May 21, 2022

This post was pulled from the archives after the web server went down.

Wednesday

Once again I braved my rapidly declining reputation and ventured back into the “Room Where it Happened” otherwise known as Her Majesty’s Theatre to see … well, I don’t have to tell you by now, do I?

This time there was the added bonus of attending the show with my brother and his youngest daughter whose obsession might just put mine to shame. I knew she was excited to go, especially when they rocked up to collect me half an hour early and she was literally bouncing on the balls of her feet. As we had time I showed her two of my favourite show related souvenirs I had at home. Firstly my two Funko-Pops (signed by the Australian actors who play the characters). That caused her to stop breathing for a while, closely followed by near fainting when she saw my line of tickets I have blu-tacked to my bedroom wall near our corkboard.

We all got in the car and drove into Melbourne. A funny aside. Ever since I started work in Port Melbourne, I’ve pretty much driven into Melbourne 6 days a week. Now, this doesn’t seem strange on the surface, but two points: 1 – I only work five days a week and 2 – I work from home on Wednesdays. Now back to the recollection.

Driving through the CBD my niece nearly went into anaphylactic shock when I pointed out the theatre. We parked the car and went directly to Ticketek where you can get physical copies of your tickets printed if you purchased online. I thought this was a great souvenir for my niece plus I needed mine for the ticket wall!

Next on the agenda was dinner and we found a great burger place across from the theatre.

Finally, we went into the theatre, got merch and headed up to our seats. I was really looking forward to the show as both the role of Hamilton and Burr were being played by the primary actors (Yay!) but the role(s) of Mulligan/Maddison was to be covered by someone new and it was his debut night.

My brother was going in blind having purposely avoided watching the movie on Disney+ and not listening to the soundtrack despite his daughter’s many attempts. I was very interested to hear his view on the show.

To cut the usually long and praise filled commentary short, it was the best performance I had seen and my brother very much enjoyed it. It was nice to have my obsession with the music recognised especially when he said he’d be watching the Disney+ movie now.

Another highlight was my niece getting her program signed by her favourite actress (and Hamilton) and her uncle is taking all gloating rights for pointing them out when they exited the theatre. I got my ticket signed by my favourite swing (an ensemble member who can cover all 5 ensemble roles of his/her gender), the actors who played Lawerence/Phillip and Hamilton as well as the musical director who upon exiting offered to get out of my way so I could get to the actors behind her and was genuinely amazed that it was her I wanted to talk to.

All in all a great night and I was glad to be the guide for my brother and niece.

And it will come as no surprise that I bought tickets to another show coming up in 29 days. I had to get tickets for my Mum who missed out last Sunday due to the dreaded C19. Such a shame that I have to go again … Not!

If you’ve made it this far, as always, thank you for your time and your attention! I will see you for the next post.

Richard