Anyone who knows me well knows that my (not so) guilty pleasure is my love of musicals. I even have a spreadsheet (although technically developed by my sister) - although that could just be saying something about my love of spreadsheets really. I've now seen 38 different professional musicals and many of them more than once. On the way to the cinema I saw an advert for Wicked (possibly my favourite musical but it changes from time to time - mood dependent) and said to Adi that I reallyyy want to go. His response was that I've seen it twice (I've actually seen it three times, but I wasn't about to tell him that). My response was that he's seen more than two football matches. He said that each football is different, so I said that each performance is different. Anyway, you get my gist.
The point is that I call myself an avid theatre lover, but really it's largely confined to musicals. It's not that I don't enjoy plays, but given the choice I'd always see a musical as I just get taken away by the songs (it has to be a non-cheesy, cheesy musical). When I saw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time advertised, I decided I should go. I was able to get tickets through Adi's work at our local cinema for a live hook up of the National Theatre production in London. I read the book years ago so was intrigued and excited to see how it would work as a stage production.
It always astonishes me how people have the imagination to bring words to life in such a creative way. It was an incredibly powerful piece with all credit to the director and lead actor. The combination of the actors' movement with lighting and sound from the gridded set really helped you get inside the lead character Christopher Boone's mind.
Perhaps having a child recently made it have an even bigger impression on me, as I had to question how I would cope in such a scenario, if my child had Asperga's or Autism. I also had a surprising amount of empathy with the mother, who is not really a likeable character.
I'm not a great reviewer, I thought I'd give it a shot, but I've decided posting a link to better reviews makes more sense. I can just say, if you have the opportunity to go and see it, do.
The Guardian review & Live Theatre review
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