30 before 30

In October 2018, I turned 20, which is rather scary. I had entered the second decade of my life, and had so much that I wanted to acomplish before I turned 30. I thought for fun I would make a list of thirty things I wanted to do before I reached to big 3 0. I do not have my heart set on doing absolutely every one of these things, but it will be fun to look back in ten years time and to see what I managed to do and what things that I did that maybe weren't on the list but felt satisfying to accomplish. So here it is, 30 things I want to do before I turn 30.

1) Dye my hair a fun colour

Everyone gets to a point in their life where they think that they want to dye their hair a crazy colour, and I feel like I have been at that point of my life for the past four years. I remember saying that as soon as I left secondary school I was going to dye my hair purple. But then I was in a production of Les Miserables, and after that it was my sisters wedding, and then I was in Into the Woods, and time has just flown by and I still have not really dyed my hair an extreme colour.

In summer 2018, I did go to a salon and had a rose gold colour put onto my hair, which looked fabulous, but didn't really look unnatural. It looked more like a ginger colour had been put in my hair than a rose gold colour, but this was probably due to the dye being applied directly on top of my natural colour and my hair not being bleached before the colour was applied. Although I loved this look, I don't really count this as having my hair dyed a crazy colour. 

As an aspiring actor, it is going to be very difficult for me to dye my hair a different colour and still get hired. Every time you change your appearance, you have to update resumes and head shots, along with many other things. These things all cost time and money, so I don't think that it is likely that I will manage to reach this goal in the next ten years unless I totally give up on being an actor, but honestly, I'll take the acting career over the pastel pink hair. 

2) Visit atleast two other Disney Parks

I am lucky enough to say that I have visited Walt Disney World in Florida six times and I am going back again for the seventh time in summer 2019. The parks are fantastic there and I do not want to sound like I am being ungrateful or unprivileged to have been given the opportunity to go there as many times as I have, but I would like to see what else is out there, and see how different Disney Parks compare.

I have had the idea in my head that I want to have a solo weekend adventure to Disneyland Paris at some point, since it is not too far away or as expensive for me to get to as some of the other Disney Parks in the world. Plus I think it would just be fun to go on an adventure for the weekend.However, I do not know how realistic this is with the dark cloud know as Brexit currently hovering over the UK and the rest of Europe at the moment. 

I would love to visit California Disneyland, since obviously that was the first Disney Park to ever be built and it would just be so good to go there and to be able to say that I have been to the original Disneyland. I'd love to see their version of Fantasmic too, since that is my all time favourite Disney Show. 

3) Go to New York and 4) See a Broadway Show

These two things are probably on every theatre kids bucket list, but I would absolutely love to be able to go to New York at some point in my life, even though New York is apparently a more expensive London. In the theatre world, I feel like Broadway is where the money is at, and I would absolutely love to go and see a Broadway show in order to have a better understanding of the talent it takes to be on one of those stages and so I know how far I will need to take my training to be able to get there, even though I need to break the West End first (wow I sound like such a petty actor, I promise this is all jokey! Being on broadway/west end would be absolutely lovely and I would be lying if I said that it wasn't among my absolute dream jobs, but these two things are not in my realist goals).

5) Meet a Celebrity

It would just be fun to be able to say that I have met a celebrity. There's not really anyone in particular I would like to meet, but I think it would be very funny if we met in weird circumstances, like in the like for KFC and being like "Oh my god that is Katy Perry!" or in a launderette or something similar. The weird circumstances isn't necessarily a part of the whole meet a celebrity goal, it would be pretty cool if I just bumped into Emma Watson on a street corner and was like "oh hi", but I just think the strange circumstances would just make the story much more interesting.

6) Go to Japan

There isn't really a reason behind this one, I would just like to see as much of the world as possible, and I have been to both America and Australia multiple times, so I just feel like Japan is the next country that I would like to see.

7) Grow my hair out and donate it to charity

Over many years I have suffered with body image issues and have struggled with how my hair looks. When I had it all cut off, I felt like I had finally found myself, but then it all grew out again about a year later and I was working. My life just felt like it was spiraling out of control and I cut my hair back to the length it was (very badly too) and felt like I was taking back that control. I feel like it causes me stress if my hair grows too long, and I cannot handle it being longer than a certain length.

Something that I have always wanted to do is to grow my hair out and donate it to The Little Princess Trust or a similar company, but other than when it was originally all cut off, it has not really been long enough for me to cut and donate. 

I would love to try and battle this issue and allow my hair to grow longer again, and I feel like with the motivation of knowing that the next time it would be getting a proper cut it would be getting donated may help me push aside all of my issues and just allow it to grow and give it to a good cause. 

I actually have intentions of beginning to allow it to grow out in autumn of this year, I feel like mental health wise I am in a much better place to allow this, and the reason why I have decided autumn and not now is because I think short hair would just be much more manageable in the Florida Weather during my holiday in summer.

