La La Land and the Top 5 Musicals of All Time

Ross Keniston - writer, presenter, interviewer...and my partner! - has just launched his brand new venture, Micstand. It starts with weekly podcasts talking about, well, whatever people want to talk about really. For week one he wanted to discuss La La Land and, since he and I saw the film together and disagree on rather a lot of points, he asked me to be his first guest. I hope our discussion is of interest to people and I'd love to hear other people's views on the film. Do you agree with Ross, me or have an entirely different view? Have a listen to the podcast and get in touch with your thoughts.

For the second part, we shared our personal top five favourite musicals of all time. I won't list them here, you'll need to listen to the podcast, but again I'd love to chat to you about your own personal top fives, what you think we missed and what you think we definitely shouldn't have included. Leave a comment or get in touch.

There are plenty of ways you can listen to the podcast. It's on Mixcloud, YouTube and iTunes so there's no excuses - listen now! Oh, and you can follow Micstand on Twitter too!

January Roundup

Here's the shows, a comedy gig and a film that I've seen in January 2017 with links to reviews, podcasts and tweets from me about them:

Mary Poppins, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (5 January)

Peter Pan, New Theatre, Cardiff (6 January)

Impractical Jokers Santiago Sent Us tour, Manchester Arena (12 January)

La La Land, Vue, Cardiff (16 January)

Sunny Afternoon, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff (17 January)

A Regular Little Houdini, Chapter, Cardiff (27 January)

Theatrical New Year's Resolutions - One Year On

I'd completely forgotten about my blog post from last January, Theatrical New Year's Resolutions, until I just happened upon it. Considering, I haven't done too badly at sticking to it. The gist of it was to see more theatre, particularly Welsh theatre, but theatre in general - as much and as varied as possible.

Let's start with the productions that I've covered for The Reviews Hub. I completed just 7 reviews in 2015 and 18 in 2016...that's definitely seeing more theatre! Here's what I covered:

Play/Silence – The Other Room, Cardiff

Henry VI – Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Sand – The Other Room, Porter’s, Cardiff

Smash It Up – Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

St. Nicholas – The Other Room, Cardiff

Mr. and Mrs. Laughton – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Cosy – Weston Studio, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Only The Brave – Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Tell Me on a Sunday – New Theatre, Cardiff

Jem & Ella – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Constellation Street – The Other Room, Porter’s, Cardiff

Mrs Reynolds a’r Cena Bach (Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian) – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

The Importance of Being Earnest – The Gate Arts Centre, Cardiff

A Sunny Disposition -The Other Room, Porter’s, Cardiff

Black Stuff – Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Blavatsky’s Tower– Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff

Before I Leave – Sherman Theatre, Cardiff

Swarm – Bute Town History and Arts Centre, Cardiff

I'm really pleased with the increase in reviews I was able to write last year but I haven't reviewed anything since August! Imagine if I'd kept up that momentum all year! So that's the aim in 2017, keep reviewing all year.

There are plenty of Welsh productions on that list, which is great and something that I'd like to keep up this year. I'm most proud of my first ever review of a Welsh language production, and thanks to one of my fantastic editors, it was published bilingually - a first for The Public Reviews!

Of course I saw plenty of productions that I wasn't reviewing but I'm rather rubbish at remembering what I've seen when so that's another aim for 2017 - keep a record of every processional production that I see.

I had two big theatrical adventures that I intend devoting separate blog posts to. I got my first experience of the Edinburgh Fringe last year thanks to a certain cloth puppet called Fred, and an epic weekend in London involving No Man's Land, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Lazarus was our holiday.

I'm really lucky that working on Hijinx Unity Festival means that I get to see some fantastic international theatre and call it work. The highlight of the 2016 festival was easily Falling in Love with Frida - spellbinding from start to finish!

There is one that will definitely stick in my mind from last year. I had a very proud dance teacher moment seeing one of my girls dancing in the RCT Theatres pantomime, Dick Whittington!

I also intended blogging more in 2016 and didn't make it past January so let's see if I can do better with that too!