The roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd

I grudgingly attended a play with my wife yesterday. I say grudgingly because while enjoy I enjoy live theatre when it's done WELL, when it's done poorly it's insufferable. I swear it's a 50/50 shot. Yesterday's spectacle was a production Willy Russell's "Blood Brothers", and guess what? Yup, it sucked like a Dyson.

The horror began when we settled into our seats and I cracked the program and saw 8 or 10 titles listed under each act.

F***, IT'S A MUSICAL!!! I HATE MUSICALS!!!

Don't get me wrong, I respect the craft that goes into producing a musical, and singing while dancing is no mean feat – I just don't enjoy musicals, they're like discount opera, and opera, really good opera, is an almost narcotic experience (I mean that in a good way). Musicals? I I don't get 'em, I've just never enjoyed seeing actors, at the height of drama, break into song – kinda waters down the whole thing for me

Throughout the duration of this mess all I could think was "how did this epic turd ever make it to the stage in the first place?" The libretto (song lyrics) went so far beyond cheese that mice were running for traps, hoping for a quick escape from the pain. At one point an actor sang a line and I turned to my wife and finished the line for him, word for word. Predictability ain't not no good thing in writin', y'all.

The cast were mostly doing what casts do in a musical, but the gent who played "The Narrator" (Oooooooo) was so over-the-top menacingly evil that I swore if I'd been in the front row I would have jumped the proscenium and filled his mouth with the papery goodness of my sweaty, wrinkled program.

But, alas, there was but a brief moment of poetic justice. At the very anguished climax of the action one of the lead characters delivered a line that was clearly meant to be intensely dramatic, but instead caused the entire audience to break into laughter. Note to playwright: if a line does not elicit the intended response, drop the f***er like a plate of radioactive dogshit.

Three hours of my life I'll never get back? Yup