I went with my mum and dad, they invested in the original US production of the show, when they put the money in they assumed it was going to be a show that they never saw. A show about trains, where the actors perform on roller skates while they sing and dance and there are races over huge ramps….how could it ever come to little old New Zealand, right?

Well, it turns out they just needed to wait 20ish years for the show to be rewritten and redesigned to make it more travel-friendly. Saturday, after following the progress on twitter for weeks, we went to the matinee performance. We sat in the A block, on the ground, to the left of the stage and a fair few rows back. The view was awesome, the only time we couldn’t see the actors was when the actors lay down on the front part of the stage. Which wasn’t too often.

The story, for those who are not familiar is pretty simple. A kid’s toy trains come alive in his dreams and compete in races to be the greatest engine in the world. The reigning champion is a diesel called Greaseball, our plucky hero is a steam train called Rusty and there’s a new big shot called Electra. Electra is an electric train, just in case it wasn’t clear. The rules of the race say that every engine must have a partner. The women are all passenger cars and available as race partners, the lead is Pearl, who is an observation car, her friends are Dinah, Ashley and Buffy. (Dining car, smoking car and Buffet car.) There are also a number of male freight cars, but of course they are heavier to race with. There’s also a red caboose, the brake car, but he’s a bit evil. The big shot diesel and electric cars make fun of Rusty and ruin his self confidence. Pearl is looking for the best, fastest engine in the world and abandons her old friend Rusty and there are races. It’s actually a Cinderella story, with Rusty as Cinderella.

Traditionally the races are performed on huge mechanical stage ramps, but the new stage design isn’t big enough for that. The races are pre-recorded and shown on three huge screens. The video footage had some cheesy FX and stuff but I think it worked very well.

The Wellington performance was outstanding. The guy playing Rusty was endearing, plucky and cute. Basically perfect for the role. The girl playing Pearl was also very good, although Dinah won my heart with her tragic love story and OTT Southern accent. I think Dinah had the cutest outfit too. Electra and Greaseball were just perfect and I really loved the Hip Hoppers, the 3 near identical freight trucks. Hip hop and break dancing with those skates on can’t be easy, but they made it look natural. Originally these guys were the Rockys, box cars for coal or something like that, and did breakdancing so it was a natural change to make them hip hoppers.

Another highlight is the specially imported from the UK stunt skaters picture via the Wellington Starlight Express twitter feed. The amount of air time those guys got was truly impressive. The backwards flip landing backwards on the ramp in particular took my breath away.

I missed one or two songs in the rewrite, Caboose’s solo and ‘A Lotta Locomotion’ but otherwise the new songs and the rewrite was very good. I have ‘A Whole Lotta Locomotion’ stuck in my head today. I know it sounds the same but it’s quite a different song.

There was some weird stuff about steam being the best kind of power and how awful it is to have an electric train, but overall I think the show has aged well. Overall the show is funny, cheery and very impressive. The audience was very supportive, joining in clapping and waving hands as requested by the characters and even calling encouragement out to Rusty when he was down and out. It’s on for two more days in Wellington and then traveling to Chch for a season and then up to Auckland. The ticket prices are steep but it’s well worth it. It’s more of a spectacle than a standard musical, and the music is really damn catchy.

I went a second time on Sunday night as a friend was sick and didn’t want to waste a ticket. I loved seeing it again, I was able to watch different parts of the choreography and a second time hearing the songs made some of the lyrics clearer.

Highly recommended

Last night I got a bunch of friends together and we went to see Lee play the romantic lead in The Darling Buds of May.

I was a little concerned about seeing him fall in love with another woman on stage and make out with her, but I was able to forget all that quite fast. The set was divided into two parts, one for inside the farm house kitchen and the other side was the yard. The lighting was very beautifully done with a very definite inside-outside difference.

I’ve never seen the TV show, and I’d only read parts of the script to help Lee with his lines, so most of the story line was a surprise. Lee was great, totally convincing as a bumbling and somewhat helpless fish out of water. The people playing Ma and Pop Larkin were very good too, utterly relaxed looking and enjoying themselves. The children were all fine and the girl playing Mariette (Lee’s love interest) was acceptable. I mean, I thought she was a little um, stagey, but then it’s a prick of a role. Just flit around being perfect and beautiful…how do you make that realistic in a stage environment? Naw, she was awesome.

The costumes were lovely too, the pale blue dress that Mariette wore was just stunning and the overall look of the show was very good. It was a lovely play, a really nice experience. You just watched it and felt good and happy. The dramas are all minor, the comedy is strong and at the end of the play you feel like crying for happiness. And I may have, just a little.

I would really recommend you go and see it if you can. The tickets are cheap at $20ish dollars and $15 if you can get a group of ten. It’s good to support community theatre after all, since it’s the lifeblood of our Wellington arts capital culture. Or something. And you should totally wolf whistle or similar when Lee comes on with his shirt off. Woo woo!

Book your tickets here, you can just email them or call the number. You reserve the tickets and then pick them up and pay on the night. Gryphon theatre doesn’t have EFTPOS though, so you have to bring cash with you.

The ballet was wonderful. My sister was quite worried because it was a new version of the classic Nutcracker and she’s very much of the “if it’s not broke don’t fix it” frame of mind. At least when it comes to ballet.

However we were both pleasantly surprised and the show was funny, beautiful and wonderful. The new story goes thusly: Clara, Fritz and their parents are celebrating Christmas when Fritz clocks Clara one on the head with her new nutcracker doll. She is whisked to hospital and has to stay over night. There are lots of interesting characters at the hospital; nurses, silly doctors, other sick girls, Matron of Doom, etc. After the medicine dosing from Matron of Doom Clara goes to sleep and has a series of bizarre dreams.

Highlights include: the dance of the sugarplum fairy danced not by the fairy but by three men with broken legs on crutches. This was freaking hilarious. I laughed til I cried and it was over way too soon.
The love story between a doctor and a nurse.
The dance in the softly falling snow, whatever they used for snow just fell so beautifully and it framed every movement the dancers made.
Fritz’s Russian dance…amazing acrobatics!

On the other hand, a grumpy old lady shushed my sister and me, and we had hardly been talking at all. We were whispering and hadn’t even been doing it long! I figure the waltz of the flowers must have been her favourite music otherwise it didn’t make much sense. I also like that music. Must get hold of a copy.

I also bought two DVDs. Notting Hill was $20 and Wimbledon was $25. Now I own *all* the Richard Curtis films!!! Bwah-Hah-Haaaaaa!

Point of Fashion: pink tourist “Melbourne” tshirt from my Mum
Current Obsession: pain in my shoulder