Musical Theatre Tag

I've found two Musical Theatre Tag Quizzes and I'm putting them into one big interesting (hopefully!) post...

1. What was the first musical you ever saw? It was either Joseph or the Sound of Music, unless you can count Postman Pat Live?

2. What was your favourite musical growing up? I was obsessed with Oliver! I wanted to be in it, I had an Olver themed birthday party. I wanted to be the Artful Dodger when I grew up!

3. Were you ever in a musical? Loads in school and in amateur dramatics, mostly recently The Mystery of Edwin Drood and South Pacific.

4. What was the first musical you saw in the West End? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

5. If you could be any female character in any musical who would you be and why? Cathy in Singin' in the Rain.

6. Which male character? Jerry Travers in Top Hat because then I could go Puttin on the Ritz and dance Cheek to Cheek and all that.

7. Favourite musical song to sing in the shower? Genuinely, Gonna Wash That Man RIght Outta My Hair, because I need to know it by May!

8. Who is your favourite theatre actress? Summer Strallen.

9. Actor? Hadley Fraser for now but it will change soon, probably!

10. Favourite film adaptation of a musical? The Sound of Music, I don't think you need a reason.

11. What do you think is the most underrated musical? Titanic, very different to the film but I'm obsessed with it. We need it in the West End.

12. Overrated musical? Wicked, the songs are incredibly overhyped and the nasal sound of all the screeching (by this I mean singing) oh give me strength! 

13. What musical made you cry? Miss Saigon, just the thought of it :(

14. What musical made you laugh? Silk Stockings

15. Are there any musicals you saw and hated? Into the Woods, D-U-L-L. Sorry I just don't get why people like it but obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

16. What musicals do you want to see as a film? Miss Saigon or Titanic, again.

17. Which musicals are you dying to see? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

18. Any movie or book you think should be turned into a musical? Phoenix and the Carpet and A Walk to Remember.

19. What is your all time favourite musical? Singin in the Rain.

British Saturday Night TV

I'm not really talking about ITV here who I think still have a pretty good Saturday night entertainment schedule but what has happened to BBC 1?! I know it's the summer and things tend to get boring and dreary on TV round about now and that in autumn/winter we have the Strictly and X Factor battle. However, I'm sure I remember even as recently as 2 years ago having really good family entertainment shows on BBC1 all year round. Now I understand there's cuts and things but a Puppet hosted show and 'I Love My Country' are to be totally honest, absolute drivel! I feel so sorry for the people presenting and participating in these programmes!
The Muppets were good but I'm afraid nowadays anything like that is going to struggle to top them.
What about a revert back to something the whole family can enjoy like a Variety Show or a Generation Game style thing. Why was Total Wipeout axed. Crystal Maze/It's a knockout?   I'm sure I speak for many others when I say I miss this kind of wholesome entertainment rather than some American woman wiggling and thrusting her various assets at me through the screen.

Or how about a good Drama. What has happened to all the great adaptations of classic children's books that we used to get. Everyone loved those. Nowadays children have to suffer with cartoon nonsense and American comedy weirdness.

My message is thus, BRING BACK GOOD TV!!

Blog suspended during exams

I have made the sad decision to suspend my blog during exam season. I should be back on May 19th all being well.
I went to see High Society at the theatre 2 weeks ago and I rate it 10/10. It's on tour in the UK at the moment so I recommend it to you all. The lady next to me was resting her feet on the barrier of the orchestra pit. Now what if that had collapsed on the players below? Some people just don't think. She was acting like a teenager at the back of a cinema when she was really 60 and in a theatre! Grrrrrr!
Anyway bye for now!

Miss Pencil

TV Review: Comic Relief does Glee Club

I have several feelings about this program that I want to discuss. Yes it is primarily a children's program but it is definitetly for the older kids and big kids like myself. I am interested in choirs and glee clubs, show choirs and that sort of thing so I tune in every year. The trouble is, things seem to be going from bad to worse.

The first series was good, really good. The groups stuck to good songs with simple tunes and a lot of them did musical theatre performances which were really brilliant.

The next series was the worse, nobody sung a show tune or older song (maybe they weren't allowed, I dunno) it was all recent pop songs.The trouble with songs these days is that they are really hard to sing (most singers today just seem to screech) or there's a difficult rap or rhythm in there or something. The kids were trying to put harmonies in which just weren't there and they were all out of tune. Most of these songs just don't have harmonies to go with them. Not many people write songs with good harmonies anymore. If they had sung a showtune or older song, things would have been much easier for them and they would have been able to stick somewhat in tune.

The series which has just finished was on the whole better, still some awful recent songs in there (did we really have to hear Wings by Little Mix, THREE TIMES!! There are thousands of other songs you could hsve picked.). On the other hand we had some kids doing Gospel and musical theatre and they were getting all the best praise from the judges. they seemed to be having the most fun as well. Lots of these groups were formed from drama schools and said they were really keen on musicals and then they came out and screeched along to some Katy Perry song, why not play to your strengths!

I also think loads of these songs aren't suitable for kids aged 8-12 (the age group CBBC is aimed at). The lyrics are sometimes incredibly unsuitable and there's the swearing (which they had to block out of course but they know it's there). Do the really young kids in the groups have any clue what they are singing about? If you don't know the meaning of the song, it's incredibly hard to put any sort of feeling into it.

