Apollo Victoria 80th Anniversary Gala
What a BRILLIANT SHOW!
We basically traced the history of the theatre from 1930 to modern day, with act 1 being a variety of tributes to the artists who performed there, and act 2 was the shows. It's gone midnight, it's all a jumble of impressions...
Brilliant to hear the 20th Century Fox ident played live...
Priscilla's Divas paid tribute to the Supremes - all six of them! The three girls were accompanied by three drag queens, in a beautiful mirroring routine. Fabulous!
The Jersey Boys came over and did their promo thang - nice of them to do so on their night off. But it was just what they did at West End Live and any time they need to do a promo.
Sharon D Clarke is a DIVA of the utmost class and quality! She ended up representing both Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin, as Patina Miller didn't show...
Oliver Thompsett OWNED the stage, representing ELO. Quite a sharp contrast to Lee Mead, really... Oliver was your crazy English Teacher who actually rocks!
Tiffany Graves sang "Mein Herr" in homage to Liza Minelli, some fabulous chair dancing from the Wicked ensemble girls.
And Bucks Fizz, the actual, themselves performed! Bless them. They had two boys stripping off as well as the inevitable strip-skirts-off-girls moment. Given that it was a full 30 years after their original performance there, they did well, and the audience loved them.
Act 2 opened with that white suit and the arm-in-air pose... yes, Saturday Night Fever returned! Some great dancing, of course... a few mic problems tho meant we lost the start of "Nights on Broadway". I do love the disco tho!
Wayne Sleep performed his Charlie Chaplin routine... umm... Brilliantly done of course but as i'm not really a fan of Charlie Chaplin I felt it dragged somewhat.
Movin Out with James Fox sitting at the piano singing a medley of songs he used to know... I didn't recognise most of the Billy Joel songs, and my mind was beginning to wander... this was all well and good but I wanted skaters!
The Wicked girls sang a jazzy close harmony medley of Sound of Music, which was interesting, and different... and done well... not sure I LIKED but it was done well!
But next was Bombay Dreams, which was clearly a great reunion for them, there was a lot of excitement from them dancing together again. That was great. On the other hand, each song could have been half the length and I'd have been happy - it all dragged!
THEN AT LONG LAST, Christopher Biggins introduced the Roller Skates! The New London overture cut across him halfway through his blurb, hoorah - we wanted to get on with it!
They started with "This IS control! This IS Control! Tonight...." from Tara Wilkinson. Live. It was only when she went off script that it was apparent she really was doing it live! Carole Amphlett added Mother's lines in live too... and then the original overture/lead into Starlight Sequence, Tara got up, skated Pearl's break from Make Up My Heart! Then BOOM Into Rolling Stock. Led by Lez Dwight. Skating. And falling. But he got up again and continued! With the limited space and augmented ensemble the skating was a little limited but it was so, so good to see it - and hear it in English again! (sorry, Germans, I love the Bochum show too, but it's not MINE. This was MINE!)
Lotta Locomotion was performed in heels, not skates... Later London version was sung by Beverley Braybon as Pearl, Debbie Spellman as Dinah, Sam Lane as Ashley, and Buffy has slipped my memory already. Damn.
Make Up My Heart was a beautiful Quartet from four Pearls! I recognised Kim Leeson, Maria Jane Hyde, Amanda Salmon, and I'm guessing the fourth was Claudia Bradley? Again in heels, more dignified and beautifully sung.
Frances Ruffelle sang UNCOUPLED! It's hard to believe she originally did that number 26 years ago! And she was in skates, slightly simplified choreography than usual but I dunno, was that the version she performed and it has become more set and stylised over time?
Starlight Sequence sung by two of the most famous Rustys! Greg Ellis, now better known for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and recently butchered by "Dexter", sang Rusty, while Ray Shell sang Poppa. They even managed the lighting changes! And Greg SANG out that cry "Starlight Express!"
