10th January It's behind you

Which is of course NOT referring to the best years of my life seeing as I have yet to reach my peak. It is a clue to where 'TOM' and I ended up on Saturday night, alongside 750 other 9 months to 90 yr olds enjoying the Beauty and the Beast pantomime at the Nottingham Playhouse. 

We had gone primarily to take TOM's 11yr old great neice as part of her Christmas present but being nothing but two big kids at heart we enjoyed it as much as she did. Probably more to be honest.

It's been years since I have been to a similar theatre production and I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised that it was not simply a reproduction of the original film or recent Disney remake (probably due to copyright issues I suspect) but whilst following the basic story it was also flexible enough to explore other themes. The musical score was also thoroughly modern with snippets of at least 20 contemporary pop songs thrown in, which even got TOM shuffling in his seat at one point.

There was as one might expect at such an occasion lots of audience participation, an expected 'It's behind you' moment when giant spiders descended from the ceiling, an invite for a couple of children to go up on stage, an audience action song, a stirring version of Ladbaby favourite 'I love sausage rolls' and courtesy of a very good pantomime dame, several very adult jokes thrown in for good measure which I for one am hoping went right over the had of an 11yr old!!

It was lovely to just be out and about doing something normal in the midst of what are still very unusual times that are unfortunately not behind us just yet.

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