Saturday 15th of November-
It's 7:30 am and I'm astounded that my Mum and I are actually leaving the house on time to go to the station, because we are renowned for always being late. I guess it just goes to show how you can be on time if its to get cheap Wicked tickets.
So after catching our train and having a shortish journey we arrived at Liverpool Street, and went straight off to catch the tube to get to Victoria. Now several hilarious moments happened throughout the day, one of them occurring on the tube. Where me and Mum were so busy nattering I wasn't paying attention to what stop it was, and I looked out of the doors and saw 'Circus' and thought we were at Oxford Circus, turns out we were actually at Piccadilly Circus. So I go to step off the tube and in my Mums efforts to stops me she grabs my hood from my jacket, and this was a detachable hood, so it just popped straight off into her hand. We were cry laughing, well I was, for a good 3 minutes. It was just so funny, I'm sure people around us thought we were insane.
So we finally get to Victoria tube station and after a quick walk we're at the Apollo Victoria, (the theatre for Wicked) and there is already a few people waiting outside, but I still had high hopes. It was only 9 am, so we still had an hour until the box office opened so Mum popped over to a nearby McDonalds and got a tea and a hot chocolate, and some snazzy ginger bread men from M&S as well.
The wait went surprisingly quick and we soon found ourselves at the front, and the guy at the box office said he had two front row stalls left and asked if we would want those. Well it took me a nano second to think about that, Mum had no say in the matter before I was replying 'YES PLEASE'. I mean it was front row stalls for £29.50 each?! How could you have to think about that.
After buying our tickets I was literally on cloud nine, nothing could dampen my spirits. So we made our way back to the tube to go back to Oxford Circus to do some shopping.
It was around quarter to 11 now and all we'd had was a hot drink and a biscuit, so we were feeling rather peckish and decided to go straight to Selfridges to get something to eat, before starting our shopping bonanza.
So we make our way to Selfridges, popping into the Disney Store on the way, in hope of finally tracking down an Elsa Christmas decoration. No such luck though. But anyway, on our travel to Selfridges we got to admire all the lovely Christmasy window displays. But I have to say Selfridges was one of, if not the best. They've gone for a fantasy/ fairytale theme which is right up my street and it was so beautiful and unique.
We also had to take a few selfies, because why not?
We went inside and it was literally like a maze of cosmetic counters, we found our way to a map and went in search for a place to eat. Amongst all the posh frocks and shoes there were a couple of restaurants, but after looking at the menu we thought that it was far to early in the morning for lobster, so decided we'd go else where. We managed to find a Starbucks, which was more our kind of scene (and price), so settled on two panini's, which were delicious.
After feeding and watering ourselves we felt that it was time to begin some serious hardcore shopping, and made our way to the Christmas department.
I was literally in Heaven with all the Christmas decorations, there was so many gorgeous decorations, and some not so gorgeous ones... But to each there own.
While wandering round the Christmas department we then managed to find ourselves amongst all the cuddly toys, which was when hysteria started to set in. Selfridges is a fancy shop, therefore they had fancy large animal soft toys, like a giraffe for £1000 (total bargain), a tiger and an elephant. Now after looking at all the toys for a good 5 minutes I didn't realise but some of the bigger toys, like the elephant and the giraffe, had plastic bags on their feet something which after noticing I found incredibly funny. So I stood there cry laughing amongst all the toys with plastic bags on there feet, apart from the tiger, he didn't have plastic bags...
After eventually paying for our two Christmas decorations, which were adorable wooden bunnies, we made our way back out into Oxford Street and shopped until we could shop no more.
After a slight paddy in Primark because they apparently buy stock from a place where size 4 doesn't exist, we made our way to New Look and had a further boot search. After purchasing the most perfect pair of boots, and refusing to pay £17 for a super flimsy top we had to leave, otherwise we feared our brains would explode from the terrible brain numbing music they were blaring out.
After going around a few more shops we started to lag a bit and decided we needed some sugar, and decided to have a snack and a milkshake at Ed's Diner just off Oxford Street. I opted for an Oreo milkshake, while Mum had a chocolate one, and we shared a bowl of chips, the milkshakes were so delicious and were served in silver jugs, which was different. Cue next hilarious moment, while we were sitting there chatting a waitress walked by with a mug of tea, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her deliberately slosh some out of the mug and onto the floor. It struck me as really funny because I could then just imagine her taking it to a customer and it just really made me laugh. It was the fact she did it deliberately, and not by accident that made it even funnier. Mum didn't see, so through the tears and gasps of air between laughing I managed to tell her what I saw. We were also laughing because I had said that she had her hair in 'teddy buns', I think the proper term might be 'double buns', but either way Mum found the words teddy buns hilarious also. So all round it was a rather funny dinning experience.
