I love musical theatre, think I might have mentioned that before. So I'm pretty jazzed that we have tickets for Motown: The Musical when we're in London. And I'm even more excited now that I've read some reviews. It sounds freakin' amazing -- two hours and forty-five minutes long and featuring sixty Motown hits. The venue is going to be a big change for me. While I have seen shows on the big stages in New York, Toronto, and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, for the past 25 years my theatre experience has all been at the little theatre in Chemainus.
Chemainus is a small town on the east coast of Vancouver Island, a town that nearly dried up and blew away in the early 80's when the large sawmill was closed and replaced with a smaller one. Instead of shutting down, the town was revitalized for tourism with the creation of over three dozen murals painted throughout the town. In 1993 the theatre opened coupled with a restaurant offering a buffet meal in conjunction with a theatre ticket. Best smoked raspberry chipotle ribs ever...just sayin'.
Their latest offering that I had the pleasure of attending was Million Dollar Quartet. Picture Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis all coming together for a jam session. Sounds like a nice little piece of fiction, doesn't it? Except that it actually happened. Who knew? On December 4, 1956 Lewis was in the studios at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee to play piano on a new Carl Perkins recording when in wandered Presley and Cash. Now to be perfectly honest, I was never really a big fan of any one of these artists. But I like music and I like theatre and I really like seeing talented actors who are also musicians and singers. So all in all, a good night at the theatre.
So if I can spend a couple of hours enjoying music that isn't on my personal hit parade, Motown should be pretty awesome. Right? All enjoyed within the 1400 seat Shaftesbury Theatre. Our seats are dead centre in the 2nd row of the 2nd balcony, grandly labelled the Grand Circle. Aka the cheap seats...or cheaper seats. 'Cause theatre ain't cheap. And did you know you can even google a review of any seat in the Shaftesbury Theatre, that is if someone has bothered to write a review. Of our seats -- B18 - 20 -- only seat 19 has a review, but it's a pretty good bet the seats on either side will match up. The reviewer gave seat B19 three stars (out of five) for comfort, two for leg room, and four for view with the following qualifying statements: "really good view of the stage considering the cost of the seat" and "the only problem is the legroom isn't great, especially for tall people." Good thing none of us are giants.
In the little 265 seat Chemainus Theatre there's simply left, right, and centre. I always buy my seats on either side, two in from the aisle because they're "the cheap seats." Adequate leg room and not an obstructed seat in the house. I was recently comparing reviews with a friend who loves Les Mis while it tops my list of worst play ever. It's depressing and the music is boring. She attributes this to my having seen in on the small stage in Chemainus. Had I seen it on a grander scale...she says.
Nope, I don't think so. I don't think size matters.
It's all about how you use what you've got.
Book Reviews: I was on the brink of packing it in with my book club. There are just too many books out there to read without having to wade through some of the crap we get. Our latest offering seemed destined for the "crap" designation during the first couple of chapters. Jo Walton's My Real Children just wasn't grabbing me, I was confused...and bored. But I stuck it out and while I can't rave about this book I can certainly say I enjoyed it more than I thought it would. For me the sci-fi aspects didn't work but ultimately I would label this book 'thought provoking.'
The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens was a good basic mystery made all the more enjoyable by an excellent cast of characters, each one deeply flawed, and without a cliche in the lot. Highly recommended.
I'm impressed with your level of research on our un-cheap "cheap seats". I've had seats in the nosebleeds before in London, and have been more than satisfied. Once, and only once, we even got a "theatre upgrade". They asked us if we wanted to move to better seats. There's a first for everything! Although Motown the Musical is so new, that won't likely happen for us...but never say never!!
ReplyDeleteAnd you were correct in picking the 2nd row as some of the reviews for Row A complained of the safety rail blocking their view.
Delete