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And finally, Saturday was Wicked day! Sabine knows all the songs by heart (played the CD over and over), and although I kept the end a secret, she knew what the show was about and that was a good thing as it is sometimes hard to understand what they’re saying, even for me.

We already knew Rachel Tucker – Elphaba – because she was on the BBC’s  ‘Search  for Nancy’ the female lead in the musical Oliver. She’s obviously grown a lot since then, artistically, and she was a great Elphie. It was the first time I saw Louise Dearman, who plays Glinda and she has a lovely voice. Mark Evans, who plays Fiyero, was on holiday. No idea if we missed something as I’ve never seen him on stage before. But, to our surprise Antony Hansen, who was on the BBC’s ‘Search for Joseph’, was his understudy. As I had no idea he was in the show, my jaw dropped when he came on stage. It’s amazing to know that so many contestants from the different ‘Searches for…’ have found their way in the West End shows and are playing major parts now.

Beforehand I was afraid that row 3 tickets would be too close to the stage, but our seats were AWESOME. Enough distance to get a complete view of the stage, but still close enough to see the emotion on the faces of the actors. Perfect, just the way I like it!

At the stagedoor we met a mother (my age) from Scotland, her two daughters and her sister (at least we think they were sisters as they looked much alike). We stood together at the beginning of the line, chatting away while waiting for the actors to come out. To me this was the best night of the three, lots of conversations and laughter, actors weren’t rushed and – like every night – made time for everyone who was waiting, smiling for every pic (gosh don’t they grow tired of it?). Thank you all, you made our day!

The lady from Scotland made a cheering sound (as in: oooo look who’s here…) when a young guy came out of the stagedoor. Apparently he was in the ensemble and the eldest daughter (Sabine’s age) thought he was cute. They met him at the stagedoor at a previous visit to Wicked. After she reminded him of their first meeting she asked him for another autograph and picture and the guy said (pleasantly surprised), yes sure! Usually only the major leads are stopped by fans while the ensemble members quickly make their way past the people waiting in line. I always feel sorry for them as they’ve worked just as hard, but as I have no idea who they are it’s a bit stupid to say: ermmm… can I have your autograph and by the way, who are you? lol.

As we were next in line and the pics with the girl from Scotland were taken, Sabine asked for a picture and an autograph and his smile grew. Funny how contagious the signing is; the people next to us – who, like us, didn’t have a clue about who he was – also asked him for his autograph and he looked genuinely happy. I think we made his day 😀 Later we looked up his name, Niall Sheehy, and Sabine agreed with the Scottish girl that he really was cute! Even though we loved Antony as Fiyero, we wouldn’t have mind if Niall had played the part that night. Oh well… maybe another time! Wicked is Niall’s West End debut, and I have a feeling we will be seeing him again, either in Wicked or another show. I’m following him on Twitter now, so we’ll know the news first hand if he does leaves Wicked.

After we visited Buckingham Palace on Sunday – where we saw the wedding dress of Princess Catherine – can I say: WOW – it was time for us to say goodbye to my favourite city of all. Partir, c’est mourir un peu…

If you want to see all the pics we took, click to visit our Picasa Webalbum.

Ahhh yes, the moment we had been waiting for. Well, *I* had been waiting for!

After seeing so many clips from Shrek, The Musical on youtube, it was my biggest wish to see it in person. Jumped for joy when I heard it was opening in London and couldn’t wait to book tickets.

The musical itself went through different stages in the US, songs were taken out, others were put in but the essence of the story was the same. I heard things were changed again in London and was curious to find out what they did.
The opening scene was one of the changes and it was awesome! It introduced Princess Fiona at the beginning of the show instead of her popping up halfway, very wise decision, it made the story complete.

I was a bit disappointed that Amanda Holden (judge on Britain’s Got Talent) was on holiday – I’d have loved to see her on stage. Her understudy – Alice Fearn – was good though, so I can’t complain 🙂

There are a lot of funny moments in the show and I was glad that Sabine laughed as well – her English isn’t that good yet so I was afraid that she’d miss the jokes. Compared to other musicals it seemed like the actors spoke slower than usual. Not sure if that’s true, but Sabine had no trouble understanding each word.

