"Folks, there are people TOUCHING each other!"

This was Jamie's delighted comment during the warmup tonight, when he had us singing Maggie's "Laudamus te" exercise to each other in pairs to see if we were supporting properly. There was indeed a certain amount of groping :p

I hope you'll forgive me for just listing stuff tonight rather than giving long explanations (although I bet there are some people who prefer it this way!). I'm really tired, but I tried to sleep and have too many things whizzing round my head, so this is an effort to offload some of them.

I went to see United last night - great game, made all the more entertaining by my nephew singing the Gary Neville song all the way through despite Gary Neville not actually playing. (It's the only one he knows all the words to.) (My nephew, that is, not Gary...) Dr Liz very kindly wrote a blog post about last night's rehearsal for me to just copy and paste, but sadly I turned out to be useless and didn't read it till tonight, by which time it didn't quite make sense to just paste it. So here is a slightly edited version:

"Sounds better now you're all kissing"

Rehearsal started with Maggie's warm up, as normal. There was quite a lot of stomach holding to feel muscles moving, yet another reason why having a six pack would be great! (but I'd never managed to do enough sit ups to develop it, and then to maintain it).

The first half was spent on the Holst. The quote from the top was Jamie making us pull faces to improve the sound and as normal it worked! Hopefully we can all recreate this for the gig itself. Jamie was on form tonight: "you need more space in your voice or you'll sound like Axl Rose - OK, so that's a blank for most of you." He then did a short Axl Rose impression, classic! (Axl Rose is the lead singer of Guns'n'Roses, for those of you who aren't a child of the 80s like I am!). He was also heard to utter "it's so great when you all get physical together" which raised a few titters.

It was announced in the break that the advert for choral administrator was going to be in the Guardian on Monday and on their website.

Most of the second half we sang the impressive 'God is Gone up'. I like it! And it'll sound great with the organ. It's got ace words, including 'methinks' and 'flakes of glory'. Jamie made us all put our thumbs in our mouths to try and push our molars up (hope everyone had washed their hands recently), and after making us make a certain noise (can't remember what it was) he decided that it was quite scary and "I'd not want to meet all you in a dark choral alley".

Then we sang, rather badly I have to admit, the Vaughan Williams. I think Jamie was rightly disappointed as we've put in a lot of work and none of it was there tonight. But it was the end of the rehearsal, so maybe people were tired, I know I was.

Thanks Liz. (I saw Guns'n'Roses live at Maine Road, back in the day. I loved them (and still do). So here's an mp3 of their most famous song, Sweet Child O' Mine. Air guitars at the ready!)

Anyway, tonight there was another rehearsal, at which we got a lot done. We did work on: O nata lux, Salvator mundi, Mihi autem nimis, Loquebantur variis linguis and Laudibus in sanctis. A few Jamieisms:

"Altos, there was one note I hated."

"Who is it who's not being interesting enough? .... Sopranos!"

"Like a sort of Renaissance rapper..." (this was after demonstrating the Alleluia weird underlay in Loquebantur)

"I might look at you! And if I do, you'll feel better about the world!"

The best physical Jamieism was his Darth Vader impression (when demonstrating how not to do a silent breath!) (apparently the trick to doing a silent one is to look surprised... I must practise that, I'm terrible for breathing noisily). There was also much amusement at the 1st sops repeatedly not coming in because they weren't watching, thus giving him lots of opportunities to insult them - always entertaining!

The 2nd altos, on the other hand, got a "Lovely harmonic!" comment at some point, and the choir as a whole got "I didn't think it was possible to do this that well!" - which was nice :-)

Unusually, there was a Jamieism that was just plain wrong.... "Keep the tiller in the water!" he said. Jamie, take it from one who sails regularly and has all too often ended up with the tiller in the water, it is a BAD THING when this happens, as it means you've capsized :p What you actually want is the RUDDER in the water. The tiller is the bit that guides the rudder, and should very definitely be above the water level! (I'm going sailing for the first time this year on Saturday morning, wind permitting. I'll let you know how wet my tiller gets :p )

Anyway, nearly there. A quiz question for you all: why do I have "SPIKE!" written on page 4 of Loquebantur? A packet of Smarties to the first person to guess. (I will be extremely impressed if anyone does know the answer, so I should probably make it easier by saying that I might just as well have written it on any page of any piece... it's on that one mainly because I've practised that page more than all the rest put together, it being the semi-chorus audition piece.)