After our rest stop we then headed over to House of Fraiser in search for some Yankee Candles, but no such luck, so we just enjoyed the Christmas section instead, and Mum found this fabulous black felt reindeer. We were then served by the slowest man ever at the till, whose brain seemed to have disappeared, perhaps he'd been to New Look and the music there had numbed his brain cells.
We then spent a while in Next admiring all the Christmas jim jams, and I also found an orange jumper that helps me channel my inner Cilla Black, and a lovely Christmasy top too.
If you either haven't seen the John Lewis Christmas advert, or haven't heard of Monty the Penguin then WHERE have you been, but I for one love the advert and Monty. So seeing loads of London shoppers with John Lewis Monty carrier bags made me feel like I 'needed' one, so we headed into John Lewis. They had a whole section dedicated to Monty and Mabel, which I found amazing and of course while I was there I had to take a picture with Monty...
Mum very kindly treated me to a Monty pillow, which has taken pride of place on my bed, and when we paid I made sure we got a Monty carrier bag... How much of a loser am I? But Penguins are just so adorable.
John Lewis' window displays were also adorable, I guess the whole world has just gone Monty mad?
We then headed back to the tube and made our way over to Victoria to get back to the Apollo Victoria, because it was nearly time for Wicked!
After waiting at the bar for a life time we finally managed to get some drinks and I, of course, had to get a program, and a Wicked bag for life, because how couldn't I? I'm practically making my way through all the memorabilia. We then made our way to our seats, which were amazing! We had such a fantastic view! I thought that because we were seat numbers were 30 and 31 we would be much further over and have more of a side view, but we were literally just off the centre of the stalls! So I was very happy.
This was my seventh time seeing Wicked, but as I watch Elphaba (Jennifer DeNoia) fly up during Defying Gravity it still gives me chills and brings me to tears, its just such a powerful and moving song I can't help but cry. I have to say that Jennifer may be my favourite Elphaba that I've seen (along side Rachel Tucker). I loved the fact she kept her American accent, even though everyone had British ones, I felt it really worked for the character and her portrayal of the character was just brilliant and I felt the American accent really worked well with that. Not to mention her voice is absolutely incredible! Savannah Stevenson was also wonderful as Glinda, her version of Popular was just hilarious, she gave the right amount of ditsy blonde, with heartfelt moments too.
After the performance had finished, and we were about to head off I noticed the stage door and gave Mum a look as if to say 'I really want to wait'. I've waited stage door with Mum a few times now, one time to meet Danielle Hope and another time to meet Idina Menzel, and just like Idina, Jennifer is American, so my reasoning to Mum was that because she's American this is a once in a life time opportunity. So we waited. Mum also made mercy dash over to the shops in search for a sharpie as we both realised neither of us had a particularly decent pen. But we needn't had worried because when the two leading ladies themselves came out they were both equipped with sharipes.
While wandering round the Christmas department we then managed to find ourselves amongst all the cuddly toys, which was when hysteria started to set in. Selfridges is a fancy shop, therefore they had fancy large animal soft toys, like a giraffe for £1000 (total bargain), a tiger and an elephant. Now after looking at all the toys for a good 5 minutes I didn't realise but some of the bigger toys, like the elephant and the giraffe, had plastic bags on their feet something which after noticing I found incredibly funny. So I stood there cry laughing amongst all the toys with plastic bags on there feet, apart from the tiger, he didn't have plastic bags...
After eventually paying for our two Christmas decorations, which were adorable wooden bunnies, we made our way back out into Oxford Street and shopped until we could shop no more.
After a slight paddy in Primark because they apparently buy stock from a place where size 4 doesn't exist, we made our way to New Look and had a further boot search. After purchasing the most perfect pair of boots, and refusing to pay £17 for a super flimsy top we had to leave, otherwise we feared our brains would explode from the terrible brain numbing music they were blaring out.
