’ before the Internet and I’d heard of LuPone and Buckley only via Dress Circle/cast recordings of well-known musicals. I’d obviously heard of Paige. To see these ‘names’ and to hear these voices that I’d grown up knowing (but not necessarily knowing what these stars looked like - except Paige) was a thrilling experience for a (not yet) gay young man! None of the ladies disappointed!
There are lots of other memories, but Sunset has always been my fave. Oddly enough, I saw Glenn at the Coliseum years later and she actually disappointed me in the role - maybe I was too far away from the stage.

[macksennett]

Totally relate to what Dom says about not feeling the same sense of totally unparalleled excitement now I’m in my 40s as to when I was seeing shows as a teenager or in my 20s. Yes the anticipation beforehand and reflection afterwards was incredible! I wish I could get that all back!!

Also empathise with what Scswp says about seeing Betty Buckley in Sunset Boulevard and hearing about the American stars through Dress Circle. The world certainly did seem a bigger place in those youthful days!

My happiest West End theatre memories were the first shows I saw...Miss Saigon at Drury Lane, Betty in Sunset and the exquisite She Loves Me at the Savoy. Happy memories!