Category: not a book

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Kimberley Akimbo

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Happy Sunday everyone, I’ve got another new musical for you this week – Kimberley Akimbo at the off-West End Hampstead Theatre which as an added bonus was another new-to-me venue as I continue to tick off theatre spaces around London. This one opened this week and runs until November.

Kimberly Akimbo is the story of Kimberly Levaco, a teenage girl who suffers from a condition that makes her age rapidly. At the start of the show she and her family have just moved to a new town and we follow her as she tries to make friends at her new school and also navigate what I would describe as a complicated home life all the while knowing that the average life span for someone with her condition is 16 – and as she turns 16 during the show her time to find happiness and experience life is running out.

This has music by Jeanine Tesori, who also wrote Caroline or Change, and is based on a play of the same name from the year 2000 which was written by David Lindsay-Abaire who also wrote the book and lyrics for this. The musical was first produced Off-Broadway in 2021 and won Best Musical at the Drama Desk Awards and then moved to Broadway in 2022 where it won five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Score and Best Actress in a Musical for Victoria Clarke who played Kimberly. This London premiere has Maria Friedman as Kimblerly, Alice Fearn as her aunt Debra and Niamh Perry as Kimberly’s mom.

For a show about a teenager with a terminal illness this is surprisingly funny and upbeat. I thought the other teen characters were great and the dynamics of the group of nerds/misfits who embrace Kimberly – and that none of the drama in the show is about kids being mean to Kimberly. Her family are chaotic and possibly psychotic and aunt Debra is an absolute scene stealer of a role which Alice Fearn absolutely makes the most of.

I loved the music – the lyrics are clever and I came home humming the songs, and I’ve listened to the Broadway recording a bunch since as well. This was a surprise to me because although I enjoyed Caroline, or Change when I saw it in London with the amazing Sharon D Clarke* in 2018, it wasn’t a show where I came out thinking that I was going to have to listen to the cast recording of it immediately because I had enjoyed the music so much. I saw the third preview and despite the fact the director was sat two seats across from me and making notes, I thought it was already in really good shape. There were a few bits where I thought it might be tightened up, a little bit of technical stuff that needed cleaning up and polishing and a couple of issues with the sound balance, but honestly I’ve been to shows in the middle of their runs that have had the same issues – or worse.

But I have no doubt that it will get the tweaks because this has a very high powered production crew behind it and all the hallmarks of a show that is being staged with thoughts about making a transfer in to the West End at a later point. Michael Longhurst also directed that Caroline or Change and is a former artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse. Designer Soutra Gilmour did the Rachel Zegler Evita (among many Jamie Lloyd productions) as well as Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), &Juliet, and the recent Woman in Mind revival with Sheridan Smith. Maria Friedman mostly directs these days (notably the Merrily We Roll Along with Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe that won *all* the awards) but she has eight Olivier nominations as a performer (and another as director) and three wins (and a fourth for director). Basically I really liked this and I would happily go and see this again – whether it’s at Hampstead or in the West End down the line.

I bought a ticket in advance and didn’t wait for discounts because I wasn’t sure how this was going to sell. There are now a few offers around, but it’s hard to tell whether that will last if the word of mouth and the reviews are good because it’s not a big theatre in the grand scheme of things. In my opinion it’s definitely worth venturing up to Swiss Cottage for. In fact I’m not ruling out a repeat trip before the end of the run in November if I can manage it to see how it has developed and changed. But I do already have a very busy theatrical autumn…

Happy Sunday!

*I was really looking forward her Othello at the RSC, and I’m sending her every positive thought as she has treatment for cancer.

**She also the Sally Bowles on the cassette tape of Cabaret I had as a teenager, but someone that I’d never seen live because although she was in the Fiddler on the Roof revival in 2019, it was as a replacement after I had seen it

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Quarterback

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The NFL season starts on Wednesday so I thought I’d write abou tthe Netflix series Quarterback today, which has now had three seasons – the latest of which came out in mid July.

Each season follows a group of quarterbacks across the course of an NFL season. The first series followed Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins and Marcus Mariota across the 2022 season, the second saw Cousins return with Joe Burrow and Jared Gough across the 2024 season and the third season in Joe Flacco, Jayden Daniels, Baker Mayfield and Cam Ward in the 2025 season. If you’re wondering why the gap between the first two seasons – the 2023 season saw a documentary series called Receiver about Wide Receivers instead, reportedly because of the difficulties in finding quarterbacks to feature in a second season at the time.

