OUR HOUSE, Cambridge Theatre, London, 12 July 2003

I went with Feli, as former CATS Mungojerrie Matthew Cross was in it. The musical was fun, Matthew was great, both in terms of singing as well as dancing.
The choreography was wonderfully energetic, with lots of jumps and backflips included. The cast was primarily composed of young performers, who all did a good job.
The lyrics were rather flat, instead of deep and stirring as probably intended. The main “Two paths’ theme” recurred often enough for it to seem old and repetitive. The story was divided in two plots, which, especially in the first half, was quite confusing.

Staging was new, unique, with few props; the music at times too loud, drowning out the lyrics completely. The male lead (cute little guy ;D) affected an accent from Camden town (where the musical was set, if I remember correctly), which I had the feeling was a bit too stilted to be authentic.
Most interesting songs were “Our House”, which I thought I’d heard somewhere before, “Baggy Trousers”, starring Matthew as the school boy offender, and then “Driving in my Car”, which was fun due to the thinly veiled references to *Grease*, *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang*, *Star Wars* (the lights were turned out and the cast brought out illuminated lightsabres ;D), and *Titanic* (the “I’m flying, Jack” scene).

THE CHAPEL (Pub in Penton Road), 17 August, 2003

There was a pub performance scheduled and Tiffany Graves, an ex-CATs performer (Cassandra, u/s Bombalurina) was performing. Went with Feli, Swan and Swan’s husband. We were at the pub at 8pm, the performance only started at 8.45pm though.
It was wonderful – a very different sort of atmosphere, but highly enjoyable. I especially liked Tiffany’s version of “For Your Eyes Only”, which she dedicated to her mum, and “A Hard Day’s Night”, which I thought was miles better than the Beatles’ version (which I love ;D).

Later, we heard Melanie Marshall, who was just *wow*. She had a fabulous voice and sang, among others, “Midnight Train to Georgia”, “Summertime” and a few other Gershwin tunes that showed off her abilities. Dad’ve been thrilled – I sure was ;D.
The keyboard player was excellent, too and there were also a guitarist and a drummer. The pub was, of course, crowded and smoky, but the quality of the performances made up for it and it was certainly a different sort of evening.