Ruddigore or The Witche's Curse

I love going to Operas - even just to watch the conductor.
Its so funny how much these guys get into it. They wave their little sticks about like crazy, making happy faces for light, happy music and mad scrunchy-up faces for loud dramatic music. And when its all over, they put their hands out to acknowledge the musicians. The musicians in the pit. The musicians WHO WE CAN'T SEE! I felt like yelling this out today (my mum also commented on this after the overture which is, in itself, scary), but I put up with it for fear of knowing people in the audience (which was a good thing, cause I did).
Neway, as I was saying, I've been to see Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore (I'm a little obsessed with G&S, can you tell?), performed by a youth theatre company. Now, usually I see the words "Youth theatre" and run - but this is G&S and I hadn't seen Ruddigore on stage before, so decided to give it a shot. It was actually quite good - some of the girls had absolutely amazing voices (damn!), but have discovered that teenage boys just aren't meant for baritone - which is what most of the male roles required. But all in all, it was vg.
What's really scary though is when you notice that someone you know (or atleast I think I may have met once... or perhaps have simply heard enough gossip about to have formed an opinion of) is playing one of the leads. Fair enough.

Fuuuunny story - you know in movies when anyone is on stage something invariably catches on fire? Well, thats pretty much what happened today! One of the sparkler-cracker things (oh I don't know what they're called! But you press a button and they make a little explosion! Moving on) caught on fire! So, in the middle of an important scene one of the stagehands had to run on, unplug the offending flame and run off stage with it.
Fun all round!

Alright now, I’m off to do something more constructive – like watch Tv! Hmm… only sport… oooh – Iron Chef’s on at 830? I’m there!

Cheers!

C.