Starlight Express

Yesterday was the family trip to the theatre.

When we lived in England, Simon's parents (who are BIG theatre goers) would always try to arrange a trip to some show or other over the Christmas break, and so now we live in Germany Simon seems to like to do the same for them.

The first time they visited we went to see 'The Blue Man Group' http://www.blueman.com/ - a truly surreal experience, if you ever get the chance to see them then please do.

Last year we didn't manage to organise anything (although prior to Christmas we'd seen Cirque de Soleil and another circus style act 'Flicflac' http://www.circusflicflac.de/) it was probably a good thing we hadn't managed to organise anything last year as Simon was recovering from an operation .

This year we got tickets for Starlight Express http://www.starlight-express-musical.de/
In Bochum (about 30 minutes away from us) there is a purpose built theatre for this show which has been running there for over 20 years (Simon went to see it there in 1989) it is amazing. The skating 'tracks' are woven in and throughout the seating and we made a point of getting tickets close to the action (about where you can see those people standing up at 9 o'clock in the photo) which meant we could see the whites of the skaters' eyes as they whizzed past!

The theatre was packed which is surprising as the show has been running for so long, but equally not surprising because it is a fantastic spectacle, there is so much going on, I would happily go again just to catch up on the bits of action that were happening behind me or to the other side of me!
As I said, the theatre was purpose built for this show and even the entrance reflects this, it's like a station from the golden days of steam, such as Grand Central station in New York, with a magnificent chandelier hanging down over the central bar, the cloakrooms look like ticket offices and the departure board above the main doors shows the current cast list - which was very non-German, I think out of a cast of 20-30 maybe 3 were German, the rest of the names were very Anglo-Saxon (with the exception of 1 Vladimir).

A great show, and I'm looking forward to taking some other visitors!