The National Lottery Big Night of Musicals

Hubby and I were delighted to have managed to get tickets for The National Lottery Big Night of Musicals in Manchester. To be honest we knew nothing about it until we saw Jason Manford on Morning Live at 9.40 saying tickets went live at 10am ... short notice hey! 

The tickets were free as a thank you from The National Lottery, DH was online at 10am and was 2,900 in the queue but managed to get two tickets 'best seats available' 

Our best seat available tickets were so so high up,  I could not look forwards until I was sitting down and I was quite nervous when I had to stand to let people past. We have been to sport stadiums and other arenas and it is quite scary being on the higher levels but it's a great view. in the third photo you can see us, we're the dark patch just above the light. My other photos are not great as, like I said, we were a long way up but should give you a flavour of the event.

The atmosphere was amazing, we had such fun in the warm up, lots of practice clapping and equipment wearing (I won't say as it will spoil the show). Everyone happily sang, clapped and swayed along to a variety of songs. The excitement grew even more when Jason Manford arrived on stage, our super host for the evening. 

There were over 13 different musicals, a performance from each. My absolute favourite was Les Miserables, no surprise there, but Hamilton was amazing as was The Bodyguard. Without giving all the line up away my last two photos are The King and I and Six, both stunning performances.

All the music was played live by a great orchestra who were also on stage. I was mesmerised by the harp in Les Miserables.

It was amazing night, very very interesting to see how a tv 'live' show is recorded, it was definitely all live, no second chances for any performances. Our appreciation was shown by the huge round of applause from the audience as the night ended, it was just amazing. 

The National Lottery's Big Night of Musicals will be on the tv soon .... it's a show not to be missed!

Les Miserables in Cardiff

Hubby surprised me on Christmas Day with tickets to see Les Miserables in Cardiff. 

I have walked past, and admired the Millennium Centre so many times. I was as excited to go inside as I was to see my absolute favourite show.

The words are actually windows, a clever way of illuminating them without extra lighting, the entire building is environmentally conscientious. It was quite surreal to stand behind Crev. 

Our seats were very high up but thankfully there were plenty of rails along each row. The first time we saw Les Miserables was at the Palace Theatre on the corner of Shaftsbury Avenue in London. 

We sat in the Gods then and I was captured not only by the story and the music but by how the stage setting was so clever to ensure even those looking down were kept in the story ... when Fantine passed away the bed was carried completely off stage, not just into the dark ... that for me makes Les Miserables so absorbing.

This production met that perfectly, everything we saw was the story. In truth if you haven't seen Les Miserables before you may wish to sit lower down as face recognition it tricky from on high, the main characters are obvious but having seen it over 10 times I can now enjoy observing the other characters. That said I enjoyed every 'word perfect mouthing' second!

The live orchestra was superb although we couldn't see them. I have always wanted to play the harp which has some important moments i  Les Miserables. A huge round of applause to all the musicians.

A massive massive thank you to my thoughtful superb Hubby ... what a treat!