And 5 more quick things.

1. I see that the official choir web page currently states "Unfortunately due to technical difficulties the choir schedule is currently unavailable." My unofficial one is fine, however, and has just been updated with the news that the rehearsal on 7th April is at 6.45 after all :-)

2. I just glanced through the newly-issued Hallé Proms leaflet, and was horrified to see that they spelled Princess Leia's name wrong! (I'm such a geek!) You'd think they might have checked. Sheesh. Pleased to see we're apparently doing the Humming Chorus in our gig, although I will be far less pleased if Jamie makes us sing it as written (i.e. only sops and tenors)... I'm sure a few altos could help the tenors out...

3. There was an article in the Guardian today saying that the Hallé have cancelled their USA tour. Remember Mark telling us about his experience at the American Embassy? (see this post if you've forgotten) It turns out to have been for nothing!

4. Those of you who are singing in the Manchester Passion on Good Friday, I now have sheet music and instructions (including when to shout "Crucify him!") I know about Alison and Liz L - if there's anyone else who's signed up, let me know and I'll give you the stuff. (It's not too late to get in touch! Give them a call.)

5. Finally, I know Liz L will appreciate this. I'm being a brother in Joseph next week, and I am delighted to be able to report that "Any dream will do" will NOT be performed at the start \o/

The apostles spoke in many tongues, alleluia

I'm off work - have had a really bad headache for nearly 5 days now, am about to go out to doctor's to find out why - so I thought I'd do a quick update.

Firstly, for those who don't come here via my choir website, you might like to know that I have updated my online choir schedule (choir members, email me for the link if you don't already have it). Please note that the schedule on the official site was significantly out of date as of early this morning. Please note, in particular, that the rehearsal on Friday 7th April is from 6pm to 9.30. I wasn't aware of this, although I'm assured we have been told and I'd just missed it, so I thought I'd better point it out in case anyone else has been daydreaming like I obviously have!

Secondly, we've had a huge increase in the number of blog visitors looking for the Honda choir ad to download (so I feel useful for keeping it available!) I'm intrigued as to the reason for the sudden increase, though - have they started showing it again? I haven't seen it since January, but I don't watch that much TV that has ads in it.

And finally, someone was searching for translations of the Byrd and Tallis music we're doing in the a cappella gig, and since I've just been investigating that myself as a favour to Cathy, I thought I may as well share my findings. Enjoy :-)

"They look like kind of crazed clowns!"

This referred to the tenors, who were this week's stars. The facial expression in question was the one they were apparently doing when attempting to keep the rest of the choir in tune. (I was fascinated, btw, to get a chance to watch the 1st altos sing their first line of Salvator Mundi. I'd noticed immediately that most of them were flat on their 2nd note - this was very noticeable because it's supposed to be the same A as the first note of the piece, 3 notes earlier - and when I watched them, I could guess why. A few of them (I could name names, but I won't) were doing the oft-demonstrated 'correct facial expression' (i.e. high cheekbones) but most weren't, and the difference was striking.)

Not many new Jamieisms tonight (although "Use me! Abuse me!" came up a few times - I think he's decided it's a good catchphrase) but I thought I'd do a post while Blogger is actually working. (Plus, I have some work I must do before I can go to bed, and I need to work up some energy for it...) For those who don't know, this blog costs me nothing, because I use the services of Blogger (owned by Google, FYI). Usually it all works fine, but if there is a problem with the Blogger servers - as there has been in the last week or so - then there's nothing I can do about it, sorry.

There was "Folks, the words are reh-deh-mee-hee-hee... stee-hee-hee...", but that one was a bit visual... There was also some discussion of Cylons (in connection with resonating wavebands - don't ask...)