They did the Star in the Megamix! on the rake! With a grand piano at the back! And there were *6* ROCKIES. Not Hoppers. Orange nosed ROCKIES. Including Rory Williams, and Chris Copeland... Two sets of the weaving trick. It was epic. The whole number was epic. Too much to take in all at once! So many familiar-ish faces, skating by so fast... Besides Greg and Ray, who didn't skate, Paul Whitaker was the only Rusty there to lead an assortment of coaches for his part. There seemed to be 20 coaches taking a bow at their spot! 7, 8 freight, and that was without the Rockies who only came forward for RPRT. Chris Copeland was there for Electra as well as a Rocky - with lightning bolt makeup under the orange bar!
They did without costumes - black "Starlight Express" Tour t-shirts got personalised or just blacks, with skate belts of some description. Lez had a full on Greaseball belt and shades for Rolling Stock, kneepads were mixed up and shared around. Quite a few of the girls who sang in heels changed into skates for the megamix!
The house erupted into a standing ovation - the volume got to the point where I was hearing white noise as the audience was overwhelming in applause. In other words, it went down well :P
But That wasn't quite the end of the show - Biggins came back and finished his credits that got cut off at the beginning of the segment, then led into the final number. Wicked have only 14 years to run to beat Starlight - somehow, not sure it'll happen. They closed the show with a "Glee"-inspired version of "For Good". It was very nice. But after the megamix, it seemed a little... subdued.
Then all the soloists came onstage for final bows, and a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" sung to a building. I'm sure it appreciated it! And just as everyone was pouring off, a few skaters whizzed back onstage one last time... the Starlight had the final word!
As we were slowly, slowly filtering out of the stalls, we happened to be passing the corner of Standing as was when Chris Copeland came out, still in skates and makeup! It took him a second to recognise us, but when it twigged he chatted for a while - he's always been one of my favourite performers and I really appreciated the opportunity to thank him for how much his work, and the whole cast, influenced my life and got me into where I am now! And then as we got out of the foyer we chatted for a few minutes with Algie Williams and Richard Ray Allen, two more of my favourite guys, who always had time to talk to us then, and they're just as lovely now!
The stage door was MANIC - Wilton Road is partly closed with roadworks, and just as well because half the audience was hanging around after the show, and there was just about room for buses to get through the people...
The whole experience was full of joy and fun and good times. No grief, no mourning, just celebration and happiness!
We basically traced the history of the theatre from 1930 to modern day, with act 1 being a variety of tributes to the artists who performed there, and act 2 was the shows. It's gone midnight, it's all a jumble of impressions...
Brilliant to hear the 20th Century Fox ident played live...
Priscilla's Divas paid tribute to the Supremes - all six of them! The three girls were accompanied by three drag queens, in a beautiful mirroring routine. Fabulous!
The Jersey Boys came over and did their promo thang - nice of them to do so on their night off. But it was just what they did at West End Live and any time they need to do a promo.
Sharon D Clarke is a DIVA of the utmost class and quality! She ended up representing both Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin, as Patina Miller didn't show...
Oliver Thompsett OWNED the stage, representing ELO. Quite a sharp contrast to Lee Mead, really... Oliver was your crazy English Teacher who actually rocks!
Tiffany Graves sang "Mein Herr" in homage to Liza Minelli, some fabulous chair dancing from the Wicked ensemble girls.
And Bucks Fizz, the actual, themselves performed! Bless them. They had two boys stripping off as well as the inevitable strip-skirts-off-girls moment. Given that it was a full 30 years after their original performance there, they did well, and the audience loved them.
Act 2 opened with that white suit and the arm-in-air pose... yes, Saturday Night Fever returned! Some great dancing, of course... a few mic problems tho meant we lost the start of "Nights on Broadway". I do love the disco tho!
Wayne Sleep performed his Charlie Chaplin routine... umm... Brilliantly done of course but as i'm not really a fan of Charlie Chaplin I felt it dragged somewhat.
Movin Out with James Fox sitting at the piano singing a medley of songs he used to know... I didn't recognise most of the Billy Joel songs, and my mind was beginning to wander... this was all well and good but I wanted skaters!
The Wicked girls sang a jazzy close harmony medley of Sound of Music, which was interesting, and different... and done well... not sure I LIKED but it was done well!
But next was Bombay Dreams, which was clearly a great reunion for them, there was a lot of excitement from them dancing together again. That was great. On the other hand, each song could have been half the length and I'd have been happy - it all dragged!
