Jesse Owen

Hmm, isn’t that an interesting photo – flash wouldn’t go off on my camera for some reason so I’ve got it in silhouette form lol!

Anyhoo, for anyone who didn’t know yesterday I went to London for the London production of Sister Act The Musical at the London Palladium (matinee) and this is (for anyone who cares lol) what happened.

I was on the 040 Bristol to London national express coach which left Bristol Marlbourough Bus Station at 8:45am!!! I still can’t believe it costs the same amount to get to London from Bristol (£6) as it does to get from Bristol to Bath.

As I arrive in London at Victoria I can’t help but take a photo of my current favourite London theatre – the Apollo Victoria, home to the absolutley fantastic Wicked! It looks fab in the day but it’s in the night when it looks like something else. Sadly it was daylight so I had to make do with a daylight one!

First stop on my list was Buckingham Palace (I’ve never been and I had a few hours to kill) – it’s HUGE. I got there and the crowds were out in their hordes but managed to grab a picture of the guards before standing way back to try and get a picture of the palace – I couldn’t get it all in, no matter how much I tried.

Next, I was off to Dress Circle in Covent Garden – well I say this, that was the planned destination but I kind of missed the turning off Shaftesbury Avenue (oops!) and ended walking up a little too far, but a bit of guessing and a lot of ‘I must be heading roughly in the right direction’ and I eventually found Monmouth Street.

The shop is full of musical theatre products from CDs to merchandise to programmes and music books – heaven! While I was in there they even put on the Legally Blonde London cast recording – sounded awesome. I bought the Avenue Q Companion book – all orange and fury

From there it was very easy to see how I missed the turning (and added a good 20 minutes in walking time) as I got back onto Shaftesbury Avenue in about five minutes. Then it was onto the London Palladium through quite probably a less than standard route – down along the side of the Gielgud Theatre and walking basically in almost a straight line (with one left turning).

Thinking about it, it explains why I ended up at the stage door of the London Palladium (almost completely missed it). Anyway a little walk further down followed by a right turn into Argyll Street and I was there – Sister Act was fabulous despite being Whoppi Goldberg-less (best wishes of course go to her and her family). It’s such a fun and uplifting musical with tons of comedy moments – not to mention fab sets and music. Helen Walsh did a great job of standing in for Whoppi in the role of Mother Superior.

Coming back out of the Palladium, the weather had changed from being lovely and sunny as it had been when I went in to being grey, rainy and drizzily. From there I took the short journey down to the London Eye (couldn’t resist not having a look – having now been to London three times and not seeing it would have been tragic lol).

A quick bus ride back to Victoria and I was back on the coach back to Bristol – all in all a great day.

P.S A review of Sister Act will be appearing on my Musical Theatre blog in the next day or so

Let the countdown begin (well for me anyway), next Saturday I’ll be hopping on a National Express coach (train is sadly out of my price range) across to London (yipeee) to see Sister Act – The Musical at the London Palladium.

The thing is that the performance starts at 3pm and lasts for around 2 and a half hours but I should be arriving in London at around 11:20am and I won’t be leaving until 8pm from the *ahem* glamorous Victoria Coach Station.

I have to say there is one tiny (stupid) reason that I like going to London by coach – it means I get to walk past my (current) favourite West End theatre – the Apollo Victoria, and as I will have my camera with me (or at least a better phone camera) I will be able to have a nice picture of it this time around (not blury like my last one).

Anyway (getting back to the point of this post) this means I will have more than five hours to play with either side of the performance and apart from going down to the Victoria Embankment I’m not really sure what else to do – any suggestions?

Just 7 sleeps till London, Sister Act and Whoppi Goldberg (and I’m sitting near the front – no other word (if it can be called a word) can describe this feeling other than *squeeeee*!)