Anyway, we did a lot of stuff. For those who weren't there: Salvator Mundi, Nunc Dimittis, Lord, Thou hast been our refuge (with the semi-chorus for the first time), A Hymn to the Virgin, Psalm 67 and the last bit of Laudibus in Sanctis. I'm still bitter about the whole semi-chorus thing, but they did sound quite good by the end (although not at first - there were a few voices that stuck out quite prominently, plus they seemed unable to follow the beat). I must admit that the fact they are also singing Choir 2 in A Hymn to the Virgin made things a lot worse for me personally. I sang this piece at school and loved it, but we did it as two equal choirs, so of course I sang choir 2 as I always have, and that's the part I have always loved. I was delighted when we did it in the carol concerts a few years ago, until I found that we were doing it as main choir and semi-chorus and I wasn't picked (I'm not talking about the last time, when we did it with the Youth Choir - I thought that worked really well). So tonight, I assumed it was going to be the semi-chorus doing Choir 2, but Jamie never actually said so before we started singing, so I got all hopeful that we were singing it antiphonally (i.e. as two equal choirs on opposite sides). But it turned out that my initial assumption was correct. Oh well :-(

Right. Must do some work. (I'm not at choir for the next two Wednesdays, btw - although I can do the extra Thu and Fri rehearsals - so if anyone wants to jot down any Jamieisms that'd be appreciated. Next Wednesday I'm off to see United play West Ham - originally the tickets were for a Saturday, but the match was changed due to the Carling Cup Final. I'd try to give the ticket away, but I'm taking my 9-year-old nephew. And the following Wednesday I'm being one of Joseph's brothers, singing in a school show!)

Before I go, though...

FOR EASY REFERENCE - links to mp3s of all the a cappella gig stuff, in running order (except 2 items, one of which is extremely easy... All are in the correct key except the two indicated.)

God is gone up - Finzi
Salvator Mundi - Tallis
Mihi autem nimis - Tallis (G minor - major 3rd lower than our version)
O Nata lux - Tallis
A Hymn to the Virgin - Britten
Nunc Dimittis - Holst
The Lamb - Tavener
Christe, qui lux es et dies - Byrd
Laudibus in Sanctis - Byrd
God be Merciful (Psalm 67) - Burton
Loquebantur variis linguis - Tallis (G minor - minor 3rd lower than our version)
Lord, Thou hast been our refuge - Vaughan Williams (with baritone soloist singing some of the semi-chorus bits)

EDIT: Please note that if you are reading this after April, most of these links will no longer work.

"So when we sing, in a very different musical style from grabbing a giraffe..."

Not for the first time, the most time-consuming part of writing a choir blog entry is deciding which of the Jamieisms should be the title :-) The one above is probably my second favourite of last night's rehearsal, but my favourite is a bit too visual to work here. (It was "Sopranos, you've got to go ^^^^. Basses, you've got to go >>>>. And tenors, you've got a G natural." And the ^^^^ and >>>> are fizzy gestures. ... You probably had to be there!)

Another great rehearsal, made even better by the return of both Liz L (with comfy cushion) and Dr Liz (who brought me a fabulous pink T shirt from Egypt!). The only negative part was that a couple of altos were upset by the behaviour of some other altos - and when they told me why, I was horrified; I didn't know stuff like this was still going on, I thought all the unfriendly people had left years ago. Been racking my brains since, trying to think of a solution, but I have already started discussions with other committee members about it, and I won't let it just drop, I promise.

But, let's talk about something nice. We started with Mihi autem nimis, which I don't think we'd tried till last night. It's not too difficult, but as ever it's difficult to do it really well. The 2nd altos were on a bit of a roll, though - Jamie got very excited by the harmonics we were apparently producing on the last note, and held us up as a shining example to the rest of the choir. (Which is as it should be, of course!) He didn't just like the last note... we got "By the way, the Alto 2s are winning for the best E vowel at the beginning." And "This is talent!" somewhere in the middle. I don't know about anyone else, but it had the effect of making me concentrate extra hard on how I was singing, so that I could do it the same way again in the future. And it put me in a really good mood too! Self-esteem is a wonderful thing :-)

Other Jamieisms during this part of the rehearsal: "You don't need to look like some possessed advertisement for chocolate!" (I forget what that was referring to), and "60 million Smarties are awarded immediately." (to the bass who spotted a misprint)

Then we did the first half of Laudibus in sanctis. It's getting pretty good. Bit more meaningful now, as well, because Jamie pointed out the meanings of the words. This produced "If you are imaginative and talented in this respect, draw a trumpet." - and "These people are happy! So was Byrd! He just didn't have a tambourine!"

We finished by doing some work on Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, followed by a quick sight-read through Holst's Nunc Dimittis, which was handed out at the start of the rehearsal. Never heard it before, but it's really lovely. Just managed to find an mp3 on the iTMS:

Nunc Dimittis (Holst) (3.8 MB)

Other stuff: Most people know about Ed Gardner's new job, but here's a link for those who missed it. (He was the Hallé's Assistant Conductor a couple of years ago and is very lovely.) There's a related story about ENO here.

