Riverdance and Variety Lives

I'm feeling rather behind with two shows I've seen to blog about.  And as I'm going to a third tonight I thought I better just quickly blog about them.  Because having three shows to blog about would be too many!

Riverdance

Mum and I went to Riverdance in Oxford at the end of February.  It was the farewell tour.  Although I must say I don't actually believe that's the end of Riverdance, I'm sure there will be another tour in a few years as a kind of comeback or some other new show that is similar will launch.

It was the first time I saw Riverdance (I saw Lord of the Dance a few years ago and we hope to go to that again later in the year).   I loved it.  There's something very special about all those people in lines flying all over the stage.  They are some very talented dancers in that show and I was blown away.

I was also very surprised by how different it was from Lord of The Dance.  I had assumed that they would be different in name alone.  The biggest difference I noticed is that there are several bits in Riverdance of just music.  And that the musicans are on stage so you can watch them both when they are soloing and when they are accompanying dancers.  There were also a few bits of other sorts of dance too.

I'm tempted to say I preferred Lord of The Dance because I wasn't overally fussed on the bits of just music.  But it's been so long it's not really comparable.

Variety Lives

This was a show the other week at the arts centre here.  I went with a friend from Creative Writing and a few of his friends I'd not met before and sat slightly in front of them.  So I was kind of with them, kind of not.

There was a compere who was a comedian and did jokes as well, he also did some musical comedy.  I really liked him.

I really didn't like the first full act, however.  It was an older scottish comedian and he just basically wasn't funny.  When you go to comedy I've found that people ask afterwards what the jokes were about.  I repeated one of his jokes to my mum and a couple of other people (separately) and everyone just went "What did he mean by that?!" and no one thought it funny.  Also the wheelchair space I was in was right at the front and he kept making eye contact with me which was a little freaky.  I looked him up on google and apparently he was really popular and won some perrier awards years ago.  So that's kinda sad.  My friend reckons that the guy couldn't remember his material and was drunk but I don't know.

The second act was a singer and a pianist accompaning her.  She was good but not the sort of thing I would have chosen to see.  I like some of the songs she sang but it was a cabaret type act, good for hanging out in a hotel or whatever not for a show... for me at least.  But she could sing and I did sort of like it.

The final act was Hattie Hayridge (she played the female Holly in Red Dwarf) and she was the reason we had gone.  It actually was worth going out for her alone and she rocked.  I really enjoyed her set and she really made it worth having gone out that evening.  I would probably describe her act as irreverantly funny and somewhat self depreciating.