Each season the quarterbacks featured are at different points in their careers. If you know NFL you’ll have already twigged that, but for those of you (most of you?) who don’t, in the first season Mahomes was aiming for his second Super Bowl, Cousins was a decade into his NFL career and the established starter at the Vikings and Mariota was trying to establish himself as a starting quarterback at Atlanta after having spent a couple of seasons as backup or injured.

Quarterback has got great access to the teams and players – it has the subjects mic’d up during their games which was a first for the NFL. It also has Peyton Manning as one of the producers (it’s made by his production company and Patrick Mahomes’ one) and I suspect Peyton is the reason for this. For the non-NFL fans, he’s part of the Manning dynasty – his dad Archie was an NFL quarterback, his younger brother Eli was an NFL quarterback and his nephew Arch is currently quarterback in college footbal for the Texas Longhorns – he’s the son of Peyton’s older brother Cooper who was a highly rated college footballer before his career was cut short due to a spinal condition. Among his many, many accolades Peyton won two Super Bowls and an Super Bowl MVP and he’s rated as one of the best quarterbacks of all time. So if anyone was going to be able to persuade the NFL to give access and players to be involved it’s him.

Because I watch NFL it’s hard for me to judge how appealing this is going to be for people who don’t, but this was one of the first of the series to appear off the back of the success of Drive to Survive and it’s one of the better ones. Break Point (tennis) and Full Swing (golf) appeared earlier in the same year as Quarterback and I didn’t make it through a whole series of either of those. I have watched a bunch of series of Amazon’s documentary series All or Nothing which started with NFL but hasn’t done an NFL series since before the pandemic and has branched out to other sports and I think this offers more for the casual fan because unlike All or Nothing which follows one team each year, this has the wider focus. I watched the first season back when it came out and binged it, tried Receiver when that started and didn’t get through it, then forgot about Quarterback until the third season came out – but then I binged series two in one day and then series three across the next week around actually doing other things, so I clearly enjoy them – even if they haven’t featured Dak Prescott (from my team the Cowboys) yet.

Once I’d finished this, I moved on to Any Given Saturday which is about the 24/25 season in the SEC conference of college football, which was fine – but missing some of the big teams and just generally not as focused as this. So if you like your NFL documentaries it’s an interesting watch, but it’s not an entry point series really.

Happy Sunday – and enjoy the NFL when it starts with the reigning Super Bowl champions the Seahawks at home to the Patriots on Wednesday. I’ve got to wait until next Sunday when the Cowboys open their campaign against the Giants at the stadium which is back to being known as the MetLife after spending the summer as the New York New Jersey stadium for the World Cup.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Jesus Christ Superstar

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For the third weekend in a row I have a theatre show for you. And this year after missing out on the last couple of summer’s hit Andrew Lloyd Webber revivals basically because I had seen them before in other productions and wasn’t prepared to pay top whack for something I hadn’t loved before just because it had a big star and then regretted it because they became the hot ticket, sell out raves, this year I was in the queue for tickets for Jesus Christ Superstar tickets as soon as they went on sale. Admittedly this is mostly because my Theatre Friend Tom is a massive Eurovision fan and: Sam Ryder, but also I like to think we learn from our mistakes. And so, this Sunday you have my review of the latest Andrew Lloyd Webber revival – which is also the last of his Mega Hits/principle works* that I hadn’t seen live.

And here’s the thing. What I learned from this is that I don’t like Jesus Christ Superstar. I just don’t. Sam Ryder was singing the heck out of the score and Richard Armitage was great as Herod (much better than Boy George who we were originally scheduled to see would have been) but it’s just not a show for me. I had forgotten/blocked out that the only reason I owned (and occasionally watched bits of) the film of the 2000 revival was because it had my teen theatre crush Tony Vincent in it as Simon Zealotes (even though he originally played Judas in the Broadway revival that recording was based on). But I’ve never bothered to see it live until now and I feel like now I’ve seen it once I never need to see it again.

But I am clearly in the minority here. It has sold phenomenally well – if you were trying to get a ticket for this summer run at the Palladium now you’d struggle to get one for under £100, so even though our tickets were the most expensive ones I’ve bought this year we still got a bargain compared to that – and it’s moving to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane after Hercules closes there for a run from October to January and then it’s touring. The audience when we saw it were wildly enthusiastic – with an attempt at a mid show standing ovation for Gethsemane – and seemingly quite a lot of non-theatre regulars. This is not the first time I have found myself out of step with prevailing trends – after all I didn’t really like Hadestown that much (I would rather sit through this JCS again than Hadestown) and everyone else loves that. And that’s fine. (Almost) Anything that gets people into theatres is a good thing – because the industry needs regular theatre goers to survive.

