Lions, Lions and Lions, oh my!

Do you have any particular memories of dressing up to act out stories as a child? Maybe just me? Dressing up and acting out films was definitely a big part of my childhood and I had the strong belief that the more costume changes, the better (films that provided particularly good inspiration for this activity were Disney’s Cinderella and Mulan). This fascination with costume and wardrobe changes developed and carried on when I was performing on the stage or watching shows. I'm not sure that it gave me the best fashion sense or sense of style, but I had lot of fun doing it.

I was fortunate enough to have a very caring, creative Mum and talented, artistic friends who helped make some truly memorable Halloween costumes throughout my childhood (it probably won’t come as a big surprise that I love Halloween and all big holidays/celebrations). I was Jessie from Toy Story one year, and other times Coraline, Violet from Lemony Snicket, Emily from Corpse Bride, Sally from The Nightmare before Christmas and a tiny Dorothy for a playgroup party in something like 2003 (with a Tweenies Doodles as my Toto in a basket). One year, aged 7, I dressed up as a wolf at Halloween (charity shop finds included furry, growling slippers that were my wolf feet!) and because of my stubborn mass of red curls, it reminded our teacher of a lion and I ended up being the Cowardly Lion in our 2007 school Christmas show, where we did an (extremely) abridged version of The Wizard of Oz singing together as a class. The photo at the top of this post was in local papers – what was that I said about sense of style? And this actually takes us onto the main theme of this blog, the recurring theme of lions and how lions kept appearing in shows and costumes, and strangely enough, how it was all in 2007.

For example, in September 2007, my Mum and I went to a Montrose amateur production of The Wiz, performed by the aforementioned ‘rival’ local theatre group, Centre S.T.A.G.E. This is one of the only times that I’ve ever come across a stage production of The Wiz, which is a retelling of The Wizard of Oz with an almost always all-black cast and which has entirely different songs and explores different musical genres. There’s a film version of The Wiz from 1978 which stars some famous names, including Diana Ross as a mature Dorothy, Richard Pryor and Michael Jackson, which I just watched for the first time and it’s certainly an interesting film, visually, and not really like anything else I’ve seen (video of Ross singing the closing song ‘Home’ at end of the post, another song that made it into Glee - season 1 - sung by Kristin Chenoweth, who of course was in the Broadway Wicked). The film of The Wiz seems to end with a very different message to the 1939 Garland Wizard of Oz – Garland’s Dorothy is so glad to be home she never wants to leave again but Ross’s Dorothy returns home ready to be a more adventurous character, one who wants to seek out new experiences, people and places. Unfortunately, I don’t remember a lot about seeing this show of The Wiz in 2007 but I had warm nostalgic feelings looking back at the programme, seeing some familiar names and thinking about how some people from school and even from our village, just outside Montrose, were in the show. Emily Wood, who was the Dorothy I saw in 2007, is in a band called Sorella in Montrose these days with her sisters Meghan and Lauren. Also, Brian James Leys, who was the titular Wiz in that show, has gone on to have great success in many professionals shows and tours. Looking at his online pics it looks like he has been in the Lion King which is one of the only lion themed musical shows I haven't seen live. I had tickets to see it in March 2020 in Edinburgh with a friend (hi Phyl!) but unfortunately the pandemic intervened. I hope to get to see it one day.

Another programme from that year features lions too as around Christmas in 2007, when visiting relatives in Leeds, we also saw an amazing dramatic production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (another lion-coincidence?).




I didn’t see a live performance of The Wizard of Oz musical until much later (2018) but the film and story has long been a personal favourite and has always been very special and important to me. I was lucky enough to be given a beautiful book of the story with the most incredible illustrations and interactive visuals. 

I also love how The Wizard of Oz relates to Wicked (which is perhaps unsurprisingly one of my absolute favourite musicals), as it’s really clever and interesting how they incorporate references and add a backstory to arguably one of the most iconic antagonists, the Wicked Witch of the West. Wicked will also feature later on down the road of this journey through theatre programmes (stick with me – I saw that later in 2010 in London). But next time I will get to my first professional musical programme of the collection (Mary Poppins in 2008). Join me for that in a week or so and find out if I can sneak a Glee reference into every post...

First love

What was your first experience of live theatre? For some, it’s a monumental rite of passage that we’ll always remember. However, although this blog is all about my collection of musicals programmes, we didn’t actually get a programme from the first show I ever saw (a pantomime of Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the Reid Hall in Forfar when I was three year old, Christmas 2003). This first theatre trip was definitely memorable, even though it didn’t exactly go according to plan. I was terrified of the villain, who my Mum compared to Dracula (not a character usually featured in the fairy tale), and screamed to such an extent that we had to … leave the premises. However, despite this unfortunate first experience, I have since developed a pretty much lifelong love and fascination with everything to do with performing and musical theatre (and the Christmas season).

I don’t have programmes for other eventful and entertaining theatre trips from 2004 either. For example, from the time we took a festive trip to see The Singing Kettle in Aberdeen and we initially went to the wrong theatre and had to get a quick taxi ride to get to the right one just in time. Did I mention we were wearing pyjamas? The Singing Kettle (now Fun Box) ran musical shows for kids from 1982-2015 and audience members were encouraged to dress up according to the show’s theme. We were ‘excited to see Santa on Christmas Eve’ (hence the PJs, this was long before wearing PJs around town was cool). I saw 3 different Singing Kettle shows around that time (Under the Sea, Christmas, Space), had CDs, videos, and still cannot get through a Christmas without singing the ‘chipolatas’ song (you either know who Bonzo the Dog is or you don’t).

And now finally, I get to the programme in the picture. It is the first programme in my collection and it holds a special meaning for me. It is from 2006 and is from the Song Shop production of Annie in Montrose, the small town in Scotland where I grew up. To show how long ago this was, the girl who played Annie in 2006 is now very much an adult and works as a music teacher. When this big, lively amateur group performed Annie for the first time, it was my first year in Song Shop (I was 6) and whilst I didn’t actually perform in the show (my Mum thought I was too young for all the late nights), the musical has always had a very special place in my heart. As a small redhead, the story has always appealed to me and I was thrilled when they performed it again nine years later (2015) and I did get to be in it (I was 15 and am listed in that programme under ‘Servants/Hoovervilles’). The outfits we had to wear as homeless Hooverville characters had layer after layer (hats, scarves, thick woolly cardigans) and the Town Hall was always boiling for the June shows in summer but I still loved every minute of it. I’ve always loved the films of Annie from 1999 and 2014 too ( I watched the 1982 version a lot as a kid but haven’t seen it for a while – I only have it on VHS). Annie has great songs, a lot of heart and a cute dog (always entertaining in live theatre). It’s irresistible.

                                                             2015 Production

The Song Shop was a major part of my life throughout my whole school career as I was in the group for pretty much all of primary and secondary schools and, over the span of the eleven years in the company, a lot of memories were created, as several classmates were in the company too. We hadn’t lived in Montrose for very long when I first joined the Song Shop and had moved from England a few years earlier when I was 2. Musical theatre and performing can mean something different to all musical theatre fans and, for me, it was never about starring in the lead roles or getting solos (as much as anything because I wasn’t the best singer and definitely not the best dancer and was one of the shyest members of the company). For me, being in the shows was just about the love of the music, plot, characters, being in the numbers and just taking part on stage and off, as clichéd as it may sound.

Next time – a programme from a rival Montrose musicals group (Vocal Adrenaline to our New Directions… ). Did I mention I love Glee too? Well, of course I do.