8) Get a Selfie with an Alpaca

This is another one of the random ones on the list. I managed to get a selfie with a cow in the first few weeks of university, so the next animal that is on the selfie agenda is an alpaca.

9) Be in a professional production of a show

As I am currently studying musical theatre at university, I am hoping that I will be able to get something out of this. It has always been my dream to be performing on stage since I was six years old, and although things may have changed in my life, this still remains the same. I would love to be an actor on stage and would not mind what show or part I am given to achieve this since the industry is so competitive as it is so you cannot be picky with what jobs you are offered. I have been involved in many School/College productions and amature productions, but my ultimate dream is to be able to break into the professional industry of Musical Theatre.

10) Make my own Halloween costume and wear it

I have been making my own costumes and dresses for years, especially when I was younger, I had a huge interest in cosplay. I remember spending all of my money on fabric and craft foam to make a new cosplay, and my mum would tell me off for wasting my money. I have a huge passion for costume design and I would love to be able to make a costume for an occasion to wear, and what is the one night of the year where everyone has the excuse to dress up? Halloween! I would love to make an outfit to wear one day, especially since I enjoyed dressing up for Halloween 2018 so much!

11) Spend a week of my life without the internet

The amount of people who are dependent on the internet is scary. Sometimes I get the impression that if the internet went down for a day people would think that th apocalypse has hit. I wouldn't say that I am 100% reliable on the internet, but I would be lying if I said that a week without the internet didn't scare me. But before the internet exsisted we survived, so I believe that it will be refreshing and interesting to try out.

12) Manage to read 50 books in a year

I have been trying to read 25 books in a year for quite some time, and 2018 was finally the year I reached my target. This year my target is to read 30 books, but I would eventually like to be able to read 50 books in a year. 

13) Work a Summer in Disney

I feel like it is everyone's dream to work in Disney at some point in their life, I would absolutely love to work there at some point if I an lucky enough. During my two years at college, I had a job as a Princess for a Company in my area and I absolutely loved it! Although I understand that there is a very intensive casting process to be a character, I would love to be able to say that I even worked in one of the shops at Disney or I walked around with the characters in the parks to make sure they were okay and to take people's photo's with them.

14) Adopt a Dog

I want to adopt a dog more than I want a relationship at this point. I have no idea what type of dog I would like to get, but we shall see what happens. If I ever get the money I want to adopt every dog that has been abandoned or put in a shelter and give them the life they deserve to have.

15) Make a start on my own business

I would love to be able to work for myself and not have to listen to anyone else, or go through the issues of having a shady manager who messes with my paycheck again. In the last few years I have thought about running my own business and what I would do, I do not have everything figured out in my head yet, but I do have a few ideas.

16) Write a Book

Having a love of books myself, I have always wanted to write my own book. I have no idea what the process is of actually writing a books and what you would need to do or even how much it would cost to get published, but this is something that has been on my bucket list for many years, and this is something I would absolutely love to accomplish in the next ten years.

17) Go on a night out and stay later than 12am

Having been over the legal age for drinking for the past two years, I am surprised to say that I have not been on a night out drinking before, unless you would count a pizza and a glass of wine at my local Weatherspoons at 7pm. I don't really feel like I have to go out, I feel like I have enough life experience without having to go out, but it is something I would like to do at least once, just so I have the experience of this.

18) Live in another country for a year

There is so much in the world that it scares me to think that I would have to stay in one place for the rest of my life. I would absolutely love to live in another country for a year just to experience other cultures and to see what life is like there. I don't really have a country in mind that I would like to live in, maybe not an english speaking country though so I will also pick up the skill of learning a new language at the same time as experiencing the culture.

19) Read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Les Miserables has been in my life since I was 13 years old, and I would absolutely love to be able to dedicate the time and effort to read the book that it was adapted from. I believe that there is so much depth and character development that may have been brushed over due to the two hour constraints of the stage play. I love reading classic stories, and so many people brush them aside because they are old. True, some of these stories are over 100 years old, but I think it is still important to appreciate older literature and to see how far we have come over time. Although I will probably finish the Lord of the Rings series before I finish reading this, which will also take a long time. 

20) Go Sky diving

Because why not!

21) Play all of the Legend of Zelda Games and get as close to 100% as humanly possible

So the Legend of Zelda games have been in my life probable since I was about 7 years old when my brother got Twilight Princess. I believe I have played all of the "main" Zelda games, but I would love to be able to say that I have played every game in the series. Here are the games that I have managed to play so far:

• The Legend of Zelda
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hour Glass
• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I won't be including all of the spin off games in this (like Hyrule Warriors and the CDI games (this one in particular since they just seem to be so terrible that I do not want to put myself through that pain)) just since the list is already so long and I want to try and 100% the games in the main series which is going to take a while. The game that I have come closest to completing in Breath of the Wild, but even then, I have no idea where all of those Korak seeds live!