But if you were a visitor to London and asking me what to see this summer, I’d be sending you elsewhere – unless you specifically said “I want to see an Andrew Lloyd Webber mega musical” because even though this expensive it’s not this summer’s very hottest ticket because that’s Hamilton with Leslie Odom Jnr, which is really the thing to see if you want to make people jealous. Not that I’m still bitter about my total lack of success in getting tickets for that.

Have a great Sunday, and I leave you with the aforementioned Tony Vincent doing Superstar on American TV in 2000, which contains two of the three things I (reliably like) in JCS: the classic “Jesus Christ Superstar, do you think you’re what they say you are” phrase and the lyric “Israel in four BC had no mass communication”. (The third is Herod’s song)

*Principle is a tricky one to define, but at this point I have seen: Joseph (more than once), JCS, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express (more than once), Phantom of the Opera (more than once), Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind. I haven’t seen The Likes of Us, Jeeves, Tell Me On A Sunday, Song and Dance, Cricket, Beautiful Game, Woman in White, Love Never Dies, Wizard of Oz (with his additions at any rate) Stephen Ward, School of Rock, and (Bad) Cinderella. I’ll let you decide whether that’s all the main ones.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: The Car Man

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I’m taking a break from plays and musicals this week to bring you some dance from my (many) theatre trips – this time the latest revival of The Car Man, his ballet using the music of Bizet’s Carmen but with an entirely different story to the opera.

It’s the 1950s and in the small town of Harmony, somewhere in mid-western America, the town’s Italian-American community is turned upside down after the arrival of a stranger in town. There is a garage and a diner, both owned by a man called Dino, who treats his wife more like property than anything else. Luca is the stranger who arrives in town and answers a help wanted sign at Dino’s garage only to start a chain of events that will end in greed, lust, betrayal and revenge.

This has a great cast with some regulars from the other Bourne productions that I have seen but also new faces and new talent too. In the programme they mention that a high proportion of the cast have come through various of the New Adventures talent development initiatives but also that this is one of the shows that his dancers are keenest to do because of the technical challenge it presents. But don’t confuse technical challenge with hard to follow or anything like that – this is brilliantly to watch and amazingly evocative.

This has got familiar music, but played soley by strings and percussion and a distinctly film noir feel. Part of the story is loosely based (or at least inspired by) the Postman Always Rings Twice, but the subplot adds more unrequited love, betrayal and revenge, which are regular themes in Matthew Bourne’s works. And I really, really love Matthew Bourne’s work. At this point I’ve seen most of his major works (I’ve previously written about The Midnight Bell and The Red Shoes here) I think now I’ve seen The Car Man, Cinderella is the major omission – and that is coming to Sadler’s Wells this Christmas so I will have my chance to remedy that.

This is at Sadler’s Wells until August 29th (so just this week to go), but then it’s touring the UK and then finishing with one week in Amsterdam at the end of November. You can find the dates and details here. If you can make it to see it somewhere, it’s really worth it.

comedy, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: How the Other Half Loves

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Another theatre trip this Sunday, and I actually saw this before I saw The Comedy About Spies, but it was an early preview and opening night was only Tuesday this week so I was a good girl and saved it.

How the Other Half Loves is a 1969 sex farce written by Alan Aykbourn, it is his ninth play (his 92nd premieres in Scarborough next month) and in fact was one of his first big successes. It follows three couples across the course of a couple of days, with two different homes existing in one set. When Fiona Foster and Bob Philips’s need to hide their affair from their spouses, they use a third couple – the Featherstones – as an alibi. William and Mary have no idea that this is going on as their lives collide with the Fosters and the Philips and much hilarity ensues.

I have seen a couple of Alan Aykbourn plays, with mixed results, but I do love a farce and this has Roger Allam (on whom more later) and so I trotted down to the Old Vic on a ticket deal. And yes it has its dated moments, but it’s really clever and there are lots of laughs. However, I watched a not insignificant portion of it through my fingers because the cringe got too much for me. As I said to Him Indoors on the way home – I think you’d like it, but I can’t put myself through that again to go with you.

