Open Air

By about 6:20pm we were on a train to Waterloo where we changed for a Bakerloo underground train and a walk from Baker Street to Regent’s Park open air theatre where we had tickets for their revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, the musical from which You’ll Never Walk Alone is taken. It also stars Declan Bennett which was the reason I wanted tickets: he’s an incredible performer.  Time Out’s review, condensed on the Open Air Theatre’s own website, says,

PHENOMENAL…a brave and powerful production. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, sung beautifully by Joanna Riding, remains a thing of pure majesty. [source]

Having never seen it, I did not know what to expect and it wasn’t quite the musical that I imagined: there’s a pretty extend ballet sequence in the second half.  I assumed some of the things at the end were added into this production but, on further reading, it seems that this is how it was written. It’s quite hard to watch in places - especially with some of the more brutal elements.

It turned out to be a very through-provoking evening and much less of the cheerful polity of a musical that had been anticipated. Unlike when we saw Jesus Christ Superstar this time last year, the theatre didn’t need to have any social distancing but, because it’s outside, it didn’t seem too problematic. It did, however, get quite chilly by the end of the night.