London Adventure Pt 2 - Shows

I'm doing this post first because I know my third post is going to be massive.  But moving on, what would a trip to London be without taking in a show?  I was so excited to get to see not 1, but 2 shows!  The first one, a play, I saw Monday night.

Jeeves and Wooster is a play based on a series of books by PG Wodehouse.  It was also made into a sitcom in the early 90s.  It's a very British story and I only knew about it because Stacey had introduced me to it in high school.  I thought they were very cute so I was excited to see a play about it.  Plus, I figured this wasn't something likely to come to New York anytime soon.  The other other reason I wanted to see it is that it starred two fairly big names in UK television.  Matthew Madfadyen is in a BBC America show called Ripper Street and Stephen Mangan is in a few BBC shows but is also in the show Episodes with Matt LeBlanc.

The storyline is basically about a wealthy British gentleman named Bertie Wooster and his valet named Jeeves.  Bertie gets himself into all kinds of trouble that Jeeves then has to get him out of.  Jeeves also gently pushes Bertie into whatever direction he wants him to go, most of the time without him even knowing it!  The play was set up as if Bertie was telling the story so he was both narrator and character and kept breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience and explain what was going on.  Besides Jeeves there was only one other actor so they ended up playing multiple roles, sometimes one actor playing multiple characters in the same scene!  It was extremely funny and I had a great time.

Here's a little sneak peek into what it was like



And just for fun, this is from the show from the 90s



Friday night, I was able to see a musical with my boss.  She also likes theatre so we had fun chatting about all things theatre and Broadway before and after the show.

The second show I saw is called From Here to Eternity, based on the novel (that to tell the truth I had never heard of).  It takes place in Hawaii during World War II and ends on the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  The music is by Tim Rice and I liked what I saw in the youtube preview so I figured it would make for an interesting show.  While I'm glad I went, I'm not sure it's really the best show I've ever seen.

I really enjoyed the music, though I'm not certain any of it was particularly memorable.  The dancing and singing was fantastic.  The biggest problem I had was with the book and the storyline. There were several romantic triangles, but I really didn't feel like I cared about any of the characters. They weren't developed and so I found it wasn't very believable.  Also a lot of people died considering it was a fairly upbeat musical.  So I don't think it's going to make it across the pond to Broadway, but I did enjoy it and I'm glad I went!

The promo is definitely fun though!