It’s got a cracking cast though – led by Roger Allam, who as you can see from the video above is prepared to look ridiculous. I first saw him on stage nearly two decades ago in another farce – opposite Mark Rylance in Boeing Boeing – and obviously I adore Cabin Pressure of which he is a core component. He can do Serious (I’ve also seen him as Prospero in The Tempest) but comedy is where I have enjoyed him the most. And although every character here has their moment to shine, his Frank Foster is brilliant – he’s the department manager of the other two and has the status and pomposity to go with it but he’s also clueless and bumbling and obssessed with trivialities and under it all he’s actually maybe the kindest character of the lot. As his wife Dorothy Atkinson is channeling Margo from the Good LIfe but with more secrets but Laura Elsworthy as Mary Featherstone is doing something really interesting with the shyest mouse you ever did see who manages to do a roar by the end.

It’s is also really cleverly constructed – the in the round set up and the competing action in the two different houses, which culminates in a simulataneous dinner party as the Featherstones have dinner at the Fosters (on Thursday night) and the Philips’ (on Friday) swiveling in their seats to denote which time line they’re in at any time. And I realise that that may sound mad, but it works and it’s not even the craziest thing that Aykbourn has done in his plays – he can make The Comedy About Spies four bedroom set look simple – whether it’s this, Bedroom Farce (three bedrooms, one night and morning), The Norman Conquests (three plays each set in a different part of a house across one weekend) or House and Garden (two plays, one cast, performed simultaneously in adjoining stages). I’m not sure this is the best place to start with Aykbourn, but if you’re interested in plays with interesting concepts and can cope with Alan Partridge without dying inside then this is worth a look. It’s also the reason why I’ve had Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To My Lovely stuck in my head on and off for nearly two weeks!

Have a great Sunday

comedy, not a book, theatre

Not a Book: The Comedy About Spies

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I’m back with my second Mischief show of the year. After Thespians back in May (with an almost entirely new to Mischief cast) today I’m back with a bunch of the OGs in their latest West End show, which premiered last autumn and sold so well I didn’t manage to get to see it and now is back – and this time I was quicker with the ticketbuying finger. And I’m posting this a bit later in the day than usual, partly because I only saw it yesterday and it was a late night home and I needed time to recover but also because tonight is opening night.

It’s the early 1960s and in London a rogue secret agent has stolen plans for a top secret weapon. Hot on it’s trail are agents from the CIA and the KGB all of whom converge on the same hotel to try and track it down and steal it back. However they’re not the only people at the hotel and soon unsuspecting fellow guests are drawn into their plans including an actor preparing for an audition to play James Bond and a baker trying to work up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend. And of course because this is Mischief nothing goes to plan for anyone and it soons descends into chaos and a glorious farce.

As I said at the top this is a revival after a very successful run in the West End last summer, which I suspect might have otherwise extended then if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the cast were already lined up to do Christmas Carol Goes Wrong very soon after this closed – so close in fact that there was probably only just enough time for a holiday and rehearsals to get it up and running. This has a fresh set up and cast of characters but all of the hallmarks of Mischief’s best stuff – slapstick, physical comedy and a joke rate that hardy gives you time to finish laughing at the last joke before the next one hits. I think the second half of the first act, which has a brilliantly clever set split into quarters to make four hotel rooms, colour coded, is the high point of the show but that may be because the stunts and jokes are at their height before the second half has to bring it all to some sort of conclusion. And I did worry about how they were going to end it satisfactorily, but they managed to land it just fine. I shouldn’t have doubted them.

All of the Mischief regulars are turning in great performances, but the more I see him, the more I become convinced that Dave Hearn is the strongest and most versatile actor of all of them. He originated Max in the Cornley shows – who is distracted by the audience, frequently has a complicated love life and is gets relegated to supporting roles. He’s great here as Lance, the CIA agent, turning in a really clever performance for reasons that I can’t really explain without giving huge spoilers which would be mean.

If this sounds like your sort of show, then do try and get to see it while it’s on this summer – the set is so complicated (travelators! that giant dollshouse hotel set!) that I don’t think it would be easy to tour and I think it’s one of Mischief’s best shows in age – I think we preferred it to Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, for all that I love the Cornley characters deeply.

not a book, theatre

Not a Book: Midnight at the Never Get

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As you know I went to see this the night of England’s semi final at the World Cup, but that was only the third-ish preview and press night wasn’t until this week so I held onto my review – but just a warning – I’ve been very careful in my post here not to give too much away about the show – but not all reviews have been so careful.