Bit more news about the Manchester Passion: we now know a few of the people who are going to be involved. They include Keith Allen, Darren Morfitt, Tim Booth, Nicholas Bailey and Bez.

An interesting story about conductors and performers who sing along - we've had a few of those over the years!

And finally a couple of recent searches: someone searched for "the dissonance at the end of Tallis O nata lux" (I couldn't remember which one, but I just looked, and I presume they mean the false relation in bar 80, when the tenors have an F natural while the sops have an F sharp). And there was also a search for "how to seat choir members according to part they sing". I felt unreasonably guilty to realise that none of the results on the search page (including my blog) told this person the answer to this, so here it is:

Every choir I have ever sung in, including the Hallé, has had the men in the middle, with sopranos (S1 and S2) on the left (from the conductor/audience's point of view) and altos (A1 and A2) on the right. (I know there are choirs that arrange themselves differently, but I have never encountered one.) Usually the tenors (T1 and T2) are on the left of the centre line (next to the sopranos) and the basses (B1 and B2) on the right (next to the altos), but if there are particularly few tenors they may well be put across the front, with all the basses behind them.

We usually stay in this arrangement when the parts divide, and in the Hallé the order (from left to right) is: S1, S2, T2, T1, B1, B2, A2, A1. Sometimes this is varied to have, say, A2 at the front and A1 behind them, and similarly for other parts, if the 2nd parts have much smaller numbers.

Currently we are sitting "in two choirs", and this always means S1/A1/T1/B1 on the left and S2/A2/T2/B2 on the right. The arrangement within the two choirs varies, but for this concert we have A1, T1, T2, A2 at the front and S1, B1, B2, S2 at the back.

Hope that helps :-)

"Use me! Abuse me!"

Well, I was up till half past five this morning finishing the oft-mentioned Joseph backing tracks - long story why, but they're finally all done! Very much looking forward to going to sleep in a minute, but I thought I may as well offload tonight's choir thoughts while I'm eating. (I was talking to a tenor called Simon whose name I didn't know till tonight, and he told me he reads my blog and finds it useful for finding out what he missed when he was absent. When people say things like that to me, it always inspires me to write stuff when I'm extra-tired!)

Again, we got a lot done. Jamie got very excited several times (yes, even more so than usual!) This prompted Judy to mutter "Somebody hose him down!", which was going to be the title of my post until Jamie came out with the instruction above :p (In case you're wondering, the "use me" refers to the fact that not enough people are watching. The "abuse me"... well, I'm not sure I want to know!)

We started with Christe qui lux es et dies, which we hadn't tried before, and I can't say I like it. It seems extremely boring. Maybe Jamie has some plan in mind to make it exciting, but I can't imagine what. Oh well. We spent a lot of time on it, but this time did include two amusing impressions from Jamie - one of Bart Simpson (this was illustrating how to sing "Domine" with an American vowel sound, but not TOO American) and one of him "reining in a horse that's just woken up, but you really would like to leave quite soon, so you need to get him to move" (this was to assist with breathing control).

We then had a quick run through Laudibus in Sanctis. Not bad, although it was frustrating that it was nowhere near as good as in the sectional. This was mainly because all the people who (presumably) missed the sectional, and therefore didn't know the music very well, were dragging behind the whole time. Argh! The most amusing part of this bit of the rehearsal, though, was related to this. Jamie conducted the second half of the piece with no score, and the deal was that he would only bring people in if they waved to him just beforehand to alert him to the fact they were about to sing. I'd love to have seen it - he said it was hilarious to see how eager people looked when waving!

A new piece next, Psalm 67, composed by Jamie himself. He spent quite a while explaining why the piece had been written the way it had, which was interesting (I love to get background info!). It has some lovely harmonies already; I look forward to hearing it when everyone is singing the right notes :p

Oh, and there was a long-awaited acknowledgement of 2nd alto greatness from Jamie! There was giggling, you see, when he asked us to pronounce "us" with an "ar" at the start...

Jamie: "It's always the altos!"
2nd altos: *glare*
Jamie: "It's always the 1st altos! 2nd altos - YES!"

