Camp Sparkle

A full day yesterday! I started off by meeting my lovely knitting group in Biddy's for the morning, and having the usual agreeable natter.

Then it was off to Jorge's Portuguese restaurant for lunch with the family—Bun and MrBunToBe (a nickname that will be more convenient to type in a year or so), Boy, BIL and of course, Beast. Three of us has tapas, the others had a main meal. Two of them had Iberican (?) Pork, fed on acorns and in consequence a darker, stronger-flavoured meat than the customary pork. It seemed to be a good choice.

Then Beast, Bun and her chap and I went off to see Hamilton at the Theatre Royal.

It is a very interesting show, and the chorus had So! Much! Energy! They seemed to be doing challenging moves throughout so much of the show, very impressive. (And they'd be doing them again in the evening!) There was a big black guy among them, definitely a couple of sizes larger than most chorus boys: he had real presence, I couldn't help but watch him when he was on stage. Being just as flexible and lively as everybody else, of course. Beast and I spent some time debating the costumes of the female chorus members. Those skin-tight, nearly flesh-coloured leggings are, well, distracting; some of the moves might not have read as quite so focus-pullingly sexual if the women had been wearing breeches like the men were. And waistcoats instead of corsets. I couldn't decide whether at some points the chorus women were representing prostitutes, or if it was just a slightly off costume choice. Overall, I'd have preferred to see everybody dressed in the same kit. But perhaps I missed something about them? Anyone?

The sound was, I'm happy to say, mostly satisfactory during this show, apart from slight fuzziness early on. Not that there is nearly as much orchestration to overburden the voices as there would be in a more conventional musical, but it was welcome.

I suspect that when we watched the Disney recording of the OBC, there may have been subtitles. It's quite difficult to grasp all the words when they are not just Rap, but delivered at machine-gun speed. It wasn't hard to understand what was going on, of course, but there are subtleties and clevernesses that you miss if, like me, you don't listen to rap in the normal course of things. I just don't have the ear for it. Some of the 'motif' phrases were repeated often enough for me to figure them out, but I know I missed stuff.

King George was a lot more physical than the OBC George. He was, in fact, hilarious! You could really feel his butthurtness (this is not a word but it ought to be) and his glee.

Overall a very exciting show. Good to have seen it live. I may watch the version on Disney again to see if I can catch more of the words, because I have a feeling they are clever and I would enjoy them.

I've been hibernating with a nasty cold for a few days—even had to miss my mixed chorus rehearsal for the first time ever—but today is Beast's birthday, and we went for a celebratory brunch at Number 33. He had The Beast, appropriately, a mighty collection of sausages, bacon, black pudding, beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, hash brown, fried bread, and eggs. I may have forgotten something. I'm still contemplating what to cook for supper—the original plan was a rib-sticking stew, but I think it might be pasta with chicken and mushrooms instead.

Slightly to my surprise, I have written about 10,000 words of not-fanfic. A bunch more to go.