Nigel Lindsay ís Shrek, he’s loveable, huge (that must be one hot costume!), clumsy, funny – it was like the Shrek from the movies was put on stage, A+!! Richard Blackwood as Donkey is hilarious and Nigel Harman as Lord Farquaad is simply brilliant!! Poor guy spends the evening on stage on his knees, hats off!
In fact, there’s not one single bad thing that I can say about the actors or the show.

I loved the way the dragon was animated. It is moved by puppeteers, dressed in black, holding ‘sticks’ attached to it’s claws, tail, head and mouth and in such a way that you forget about the puppeteers and only see a moving and singing dragon – amazing! Kuddos to the lady – Landi Oshinowo – who is the voice of the dragon, you don’t see her during that song (she does play Humpty Dumpty as well) but she takes her bow, dressed in dragon colours, at the very end of the show, what a voice! Found a video at YouTube, do watch! In fact, there are so many awesome songs, search YouTube for ‘Shrek Musical’ (as opposed to Shrek Movie) and you will find more.

Of course we went to the Stagedoor. Had a lovely meeting with Nigel Harman but – stupid me! – due to the wrong camera settings the picture was blurred 🙁 Oh well, we have his autograph and the memory 🙂
Richard Blackwood was charming and took his time getting down the line, signing programs and posing for pics. Nigel Lindsay was kind and modest, he seemed a bit shy totally the opposite of the loud character on stage, loved meeting him! Alice Fearn walked by, we called her name and would’ve loved to tell her how much we enjoyed her performance, but she kept on walking without even blinking. Awww.

Amanda Holden’s last show will be October 3rd, and her role will be taken over by Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh.

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.

Yes, I admit it, I’m jealous of everyone who gets to celebrate Halloween! Although slowly more decoration stuff appears in the shops over here in Holland, it’s not a real celebration. No trick-or-treating, no pumpkin carving, no dressing up 🙁
At first I didn’t know what I missed out on… after all, you can’t have the feeling of ‘missing something’ when you don’t know what it feels like. But when we went to Disneyland Paris around Halloween in 2008 we experienced the atmosphere, saw the awesome decorations and we all fell in love with the spooky holiday.

I have a lot of boards on Pinterest. But not a Halloween board… though I think I have to give in and create one as I found so many gems online. I wanted to share, maybe there’s something you haven’t seen yet – if so, please leave a comment!

(Click the image to enlarge)

Linking to:

No Biggie – Spooky Star

Sassy Sanctuary – Halloween Rag Wreath

Glorious Treats – Candy Corn Cheesecake Mousse

Living Locurto – Spider Bag Printable

Family Fun – Spooky Spider

All You – Googly-eyed Pumpkin

Not So Idle Hands – Halloween Frames

The Swell Life – Candy Corn Vases

Better Home and Gardens – Lacy Pumpkin

The TomKat Studio – We’ve been Booed

Not So Idle Hands – Glass Halloween Blocks

Better Homes and Garden – Stenciled pumpkin

All You – Bat Template

I may upset the neighbourhood when I go trick-or-treating, but it won’t do any harm if I put some Halloween decorations in the backyard, right?? 😀

Quite some time ago I found a meme on Flickr called ‘Mosaic‘ which basically meant that you answered questions by picking Flickr photos and make a Mosaic out of them, a feature neatly provided by Big Huge Labs (BHL).

To be honest, I only concentrated on the Mosaic Maker and never paid attention to all the things BHL had to offer. *stupid me*

Today I discovered the many wonders of BHL. No, I don’t work there, I don’t have shares, they don’t pay me for this ad, I just want to share my joy 🙂

Of course BHL is a business so they hope to make money out of your creations, but they offer a lot for free as well. All you need to do is sign up! You can use your pics and make puzzles, mosaics, fake ID Cards (to display on your Blog or Facebook account), too much to list here, so just visit!

Because I’m very much into Wicked at the moment, I immediately knew I just HAD to make a fake Wicked movie poster, adding some of my Facebook friends. I love the way it turned out 🙂

Ha! Finally made into the movies 😀
Hollywood, here I come (not)