Tag: Chicago

#oneaday Day 122: Musical Theatre is Gay

I’d write about the fact Osama bin Laden is dead, but it’s probably already been done to death from every possible angle, whether it’s the morbid nature of the celebration of death, or the woefully ill-informed Facebook status updates that resulted from the event. It’s a big deal, of course, but I’m not going to write about it.

No, I’m going to write about how gay musical theatre is. Your interpretation of what I mean by the word “gay” is entirely up to you, thereby absolving me of any responsibility for inappropriate usage.

Anyway. Musical theatre. It’s one of those things that despite myself I find myself liking a great deal — at least the good ones, anyway. And by “good ones”, I mean ones with catchy tunes, preferably with some stupidly silly big chorus numbers that make a massive deal out of something relatively mundane, possibly with tap dancing.

The reason I’m thinking about musical theatre is, of course, partly due to the fact that I saw Chicago at the weekend, and partly due to the fact that I spent most of my 3 hour drive home last night listening to the Spamalot soundtrack. These represent two polar opposites of the musical theatre spectrum — Chicago is pretty serious, though it does have elements of comedy, and is pretty abstract by virtue of the fact that there’s no set, everyone female is dressed in lacy black lingerie throughout and everyone male is dressed in tight waistcoats, trousers and displaying rippling man-torsos. Spamalot, on the other hand, I haven’t seen, but the soundtrack is very much aware of the absurdity of musical theatre and embraces it to produce a particularly enjoyable selection of songs.

Not every musical gets it right, of course. I had the misfortune to listen to some of Whistle Down the Wind at one point and found it immensely tedious to listen to, and also it had crap piano parts. It left me with no desire to go and see the show — it might actually be good, but the fact the music was so dull and morose made me actively want to avoid it altogether.

Also, the presence of Andrew Lloyd Webber on every reality TV show vaguely connected to musical theatre makes me want to avoid anything he’s ever done. Although he does use more interesting key signatures than a lot of other composers, though that doesn’t make his stuff inherently “better”. That’s like saying Gears of War is better than Recettear because there are more polygons. Also, you probably know my stance on Gears of War by now.

I probably have a point somewhere, but the faint delirium of still being pretty tired is causing it to vanish into the ether somewhere. I shall attempt to sum up what may be my point, then, by saying that I, a heterosexual male completely comfortable in my own sexuality (except when on Twitter, when a number of people bring out a frankly terrifying amount of latent gayness) enjoy musicals and have absolutely no shame in this whatsoever.

And they are totally gay. Because they make me smile and fill me with joy.

Hah. See what I did there? I took the word “gay” and… oh, never mind. It just sounds like I like gay things now. Which, if you raid my iTunes library, probably isn’t that far from the truth.

#oneaday Day 119: Birth Day

It’s my birthday today! I’m 30. Changes of decade are generally assumed to be significant events, but really, once you pass the age of 18, there are very few really meaningful age milestones and the number of years you’ve been alive is just a number. So I’ve been alive for 30 years, and I’ve not achieved many of the things I’m supposed to achieve before you’re 30. In fact, I’ve never bothered to make a list of “things I want to do before I’m 30” and when probed recently, my friends couldn’t come up with many things worth doing that I would no longer be able to do after today. So that’s good.

Birthdays have been something of a non-event for a while. They’re one of those things like Easter and Christmas that cease to have any real meaning after you’ve “grown up”, whatever that means. So I haven’t been expecting that much from them for quite a few years. And, generally speaking, this has meant I haven’t been particularly disappointed — they’ve been pleasant enough, with a few presents, cards and whatnot, but nothing particularly remarkable.

This year’s a bit different, though. Despite the fact that turning 30 is ultimately meaningless, I’d figured it might be nice to do something to remember. And my awesome girlfriend agreed — so it is that we’re currently sitting in a nice hotel in London having just seen Chicago at the Cambridge Theatre, and tomorrow we’re off to Southampton to eat curry, see friends and generally have a good time.

Chicago, for anyone considering seeing it, by the way, is awesome, clever, full of catchy tunes and a selection of fine lady-arses and rippling man-torsos (depending on what you’re into, of course.) Also, most of the cast is inexplicably dressed in their underwear throughout, so bonus.

So this birthday has been awesome for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that my last birthday was just before lots of things went to shit. But the less said about all that the better now, as it’s hopefully been pretty clear from here and Twitter and whatnot that things — while not perfect just yet — are at least on the up and improving.

This is good. I approve of things getting better. And I have a feeling they’re going to continue to improve. My thirties could well be the decade where Good Things Happen. Where I find some sort of “life course”, as it were. Because although I’ve technically had a “career” when I was a teacher, it clearly wasn’t the right thing for me.

So here’s to being 30. It’s been pretty good so far, frankly, and let’s hope it continues to be awesome.

Oh, right, and two rich white people got married today too, apparently.