THEN AT LONG LAST, Christopher Biggins introduced the Roller Skates! The New London overture cut across him halfway through his blurb, hoorah - we wanted to get on with it!
They started with "This IS control! This IS Control! Tonight...." from Tara Wilkinson. Live. It was only when she went off script that it was apparent she really was doing it live! Carole Amphlett added Mother's lines in live too... and then the original overture/lead into Starlight Sequence, Tara got up, skated Pearl's break from Make Up My Heart! Then BOOM Into Rolling Stock. Led by Lez Dwight. Skating. And falling. But he got up again and continued! With the limited space and augmented ensemble the skating was a little limited but it was so, so good to see it - and hear it in English again! (sorry, Germans, I love the Bochum show too, but it's not MINE. This was MINE!)
Lotta Locomotion was performed in heels, not skates... Later London version was sung by Beverley Braybon as Pearl, Debbie Spellman as Dinah, Sam Lane as Ashley, and Buffy has slipped my memory already. Damn.
Make Up My Heart was a beautiful Quartet from four Pearls! I recognised Kim Leeson, Maria Jane Hyde, Amanda Salmon, and I'm guessing the fourth was Claudia Bradley? Again in heels, more dignified and beautifully sung.
Frances Ruffelle sang UNCOUPLED! It's hard to believe she originally did that number 26 years ago! And she was in skates, slightly simplified choreography than usual but I dunno, was that the version she performed and it has become more set and stylised over time?
Starlight Sequence sung by two of the most famous Rustys! Greg Ellis, now better known for "Pirates of the Caribbean" and recently butchered by "Dexter", sang Rusty, while Ray Shell sang Poppa. They even managed the lighting changes! And Greg SANG out that cry "Starlight Express!"
They did the Star in the Megamix! on the rake! With a grand piano at the back! And there were *6* ROCKIES. Not Hoppers. Orange nosed ROCKIES. Including Rory Williams, and Chris Copeland... Two sets of the weaving trick. It was epic. The whole number was epic. Too much to take in all at once! So many familiar-ish faces, skating by so fast... Besides Greg and Ray, who didn't skate, Paul Whitaker was the only Rusty there to lead an assortment of coaches for his part. There seemed to be 20 coaches taking a bow at their spot! 7, 8 freight, and that was without the Rockies who only came forward for RPRT. Chris Copeland was there for Electra as well as a Rocky - with lightning bolt makeup under the orange bar!
They did without costumes - black "Starlight Express" Tour t-shirts got personalised or just blacks, with skate belts of some description. Lez had a full on Greaseball belt and shades for Rolling Stock, kneepads were mixed up and shared around. Quite a few of the girls who sang in heels changed into skates for the megamix!
The house erupted into a standing ovation - the volume got to the point where I was hearing white noise as the audience was overwhelming in applause. In other words, it went down well :P
But That wasn't quite the end of the show - Biggins came back and finished his credits that got cut off at the beginning of the segment, then led into the final number. Wicked have only 14 years to run to beat Starlight - somehow, not sure it'll happen. They closed the show with a "Glee"-inspired version of "For Good". It was very nice. But after the megamix, it seemed a little... subdued.
Then all the soloists came onstage for final bows, and a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" sung to a building. I'm sure it appreciated it! And just as everyone was pouring off, a few skaters whizzed back onstage one last time... the Starlight had the final word!
As we were slowly, slowly filtering out of the stalls, we happened to be passing the corner of Standing as was when Chris Copeland came out, still in skates and makeup! It took him a second to recognise us, but when it twigged he chatted for a while - he's always been one of my favourite performers and I really appreciated the opportunity to thank him for how much his work, and the whole cast, influenced my life and got me into where I am now! And then as we got out of the foyer we chatted for a few minutes with Algie Williams and Richard Ray Allen, two more of my favourite guys, who always had time to talk to us then, and they're just as lovely now!
The stage door was MANIC - Wilton Road is partly closed with roadworks, and just as well because half the audience was hanging around after the show, and there was just about room for buses to get through the people...
The whole experience was full of joy and fun and good times. No grief, no mourning, just celebration and happiness!