This is qutie a hard one to describe without giving spoilers or ruining things, so I’m going to stick to the Menier’s own description of the show: “1965, New York City. Trevor Copeland and Arthur Brightman’s love is against the law. In their secret nightclub act, “Midnight”, they perform love songs in an act of defiance of a world that demands they stay hidden. As tensions rise at the start of a historic movement, Trevor and Arthur are torn between their own surreptitious romance, and the oncoming storm of social revolution.” It’s a chamber musical that runs 90-ish minutes and that’s about as much as I’m prepared to say because they’re so cagey about it all – the programme doesn’t even tell you the names of the character the three cast members are playing and as you go in they put a sticker over your phone camera and tell you it’s a strictly no filming show – hence my photo of the poster at the entrance which I took on the way out at the end.

But I think it’s fair to say that Ben Platt is playing Trevor – and that he is the big name here – returning to London after the brief anniversary run of The Last Five Years with Rachel Zegler (too expensive for my budget!) and obviously a Tony winner for Dear Evan Hansen etc – and the reason this production has been staged. He gets to since his heart out in 1960s-style love songs and torch songs. Alongside him Gregor Milne is excellent – accompanying the songs on piano as well as acting. Platt has got the showier, more obvious part, but Milne holds the thing together – as well as having an acting part of his own to play he’s also the link with the rest of the band, holding the musical performances together. I hadn’t seen him in anything before, but I’ll be looking out for him now.

I enjoyed this a lot – Mark Sonnenblick who write the book, music and lyrics co-wrote a bunch of songs for K-Pop Demon Hunters, including Golden, and although this is a very different style of song it’s very good. He also apparently wrote songs for The Devil Wears Prada musical which is one of the current long (well long-ish) runners that I haven’t seen, so maybe I need to remedy that. If you want a sense of the music, the Menier has put this performance of At the Mercy of Love from the first day of rehearsal on their YouTube:

I would say it’s almost worth it just to hear the songs being sung, but there are some really wonderful moments of acting in there too. And the Menier has once again been transformed – this time into a cabaret bar, with audience members at tables in the middle and on sofas around the sides. If you remember my review of The Baker’s Wife, the cabaret tables are similar to that, but more of them but in a joyous move they have swapped out the terrible hard benches round the sides for cozy sofas. We were at cabaret tables this time but I look forward to testing out the sofas when I go to see Tru in the autumn.

The cabaret seats appear to be sold out for the whole run (yes, I did look at changing the tickets away from World Cup semi final day, that’s how I know) but there are some seats available and it’s such a small venue that you’re never going to be far from the action and Ben Platt moves around a lot so you will see plenty of him wherever you are, although if you want to see Gregor Milne’s face you’ll want to be on the right hand side of the auditorium plan as you see it on the Menier site. It’s a limited run and if this sounds in anyway like your sort of thing and you’re in London I think it’s worth it.

concerts, not a book, previews, theatre

Not a Book: Second half of the year Lookahead

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It’s the morning after the night before. And away from the football after the book-ahead yesterday (why didn’t I call the post that!) it’s the not-book lookahead today. Which is mostly theatre, because the second half of the year isn’t great on the events in sports that Verity likes front. And it should be noted that aside from the Seurat exhibtion, I haven’t made it to any of the other exhibitions from the start of the year post, but I’ve still got time.

Let’s start with the stuff that’s happening first – this week coming I’m off to see Midnight at the Never Get at the Menier Chocolate Factory. It’s about the third preview that we’re going to so all I can tell you is that it’ stars Ben Platt, it’s set in 1965 and is about a secret nightclub act. I’m somewhat gutted that my trip clashes with England’s World Cup semi final, but I wasn’t thinking about that when I booked it! And while I’m mentioning the Menier, it would be out of character for me not to mention that their very excellent production of The Producers, which I have written about more times than I should have is closing in mid-September (and I will be tryng to get to it again before it does).

A slightly more known quantity is Jesus Christ Superstar at the Palladium. It opened earlier this week to very enthusiastic reviews (in the main) and has already added a run at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the autumn to the summer run, as well as a tour early next year – which presumably must be based on incredible demand for tickets which is a surprise given that it’s been revived fairly regularly. What is maybe more surprising is that I’ve never seen JCS live so we’ll see how I find it.

