Thank you for making it such a great show. The audience were really getting into it, and the performers clearly fed off of that energy. It was the best performance I have seen to date (it was my 18th La Cage visit overall), and I was thrilled to be part of a standing ovation (with the mandatory bruised hand from all the applauding, of course). More, more! Well, there won't be much more for me, as I only have one ticket left for this run (I am going to avoid Burke/Barrowman--I believe I am way too biased to find any other pairing than Quast/Allam remotely interesting from now on (apart from Quast/Storhøi, but the likelihood of that happening is on par with my becoming an astronaut and colonising another planet all on my own))--this ticket is for a matinée towards the end of the run, so I'm worried they won't all be there etc. Such a let-down that would be (no offense to the rest of the cast; it's just that by the 19th time it's no longer the play I come to see, to be honest), and it's happened before. Oh, well.

I was sitting behind Graham Norton yesterday and had to restrain myself so that I wouldn't poke him in the back and whisper 'now don't you start booing and hissing every time Allam's on' (to the uninitiated: He played Albin/Zaza earlier in the year). He laughed a lot, though, so clearly enjoying the performance, like the rest of us mere mortals.

Oh, and to the poor lady sitting next to me: 1. Sorry for leaning on you (but that's what happens when you don't participate), and 2. when I looked at you just as I got up for the standing ovation, I did NOT glare at you because you didn't get up, only checking I wasn't standing on anyone's bags.

To the nice New Zealanders on the other side of me: Thanks for getting into the spirit of things by the second act so I didn't feel like such a loser for being perhaps a tad too involved, and thanks for immediately joining me during the standing ovation, even though you weren't very mobile.

And to the guy sitting behind me: The girl you came with may have sounded impressed and in awe of everything you said, but the rest of us thought you behaved like a twat with all your pathetic name-dropping. We don't CARE if you're a stage hand at some touring company and may have almost met a few big names.

I think that should have covered everyone sitting around me yesterday. Let's do it again some time.

I did get a surprise later on, though; I had been sure there must have been a contingent of avid Allam fans in the audience (due to some excessive applauding at times), and yet we were basically on our own by the stage door afterwards. Perhaps they had a train to catch. Or some pensioners to mug. As you know, Allam fans are rough. In the same way fans of Chuck Norris are mainly effeminate men.

Hopefully this will be my only post featuring Chuck Norris.

Labels: musicals, name-dropping, philip quast, roger allam, theatre