We ventured down to the Smoke during the big freeze for a night at the theatre. Surprisingly, our train ride both to and from London was untroubled by the threat of snow drifts wafting across the frozen flatlands. Our West End treat was Matilda, the RSC musical adapted from Roald Dahl’s dark parable of good and evil. The gong-drenched pantomime was a slick, visually stunning, superbly staged, brilliantly choreographed, foot-tapping extravaganza that left a warm glow like a vintage brandy on a chilly night. The performance was only slightly marred by the quartet of ladies sitting immediately behind us who provided a running commentary while rustling their way through a hundredweight of Maltesers. Every appearance of a cute child on stage was greeted with an “aah” and, since much of the cast is made up of cute kiddies, there were a lot of aahs to sit through. A word of caution, the deafening crescendo of pre-pubescent sopranos singing in perfect harmony might crack your glasses and make your ears bleed.
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How was the Trunchball? Suitably vile?
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Fabulously revolting!
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So many musicals these days. I haven’t heard Matilda was one too. Oooh and aaahh.
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🙂
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I love Matilda. Don’t know the musical though… The Malteser ladies sound profoundly irritating. I have a really low tolerance threshold for that kind of thing, and have been known to stalk out of cinemas in protest at paper bag-rattling, running commentary-making audience members, having given them a piece of my mind, with my embarrassed husband running behind me!!
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I was sorely tempted 😉
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Oh I love Matilda. It was my daughter’s favourite book as a child, and I enjoyed the film too. Would love to see the musical.
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Maybe when you next visit Blighty?
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I’m a great fan of Tim Minchin so even though I’m not a lover of musicals, I could probably sit through this one.
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It is very different from the standard fare so I think it will run and run.
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