The revival that I’m most excited about however is Rent. It’s got Gatan Matarazzo of Stranger Things as the big name in the cast (not that I’ve watched Stranger Things) and a really solid cast of West End performers, including Billy Nevers, who is currently in the aforementioned JCS revival. The original production Rent was one of the shows my sister and I saw on Broadway when we went on an epic trip back in the day and so I’m interested to see what this looks like, having missed Rent Remixed which was in the West End (briefly) about a year after that Broadway odyssey.

The same week that I’m seeing Rent, I’m also back at the RSC in Stratford to see Jonathan Groff in As You Like It. It’s an all-male production and Groff is making his RSC debut as Rosalind. As you know, I loved his performance in Merrily We Roll Along when I saw that in the cinema. I’ve never seen him perform live and it’s been a decade since he did anything on this side of the Atlantic, so I’m *very* excited about this. As You Like It is a Shakespeare that I’ve never seen or studied and writing this post has reminded me that I need to read the play befoe I go to see it.

And lets end with some music: I’m off to the Proms again this summer – this time to see the American Classics Prom, which has Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue which I’ve adored since Primary school and Berntein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side story (which I once played to the best of my poor ability at the Royal Festival Hall) and On the Town among other things. And I’m also off to see Caravan Palace again when they play London in November.

That pretty much covers off the stuff that I’ve got booked in already, but there are a few other things I want to try and get to that I haven’t got definite plans for yet (as well as that Producers revisit) like The Globe’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (currently trying to find a date that works for me), Pride the Musical at the National which I’m going to have to try and get to through their weekly ticket drops because it is incredibly sold out except for some very expensive tickes for preview shows this week, Cats at the Regents Park Theatre (it’s open air so it’ll be a last minute job) and Tartuffe (Remixed) in a small off West End theatre starring Mark Rylance, who remains the greatest actor I’ve ever seen live but the fight for tickets is going to be *wilde*. But I’m sure there will be more, and you’ll hear about the good stuff here on Sundays!

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Child Star

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Happy Sunday, and if you’re sick of sport (and I’m sure some of you are!) I’ve got a pop culture documentary recommendation for you today.

Child Star is a documentary made by Demi Lovato and cinematographer Nicola Marsh looking at the trials and tribulations of being a child star, particularly around the issues that Lovato has faced as a former child star herself. She talks to other former child stars as well as looking at the history of child stars. This came out in 2024, but I clearly missed it when it originally came out and have only just found it on Disney+ – which is an interesting home for it in itself given that Lovato was a Disney child star herself.

There is a long history of child stars having well publicised issues as they grow up. So this was always going to be in my interest area. And honestly, the more I see and hear about what it was like for child stars, I become more convinced that children shouldn’t be allowed to be stars. Because oh boy there is so much damage on display her. Demi is quite clear eyed and reflective about her own experiences, and among the talking heads are other former child stars from different generations -among them Drew Barrymore, Raven-Symone, Christina Ricci and Jojo Siwa. I have long said that most of the children who are child stars have exactly the wrong sort of parents for parenting a child star and I’d love to watch a documentary about that too, but this is more about the impact on the children of fame and the pressure of having a job and adult responsibilities when you’re still a kid.

Towards the end of the documentary it gets into the latest evolution of child stardom – child influencers – and the lack of protections they have compared to the traditional entertainment industry – which is also an area that I’m super interested in and am waiting for the kids of family bloggers to grow up enough to have thoughts on – let alone the child influencers themselves. But that is another, longer story. This is a good look at what it was like to be a (Disney) child star in the early social media era and where that sits in the history of child performers. It’s not a cheerful watch, but it is an interesting one.

Have a good Sunday.

comedy, not a book

Not A Book: Mel Brooks

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Do not be confused by the name of the film – Mel Brooks is 100 today! He’s a comedy genius – and if you’ve missed how much I love the musical version of his movie The Producers, I don’t think you’ve been here much! I really wish I could find a clip that really shows you how genius the show is but I don’t think any of their showcase performances really demonstrates that, possibly because out of context some of the numbers.. well. How can you unleash Springtime for Hitler on people without the context that they’re trying to create the worst show ever seen so it closes straight away? Anyway, I think the closest is this one from the Big Night of Musicals.

I will be attempting to mark the occasion by watching that documentary I referenced at the top, and if I can’t manage that with the streaming services at my disposal, I will be watching one of his movies. And in case you were wondering, yes I am going to try and make it back to the West End version one more time before it closes in September.

Have a great Sunday – try not to melt in the heat!