By siinging all these recent hits over and over again. It makes kids think these are the only songs available to listen to. Kids should have the opportunity to listen to older (and better, haha!) songs and a program like CRDGC would be an excellent program to showcase some older songs on. Or songs from other genres other than pop. Like I say, the best groups were the ones who broadened the scope of their performances.

FInally why do producers of kids TV shows think that children have the memory of a millipede? At the start of each show we have to have about 5 minutes of repetition of what happened yesterday! I'm sure the kids can remember, they are not that stupid! Anyone who missed the previous show has probably watched it on Iplayer by now anyway. The constant going backstage to 'see how the groups are feelng' drives me nuts. All the groups are feeling nervous and excited, you'd expect them to be! We don't need constant reminding. In some of the shows it took 11 minutes to actually get round to the siinging. 11 MINUTES!!

I'm not going to be watching next year. I can't bear it any more.

Miss Pencil

Musing on Comedians

I don't know about you but I just don't find most of the popular comedians funny. Especially male comedians. I don't find them offensive or anything like that, they just don't make me laugh. Some people have a really big obsession with comedians and go to see them at the theatre all the time. The prospect of doing that doesn't fill me with excitement I have to say. Everybody else seems to love them but I'm just not keen.
 However there are two female comedians/comediennes that I do think are very good and funny. Miranda Hart and Sarah Millican. I think its because instead of telling jokes and stuff, they talk about funny things that have happened in their lives. Silly accidents and that sort of thing. I am very accident prone myself and I have lots of stories from school and uni about funny  and silly things that have happened. So that's why I think I prefer this kind of comedian. Its strange that male comedians don't seem to do this as much but maybe they're just embarrased about their silly stories and don't want to share them!
Sarah Millican talks about the TV programmes she finds funny as does Harry Hill. I love watching TV too so I reckon that's why I like those too. They often have the same opinions of programmes that I watch that I have!
Anyone from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue or Just a Minute is really funny as is Stephen Fry because he is so clever and likes learning random facts, like me!

But Michael Mcintyre, Lee Nelson, Russell Howard, Lee Evans, the list goes on. I just can't get excited about them. Sorry!

Clever tricks lecturers use

Our lecturer played a clever trick on us on Monday. I'll set the scene for you.

So our lecturer has been talking for about an hour about Team Goals and Communication. There is a quiet rumble at the back of the lecture theatre as people talk. You can sense a feeling of restlessness from the back half of the class and a feeling of restlessness from the front as we try nad concentrate over all the whispering and muttering going on!
It's two o clock (this is a two hour lecture by the way, 1 to 3pm) and our lecturer looks at his watch and says.
"Okay I'll give you a break now. We'll carry on with this in 5 minutes." The guy behind me says to his mate:
"He does drag on, hurry up!" Well with respect this is a 2 hour lecture so he's not going to talk for just an hour and give up is he?!
The majority of the back half of the class geta up and leaves. they think the lecturer thinks they're just going to the loo or to get a coffee, but they're taking their bags and coats with them. They're leaving, for good.
Once everyone is out the door (two minutes later) our lecturer says,
"Right now they've gone we can get on with this. What we had in the first hour was an overview. Now this is the stuff really related to your assignment and exam." Brilliant! He's saved all the important stuff for after the whsiperers have left! Now they are severely disadvantaged for the exam and our essay and it's all their own fault. No one came back into the room after 5 minutes, seriously no one! Just us front half who actually want to learn here now!

This has been botherig me for a while now. Lectures are compulsory at uni and if you miss the odd one through illness or family or traffic problems so be it. But to not want to listen in a lecture, isn't the idea of uni that you are supposed to come to lectures to learn? Why are you at uni if you don't want to come to lectures? It's a waste of time AND money. It seems sad to me that some people are happy to waste their parents money like that. Or worse if you're paying to be at uni, your money!
This excellent article shows me I am not alone in pondering this mystery.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/in-holland-university-is-a-reward-for-hard-work--why-do-british-students-think-so-differently-8510200.html?fb_action_ids=4601237030534%2C10200801185854700%2C10152582213910597%2C10152582211765597%2C10152582200990597&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%224601237030534%22%3A132185716957105%2C%2210200801185854700%22%3A132185716957105%2C%2210152582213910597%22%3A10151660949548484%2C%2210152582211765597%22%3A593759220651742%2C%2210152582200990597%22%3A434264533310859%2C%2210151536413314948%22%3A434344563306541%7D

The comments at the bottom are anoying. They're basically saying that anyone at a 'former polytechnic' or former 'teaching training college' doesn't want to work. Not true. the majority of us do.
I know this isn't my problem and I shouldn't be worrying about it. I'm not worried just curious as to why some poeple think this is the right way to behave at university.

Bumblebee Poem

I thought I'd share one of my poems on my blog this week. It's about a Bumblebee and the setting is totally up to your imagination.
The Bumblebee Poem

I look to the sky with both of my eyes
And guess what I see, a pretty surprise
It's yellow and black and goes buzz when it flies
After it's stung you it curls up and dies
I look to see the bumble bee
And I see it coming straight for me
From the table I quickly fled
It won't catch me behind the shed!


Miss Pencil