22) Learn another Language

This one kind of goes hand in hand with living in another country for a year. I would really like to learn another language since I feel  like people born with English as their first language sort of have an expectation for people who speak foreign languages to speak English so they can communicate rather than learning french when they know they are going to France. I learnt French and German in secondary school, but it was all the really silly stuff like "I like going to the cinema" and "My favourite colour is blue", so wouldn't really be beneficial in a real life situation. Honestly, why is Languages taught the worst in schools? Its so bad because I would have loved to be able to master a different language at an earlier age!

23) Have a non-stop Harry Potter movie marathon

This would be excluding Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise, but I would absolutely love to have a marathon watching all eight Harry Potter movies. They will always be among my favourite movies of all time, especially since I grew up with them. Kids these days will not know how it felt to go to the cinema every year or two to find out what happens in the next Harry Potter movie, although I guess that's what the generation growing up with the books would have thought about us growing up with the movies. This marathon has been a life long goal ever since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 was released, so hopefully I will eventually be able to make this happen at some point.

24) Go to a book signing 

I would love to go to a book signing one day. I have only met one of the authors whose books I had read (I hope that makes sense), but she was invited into our school to give us a talk so it does't really count (although it was really cool! If you are curious to know, it was Juno Dawson who I met, she was really awesome!) But I would like to go to a book signing and meet more authors and get the chance to discuss their books with them (or whatever you do at book signings!)

25) Get a Master's Degree

I would love to carry on in education if I can, but I'm not entirely sure of how master's degree's are funded and how I would go abouts getting on. I will also have to wait and see how I feel in my third year of university before I go into making any drastic decisions to add more student debt to my name.

26) Be on TV

This has been on my list for a while, but technically I can cross this off my list as in November 2018, I worked with the BBC for Children in Need. This featured a 3 second clip of me appearing on TV in my area, but still that is an achievement!

27) Get a decent gaming PC

Currently I am using my laptop for most of my games, and the lag is absolutely terrible. I would love to get a decent gaming PC at some point so that I will be able to run games more smoothly (hopefully). But let's be honest, the only reason why I want a decent gaming PC is so that it can handle all of the Mods I want to install for the Sims!

28) Upgrade Eye-makeup skills

Eye makeup is a special kind of art, and is one that I would love to be able to master at some point. I would say now I am okay at eye makeup, but it doesn't necessarily look the best all the time. 

29) Go to a Gay Bar

Yes, I have managed to make 20 and not go out clubbing yet. I remember officially starting uni and one of the staff asking me if I enjoyed my first night out and I said to her I went to bed and 9pm, and her face was a picture. I'm not really a going out person, I enjoy nights in with a hot chocolate and a movie more, but this is something that I would like to do at least once before I turn 30, plus, where else am I supposed to find some women appreciating women?

30) Go Horse Riding

Do you know when something has always been on your agenda, but you just haven't been given the opportunity to do it? That's my relationship with horse riding. It's something that I have never done before but I have always wanted to do!

So there we have it, 30 before 30! I would love to be able to come back to this list in ten years time and tick off everything that I have done and say what I have still yet to do! What are somethings that you want to do in the next ten years? Let me know!

January Favourites - 2019

So I really wanted to make this as a little video just to try and mix up the content on this blog and make it more interesting, but I have been struggling to find the time and plus my room is not soundproof so the video footage will probably pick up every little bit of sound that happens outside my room (currently next to me there are rehearsals going on for a ton of musicals so I hear all the shouting, the acting and the singing and I don't think that will sound great on video. So until I figure out a quieter time to film, this type of post is going to have to do.

With that out of the way, I have always wanted to write down what my favourite things were of the month and let people know, weather it would be through a blog post like this or through video form. So, since I have gotten my organisational skills together and have actually managed to write down what I did this January, the time has finally come for me to list my favourites (even though we are almost halfway through February...oops) . I am hoping that my organisational skills last through out the year so I can have a whole "2019 Favourites" series thing going on throughout my blog. Without further ado, here are my favourites from January 2019:

Games

Life is Strange

Starting off 2019 I played through the first Life is Strange game, which is five episodes long. The game took about 10-12 hours to complete (I did not really pay a lot of attention to how long it took me to fully complete the game, however each episode lasted for 2-2.5 hours each. Life is Strange turned out to be a completely different game than I originally thought it was going to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. I loved the story line that it followed and how realistic the characters felt to the story. I do not want to go into spoiler territory here, but I do have an entire blog post about my thoughts on Life is Strange, going into detail in each episode and mentioning the different choices that I made and the outcomes I experienced. Click here to read more about what I thought about Life is Strange.