Then followed a page of Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, which was similar in many ways to Jamie's piece. This was what produced the "Use me! Abuse me!" plea... There was also a bit of a thing about descending minor 3rds (hint to sopranos: if Jamie asks "what interval is that?" you are usually safe to guess "descending minor 3rd"....) in which he suggested that a member of the committee might go through all the repertoire and produce a guide to where this interval appears... I hope he was joking - you can never be too sure!

We finished with God is gone up, which was fun as ever, but slightly annoying because now I'll have it on the brain for the 2nd week running! In the car on the way home we heard most of The Music Makers on Classic FM. We spent the whole journey trying to decide whether or not it was our recording that they were playing. We decided eventually that it wasn't - but it turned out it was! Which reminds me, there's a brief review of that CD here that I hadn't seen before (thanks Graham).

Oh, and finally, just wanted to mention that on Saturday I sang tenor in a gig in Doncaster for Ken's Nightingale Singers. It was fun, but the highlight for me was a semi-improvised version of Czardas by a fabulous violinist called Daniel Axworthy. I was sitting next to him for most of the gig - he was singing tenor as well as playing a couple of violin bits - and he seemed like a great guy. But when I got home I googled him and found that he was the violinist in the arm-wrestling story, which I vaguely remember reading at the time. But if you ever get a chance to hear him play, do :-)

"Suddenly there's a section singing. As opposed to a horse."

... No, I have no idea what that meant. But I can tell you that it referred to the 2nd sopranos... maybe one of them can enlighten me? (Well, I know what he meant by the first bit. It's the horse that baffled me!)

Ladies' sectional tonight. And it was a typical ladies' sectional in two ways: 1. We got a lot done. 2. Jamie appeared to be having such a good time that he was even more entertaining as usual, and this resulted in much amusement :-)

We spent most of the time learning Laudibus in Sanctis, but we also did a bit of work on Lord, thou hast been our refuge and God is gone up. There were so many Jamieisms I didn't attempt to write them all down, but some that I did were:

"It needs some kind of archival evidence that this bar was rehearsed."

"Can we make sure it sounds like an Italian singing the song from Mary Poppins?" (this related to 'chee' at the start of 'cymbala'...)

The one that had everyone almost crying with laughter was a bit visual, but it involved taking ownership of a B flat, and Jamie doing an impression of aitting on a park bench repeatedly. You probably had to be there!

Anyway, one other thing before I tell you about Mack and Mabel. You might not have seen this review in the Independent, which is of the whole Shostakovich festival, and ACTUALLY MENTIONS THE CHOIR! (Oh, and that reminds me - sorry to anyone who's emailed me this week, I've been snowed under with work, but I'll try to get caught up at the weekend.)

So, Mack and Mabel! There's an M.E.N. review here. And I'm a bit surprised to see that the comments at the end of that review suggest that not everyone liked it as much as I did. But hey, it takes all sorts :-)

You see, whenever I go to see a show, I always look at the programme to see if there's anyone I know in the band. (It does sometimes happen...) And when I did this for Mack and Mabel, I was surprised to see there was no band listed. Then I noticed that the pit of the theatre was empty, and no musicians were warming up. Odd, I thought - surely they're not performing to a backing track? Then I noticed that in the cast list, next to each actor's name was not only a character name but also an instrument - several, in some cases. I wondered out loud what this might mean, and my 10-year-old niece said that the actors must be playing the instruments as well. I explained that this never happens... and felt quite stupid when it turned out she was absolutely correct!

There were 10 actors in the cast, I think. David Soul was the lead, but I'd never heard of any of the others. But they were fabulous. Each of them not only acted and sang (solo and in harmony), they also tap-danced, and they all (except David Soul) carried a musical instrument throughout. And played it. And I don't just mean they played a few random notes - they supplied the actual backing parts for the show. From memory, too! There was a musical director who played a keyboard, but he was up on a balcony on the side of the stage, and he didn't conduct, so the fact that they played as an ensemble was even more impressive. And they switched modes all the time. For example, there was one guy who had a trumpet. During one song, here is what I think he did:

• Played trumpet in the intro
• Sang the first verse as a solo
• Played the trumpet again
• Sang the second verse as one of the harmony parts
• Played the trumpet again
• Removed the mute from his trumpet and used it as a prop (he mimed offering a drink to someone)
• Grabbed a followspot (you know, a spotlight used to follow a single actor) and lit up the lead actress as she danced around the stage (Mack and Mabel mainly takes place on a film set, so spotlights were part of the props - but these were ACTUAL spotlights, and the actors operated them!)
• Did a tap dance

