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.