London vacation 2011 – Part 1
This post is long overdue, but what’s new, lol. I’m always behind!
Sabine and I went on our mother-daughter trip to London in August and had a blast! The results: Empty wallets, painful muscles, sleep deprived, but boy did we have fun!
It was her first time in London, her first time on an airplane and it was so great to see how she enjoyed it all. Looking at my favourite city through her eyes made everything special for me as well.
I booked two musicals in advance (Wicked and Shrek, but more about that in another post) and promised Sabine that she could pick a musical on our first night in London. While walking from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square we passed the Prince of Wales Theatre with the huge ‘Mamma Mia!’ sign and Sabine said: THAT’s where I want to go. The box office was open and we got some awesome Stalls tickets. (It’s that I didn’t want to take the risk of the other shows being sold out, but I’ve always been very lucky – ticket wise – when buying them at the box office).
I saw the show in Holland, so I knew what to expect. Sabine saw the movie, but had no idea how things would look on stage. She was happily surprised. The show is one big party. All the familiar Abba songs, no matter what age you are, everyone knows them. It’s so clever how the songs are incorporated in the story. They use the official Abba lyrics, but each song seems to be written for the musical. They managed to take a lot of seperate songs, without anything in common and put each of them at the perfect spot in the story. It’s not like: we say a few words, stop, sing a song, applause, text, awkward moment for a song etc., it’s one flowing perfomance. Hard to explain, hope you get the meaning 🙂
So unlike the usual UK audience, the public went completely crazy, were on their feet for the last encore (Dancing Queen) and everyone was waving their arms in the air from left to right and v.v., clapping, singing along, it felt great. It was like an instant ‘happy injection’, no one can leave this show grumpy 😀
Of course we went to the stagedoor afterwards and met some of the cast members. It surprises me every time how friendly they are and so willing to pose for pics and sign programs.