After going around a few more shops we started to lag a bit and decided we needed some sugar, and decided to have a snack and a milkshake at Ed's Diner just off Oxford Street. I opted for an Oreo milkshake, while Mum had a chocolate one, and we shared a bowl of chips, the milkshakes were so delicious and were served in silver jugs, which was different. Cue next hilarious moment, while we were sitting there chatting a waitress walked by with a mug of tea, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her deliberately slosh some out of the mug and onto the floor. It struck me as really funny because I could then just imagine her taking it to a customer and it just really made me laugh. It was the fact she did it deliberately, and not by accident that made it even funnier. Mum didn't see, so through the tears and gasps of air between laughing I managed to tell her what I saw. We were also laughing because I had said that she had her hair in 'teddy buns', I think the proper term might be 'double buns', but either way Mum found the words teddy buns hilarious also. So all round it was a rather funny dinning experience.
After our rest stop we then headed over to House of Fraiser in search for some Yankee Candles, but no such luck, so we just enjoyed the Christmas section instead, and Mum found this fabulous black felt reindeer. We were then served by the slowest man ever at the till, whose brain seemed to have disappeared, perhaps he'd been to New Look and the music there had numbed his brain cells.
We then spent a while in Next admiring all the Christmas jim jams, and I also found an orange jumper that helps me channel my inner Cilla Black, and a lovely Christmasy top too.
If you either haven't seen the John Lewis Christmas advert, or haven't heard of Monty the Penguin then WHERE have you been, but I for one love the advert and Monty. So seeing loads of London shoppers with John Lewis Monty carrier bags made me feel like I 'needed' one, so we headed into John Lewis. They had a whole section dedicated to Monty and Mabel, which I found amazing and of course while I was there I had to take a picture with Monty...
Mum very kindly treated me to a Monty pillow, which has taken pride of place on my bed, and when we paid I made sure we got a Monty carrier bag... How much of a loser am I? But Penguins are just so adorable.
John Lewis' window displays were also adorable, I guess the whole world has just gone Monty mad?
We then headed back to the tube and made our way over to Victoria to get back to the Apollo Victoria, because it was nearly time for Wicked!
After waiting at the bar for a life time we finally managed to get some drinks and I, of course, had to get a program, and a Wicked bag for life, because how couldn't I? I'm practically making my way through all the memorabilia. We then made our way to our seats, which were amazing! We had such a fantastic view! I thought that because we were seat numbers were 30 and 31 we would be much further over and have more of a side view, but we were literally just off the centre of the stalls! So I was very happy.
This was my seventh time seeing Wicked, but as I watch Elphaba (Jennifer DeNoia) fly up during Defying Gravity it still gives me chills and brings me to tears, its just such a powerful and moving song I can't help but cry. I have to say that Jennifer may be my favourite Elphaba that I've seen (along side Rachel Tucker). I loved the fact she kept her American accent, even though everyone had British ones, I felt it really worked for the character and her portrayal of the character was just brilliant and I felt the American accent really worked well with that. Not to mention her voice is absolutely incredible! Savannah Stevenson was also wonderful as Glinda, her version of Popular was just hilarious, she gave the right amount of ditsy blonde, with heartfelt moments too.
After the performance had finished, and we were about to head off I noticed the stage door and gave Mum a look as if to say 'I really want to wait'. I've waited stage door with Mum a few times now, one time to meet Danielle Hope and another time to meet Idina Menzel, and just like Idina, Jennifer is American, so my reasoning to Mum was that because she's American this is a once in a life time opportunity. So we waited. Mum also made mercy dash over to the shops in search for a sharpie as we both realised neither of us had a particularly decent pen. But we needn't had worried because when the two leading ladies themselves came out they were both equipped with sharipes.
 |
| Me and Jennifer DeNoia- (Elphaba) |
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| Me and Savannah Stevenson- (Glinda) |
They were both so lovely, and it was great to meet them both and to have pictures with them.
After our encounter with the stars we then headed back to Liverpool Street to get a train home. I was absolutely knackered and was dying to have a little snooze, but the train carriage was quite full and it made me feel un-easy closing my eyes and not watching our bags. So I came up with a solution...
I thought I would literally cradle all the bags until me got off the train, good idea huh?
We then got home and went to bed. I had such a brilliant day and I'd like to thank my Mum for making it so funny and special.
Love you Mum!
Hannah
