Starts brilliantly with ‘Til I hear you sing‘ sung by the extremely talented Ben Ellis (far too young & tall to play the phantom btw) who has the most amazing voice.

The story is set 10 years after the end of Phantom of the opera - the phantom is now an impresario on Coney Island. He lures Christine & Raoul (and their young son) to Coney Island.

Anna O’Byrne is fantastic as Christine and Simon Gleeson is a convincing Raoul. We saw Trent Heath as the couple’s son Gustave.

Possibly my favourite song of the show  The beauty underneath, sung by the Phantom & Gustave, closes out Act 1.

The big number is Act 2 is the title song – sung by Christine, I’m still humming it today.

The choreography is pure Graeme Murphy (think Tivoli) very colourful and complex.

Sharon Millerchip as Meg Ghiry & Maria Mercedes as Madame Ghiry were both excellent acting but (both) seemed to be suffering from croaky voice when it came to singing.

Millerchip’s big number ‘bathing beauties‘  is pure vaudeville style entertainment.

So what about the show overall?

As a sequel to Phantom – maybe not.

As pure theatrical entertainment it’s an overwhelming spectacle.

I enjoyed it.

It was the same cast as last time except for Alex Rathgeber replacing David Harris as Greg.

Our seats were in the middle of the second front row – brilliant seats. (and Todd tends to pick on the people in the front row – in this case the people sitting directly in front of us.)

This is one of my favourite musicals – Todd McKenney is brilliant in the Peter Allen role and sings & dances up a storm.

The whole cast is brilliant. One of the O’Leary brothers (the older one) played the young Peter.

After the bows Todd announced that the cast would be in the foyers collecting for the Queensland Flood Relief  & that so far they’d raised close to $100,000.

Fern Belling (Liza Minnelli) was collecting outside our door – she’s really tiny in real life (and gorgeous) and happily posed for photos with anyone who made a donation.

However prodbro bailed on the show so we took tappingbetty’s elderly neighbour Estelle who wanted to to see it (but didn’t want to go on her own).

As always it was a lot of fun. Matt Lee just gets better & better as Bert, Verity Hunt-Ballard continues to excel as Mary, the children (Hayley Edwards & Callum Hawthorne) were great and the ensemble were wow.

As always, Super cal & Step in time were my highlights (dance wise) and it was fairly obvious that Phillip Quast was having a lot of fun as Mr Banks.

Mum loved it, Estelle loved it, TappingBetty & I loved it.

Must see musical.

What I saw was a rather good, very fun, 60s era musical. Jaz Flowers as the lead, Tracy Turnblad,  wowed us from the minute she arrived on stage.

The whole cast was excellent, Scott Irwin as Corny Collins was having  a lot of fun, Esther Hannaford as Penny – delighfully nerdy.

The musical with its theme of discrimination & integration is directed by David Atkins (Hot Shoe Shuffle) & choreographed by Jason Coleman.

The set makes (excellent) use of large screens ( like huge flat screen tvs) to portray the story, often in cartoon form is a fantastic addition to the stage. Perhaps too much sometimes as I occasionally found myself watching the screens rather than the stage.

All in all a very fun afternoon at the theatre.

Highlights (for me) were:

Chloe Dallimore – Show off (from Drowsy Chaperone)

Chris Horsey, Matt Lee & a couple of others – tap medley

The six finalists were all incredibly talented and it must have been a difficult decision for the judges.

The winner, Francine Cain gets to do acting, singing, & dance classes in New York with some of the industry’s leading practitioners.

The extremely talented Christie Whelan played the title role Sugar Kane. Mitchell Butel & Matt Hetherington were hilarious as the cross dressing musicians Jerry/Daphne & Joe/Josephine.

Peter Lowery showed what a talent he is as Spats. (brilliant tapping).

The songs are largely forgettable – I didn’t leave the theatre humming any of them yet the show was excellent, funny, enjoyable and well worth seeing.

One I could see again easily.

This time round the role of Tony was played by Josh Piterman (one of the Ten Tenors), Maria was played by Julie Goodwin. Rohan Browne was Riff & (stealing the show) was Alinta Chidzey as Anita.

The set was very pared back – lots of black & greys and scaffolding being used to denote New York.

Musical highlights (for me) were Maria sung by josh Piterman, & America sing by Anita & the Puerto Rican girls.

Having only six or so gang members in both the Jets & the Sharks was perhaps a little too pared back  - the rumble seemed a little thin for example.

Still a good production of a favourite musical.

Now I have to state a few things up front..

1. Man of La Mancha is not one of my favourite musicals.

2. The only other La Mancha musical I have seen starred Anthony Warlow & Caroline O’Connor.

So CLOC had a lot to live up to.

Zak Brown as  Cervantes was brilliant. A fantastic voice – a brilliant rendition of The Impossible Dream – a show stopper of a song if ever there was one. And the rest of the cast didn’t disappoint either.

It’s on at the National Theatre in St Kilda until October 2nd.

The show was 20 minutes late starting due to ‘technical difficulties’ (we half expected to get inside  the theatre & see Mary Poppins still hanging from the ceiling).

Verity Hunt-Ballard as Mary Poppins. Wow. Still excellent.

Matt Lee as Bert.  He was brilliant, even better than last time.  Such a stage personality, such a dancer.

Philip Quast & Marina Prior as George & Winifrid Banks. Philip seemed to be enjoying the role even more. He looked to be having a great time on stage.

Debra Byrne as the bird woman, Judi Connelli as Miss Andrew. Both brilliant.

There are five pairs of children playing Jane & Michael Banks. We saw Zoe Gousmett & Kade Hughes. Both were excellent.

Supercal… with its intricate choreography (once again nailed brilliantly by the whole cast)

Step in time – the big tap number – so well done

Can’t wait to see it again.

Bare Soundz is on at the Drama Theatre  at the Sydney Opera House.

The stage is simple.

Three wooden platforms adorn the stage.

Then the  three ‘hoofers’ enter.

Savion Glover - they guy can tap. Half the time he is tapping with his eyes closed – but the sounds are awesome. He uses the whole shoe -taps, soles, toes, sides. He is totally engrossed in the sound & the dance.

Maurice Chestnut – big guy, also an awesome tapper. He starts out laying down a background rhythm for Glover’s more showy tap but then in a series of vignettes he shows just how special a ‘hoofer’ he is.

Marshall Davis Jnr - more of an ‘old style’ tapper. More upright. slighter in build than Chestnut but, like Chestnut, an awesome tapper in his own right.

There was no musical backing or accompaniement. Just three guys tapping.

My favourite routine of the evening was probably “I only have eyes for you”. Where Glover sang the old standard & the three of them delivered an old fashioned, old style tap routine.

Just fantastic.