London Day 4: Wicked Musical @ Apollo Theatre (11 December 2013)

Super backlog! Anyway decided to do this post before the rest because it’s one of the highlights of London for me. What’s London without a musical??? There’s tons to choose from! It was really hard for me to choose which musical to go to because my travelling buddy gave me the power to choose. I was really thinking between Phantom of the Opera, Matilda, Jersey Boys or Wicked. I watched Wicked and POTO before and actually wasn’t too keen to watch them again, especially since I watched POTO at MBS in August. My travelling buddy wasn’t much of a literature, musical girl, so I had to find one that she will not sleep on and my best bet is Wicked, since I’ve watched it before. Wicked is the one and only musical so far, that I wouldn’t yawn in it, because the plot is interesting and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is going to watch a musical for the first time.

We did not buy the tickets online because we wanted to buy it last minute at a cheaper rate for a better seat. But who knows, after the scamming incident at Westminster which we eventually played smart but still got conned of 1 pound and a few Euros, we decided that having so much pounds on us ain’t a good idea. So I was like “Let’s just go ahead and the get good seats.” We randomly stopped by a ticketing office which is small, off Oxford street if I remember correctly. There’s a two selling discounted tickets but we got ours at Picbox because the guy was quite friendly despite us not buying the first time we went. So we got seats in the first 20 rows, for 46 pounds, close to 92SGD!

Apollo Victoria theatre

It’s not difficult to locate the theater because it’s near Victoria station, just 5 mins walk! We had a look on the map at the subway station just in case!

still have time to spare, so let us take a selfie first

We were actually quite infront!

Decided to get popcorn since we were had time to kill before it starts and still cash rich in pounds due because we didn’t have the luggage space to buy anything in London. Popcorn costs 5 pounds, which is roughly 10SGD.

Verdict: Good show. As much as my quiet friend is shy about her comments, I’m pretty sure she enjoyed it as much as I did. The theater was abit old but the orchestra did an amazing job. I guess sitting in front changes the perspective. The theater weren’t filled up, so maybe if you’re lucky you can shift to the front, but let’s have some integrity shall we?

This could be my imagination, but I seemed to have heard “Let It Go” sang by Elphaba, because when I listened to that song, my first notion was “WICKED”.

Phantom of the Opera @ MBS

A break from the staycation posts, going to blog about PHANTOM OF THE OPERA which I caught a few hours after I ended my staycation. I went home to rest and went out again. Quite tiring though, but already bought the tickets >< and recently they added another 2 more shows due to the overwhelming response.

Buying tickets;
I bought the tickets in late May, early June (can’t remember). But I was procrastinating a lot as we’ve no idea about our schedule yet. Yk might have exams during that period so it was a risk buying then. But after some analysing, I figured out that there won’t be any exams during the 2 PH so we went for 7 Aug 8pm show. Because I waited quite long to buy it, I could only get seats from the last few rows, or a few rows down where the seats are at the side. I had to choose between Row O (3 seats from the side) or Row M (side seats) and I went for Row O. Thank goodness the structure of the theatre allows the audience to view the play even if you’re very high up. I thought that the 2 rows difference won’t be significant. I was right! Previously I watched Wicked at the same theatre and I was at Row L. Anyway the ticket I bought was the $58 one.

The musical (some spoilers);
The opening started with an auction. I think the old lady in the wheelchair is Christine. A monkey musical ‘box’ was on auction and Christine bought it because it belongs to the phantom once. And the next item on auction was the chandelier, which was very well known at the theatre during the time when the phantom was terrorising the opera house. After which, the orchestra started playing the very famous Overture, scene shifted to many many years back when the phantom was still around, and the chandelier came to life. It was of grandeur, glory and gold.

I didn’t know the phantom’s a real living person, and not like a zombie or something!! I wiki-ed and it says that he’s a musical genius (he taught Christine to sing) and that he designed part of the opera house that’s why he’s able to make himself disappear so quick. Everything was engineered!

They said no photography but I couldn’t resist. There were so many other people taking pictures. there’re even some people who took photo of the chandelier coming to life.

we quickly took this

My take on PoTO;
I really love the songs of PoTO, I think the orchestra did an amazing job. They are Singaporeans who auditioned prior to the start. WOO, major thumbs up! And I really love the Phantom (Brad Little)’s voice. AMAZING VOCALS. He totally brings out the phantom’s character! Of course he received the loudest applause (from me, and from the audience too). There’s some parts where I couldn’t catch what they were saying, but nevertheless I still enjoyed the songs. Okay I admit some parts were abit boring (those without phantom in it) but overall, I still will go and watch again if they tour to Singapore once more! The only grip I had was that I couldn’t see the phantom’s face (without the mask) from where I was sitting -.-

Anyway check out the video below. It’s from one of the scenes of PoTO where the phantom took Christine to his lair for the first time. The very same phantom (Brad Little) and Christie (Claire Lyon) who acted in the musical I watched!

The Singapore advertisement.

on a note, school is starting tomorrow. I won’t be posting so frequently though. You can check back every two days to see if I’ve scheduled up anything! 🙂