And while the trumpeter was doing all these things, the other actors were doing similar stuff - singing a bit, playing a bit, acting a bit, constantly switching. Now I might've got the songs muddled and he might not've done ALL those things in one song, but he certainly did all those things at various points. It was all so CLEVER! Oh, and at one point the lead actress had a big romantic scene that took place on a train. And the whole cast swayed from side to side to portray the movement of the train. But it was the lead actress who supplied the sound effects that made the train seem real... while delivering this big emotional speech, she kept up a train rhythm on a cabasa. I don't think I could've done it as rhythmically as she did!

Anyway, maybe not everyone will be impressed with it. The acting, singing and playing was all "good" rather than "fabulous". And there was hardly any set, which might bother some. But the cleverness of the production delighted me so much that it more than made up for any tiny quibbles such as these. Go and see it!

P.S. Just after posting this, I got an email from Rachel P (1st alto), who says "On Saturday the Manchester University Symphony Orchestra have a concert in the Cosmo Rodewald concert hall in the music department (sorry, Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama) and are in need of an audience. The concert starts at 7.30, I believe it costs students £3 and non-students £10, and the programme is Henze Symphony No.1, Tomasi Trumpet Concerto and Shostakovich Symphony No. 9 (in which i'm playing piccolo...)"

"Don't let the mouse turn into a small otter just yet."

Right, I have 25 minutes to write all the things I wanted to write last night and the night before (but was too tired), while eating my tea before going out to ANOTHER rehearsal...

I'm in a much better mood now. I applied for two jobs recently and found I hadn't even got an interview for the first one (still waiting to hear from the second). Then I got to choir last night and found that I hadn't been picked for the semi-chorus. THEN I heard that the guy from the BBC Manchester Passion thing had contacted someone that *I* told about it... but hadn't contacted me!

Well, the triple rejection kind of got to me a bit, and I sent a second (aggrieved) email to the BBC guy, which I felt a bit embarrassed about today, when I'd calmed down. But at least the triple rejection is now only a double one, because I've just spoken to him and he's put me on the list :-) He wants more people, though, and says no-one will be turned down, so if you're free on Good Friday, please contact him (details in my previous post). He also wants people to join in the carrying of the huge cross through the city centre, so if you have non-singing friends or relatives who'd like to come with you, get them to contact him too!

I must admit to being devastated about the semi-chorus thing, though. I actually thought I might've had a slightly better chance than usual because (a) I've been practising and having proper lessons, and (b) several altos who I'd normally regard as automatic picks didn't audition. Oh well. Well done to those who DID pass :-)

(There is one thing that people might like to remember, though, when it comes to vocal assessments. Those of you who panic about sight-reading can take heart from how little importance it plays in auditions and assessments, compared to singing beautifully. Because I'm pretty sure I got that sight-reading PERFECT (well, apart from running out of breath at the end), and as usual it did me no good at all!)

Anyway, last night was really good, other than the semi-chorus list. It was the second of our open rehearsals, to which anyone interested in seeing what a Hallé Choir rehearsal is like could come along. There seemed to be quite a lot of extra people - maybe 30? A colleague of mine from school came with me, and she had a fabulous time, although she said she can't work out (a) where Jamie gets all his energy from; (b) where WE get all our energy from, to concentrate so hard for so long. I don't know the answer to either of those, but I wish I did, because my energy ran out several days ago!

Graham E was back, too - great to see him, although I didn't get a chance to talk to him. No Liz L, who presumably still can't sit down - how are you, Liz?

We sang right through the Fauré, which was very lovely. The title of the post is a Jamieism from the first page, on which Jamie wanted the first sound to be like "a perfectly formed mouse..." The other one that amused me was when he didn't like the way the sopranos sang something, and they pointed out that they were only following what it said in the score.

"Oh, you're so MUSICAL!" he said, accusingly.

Argh, running out of time, and I haven't told you about Mack and Mabel. Full explanation when I get back from tonight's rehearsal, but here's a short version:

1. It's on at the Palace all this week, till Saturday, then continues its tour until stopping in the West End in April.

2. I went to see it on Tuesday night and was blown away by how AMAZINGLY clever the production is.

3. If there's any way you can get to see it, please do so!