The Sims 4: Expansion Packs

January means that you are left with a lot of Christmas money from relatives who had no idea what to buy you and a lot of sales going on in shops. So I decided to take advantage of this and bought a lot of expansion packs for the Sims 4 (which I should state, I already owned the Sims 4 before then, along with the City Living and the Cats and Dogs expansion packs). Below are listed the packs that I bought:

• The Sims 4: Get Famous
• The Sims 4: Get Together
• The Sims 4: Seasons
• The Sims 4: Get to Work 
• The Sims 4: Outdoor Retreat
• The Sims 4: Spooky Stuff
• The Sims 4: Cool Kitchen Stuff

It should be stated that I bought Outdoor Retreat, Spooky Stuff and Cool Kitchen Stuff together as a bundle, since I've wanted Outdoor Retreat for quite sometime and I thought that it was much better value to purchase it as part of a bundle with the two stuff packs rather than buy it separately.

I do not regret spending this much money on these virtual beings, I really love the expansion packs and I feel like it has really enhanced my game play experience when playing the Sims. 

Out of all the packs I have bought this January, I have to say that Get to Work is my personal favourite. I think it totally expands on the career options that you have and I love going to work with my Sims and actually experiencing what their day is like. It gives me more motivation to make sure they work really hard to get a promotion rather than doing their set task and then fast forwarding while they are at work hoping for the best. 

Seasons was a huge surprise to me since many people said to me that Seasons was the weakest out of the six main expansion packs. I love how each of the seasons look and how it makes gardening for your sims a little more challenging than it was in the main game. The calendar feature is really cool too, as I can actually see when my Sims are going to age up and I can plan events in advance. The only let down would be that Weddings still start as soon as you pick the venue for the event, which it would be nice to be able to plan in advance like you can with birthday parties, but other than that I love this expansion pack. I enjoy the holidays themselves in the seasons expansion packs. Winterfest and New Years Eve are my personal favourites of the holidays that are already put in the game, but you are also able to put in your own custom holiday. Since I bought the Spooky Stuff pack and wanted to see all the stuff that came with that, I put a Halloween holiday in Autumn and the amount of options you were given were great!

I can do a full review on each of the Sims 4 expansion packs if that is of interest to anyone, but these are just my thoughts and the particular favourites I had.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Obviously there was the huge hype over Super Smash Bros at the end of 2018 with it coming out in December. I finally was given the chance to play it during January before I moved back to Uni and I really enjoyed what I have played of it so far.

I personally do not own a copy (poor student issues) but I did play the multiplayer mode with my brother which I really enjoyed. There is such a huge character selection that I had no idea who to play as, I still haven't managed to play as everyone yet. I'd say so far my favourite has to be Shiek, but Shiek has been my general go-to character to play as since she was first introduced as a character to play as in the first place. One of the new characters I loved playing as was Chrom from the Fire Emblem series, but I think I have a slight bias since I won the last match of a game once as Chrom. 

I haven't played any Smash outside of the multiplayer mode, so I cannot really comment on the other features yet, but I am looking forward to playing around with it when I get my own copy of the game. 

Villainous

This game really took me by surprise. It was something my brother got for Christmas, and I do have to admit that in my first game I was very intimidated by it. I only managed to play two games before I moved back to uni, but I loved what I did manage to play of it. 

The basic concept of the game is that you play as a Disney Villain and there is an objective you have to reach in order to win the game. There can be up to six players, with options of Jafar, Maleficent, Ursula, Captain Hook, the Queen of Hearts and Prince John. There is a catch that the other players can pick heroes that can make your goal a lot harder to reach, but makes the game much more interesting. 

Although the game sounds very complicated, and I really enjoyed the games I have played so far. The first time I played I was Maleficent, and I think her goal was to finish a turn with four curses on each of her spaces. I almost managed to win this game, but then when the other players realised how close I was to winning, they put all sorts in my way, and I ended up not winning.

The second time I played this game I played as Captain Hook, and the goal was to defeat Peter Pan at the Jolly Roger. I enjoyed this game significantly more since I won, but I did enjoy the challenge of playing as Captain Hook.

I love that everyone in the game is aiming for something different, I cannot remember each of the characters goals, but I think Prince John had to finish a turn with 30 coins, Jafar had to get the magic lamp and defeat the genie and Ursula needed to get the trident and defeat King Trident. The game can get very confusing if you are not paying attention, so you need to look closely at each of the players to see what they are doing and you have to try and guess their next move. 

Additionally, I love where the game could go from what it is now. Apparently there have been talks of making additional game packs with other Disney Villains, adding to the ones already available. The possibilities are endless, they could have Scar from the Lion King, the Horned King from the Black Cauldron, even Mother Gothel from Tangled. This game is very enjoyable and I feel like it has great replay value to have a go at each character and to try an succeed in reaching their goals.

Books

Hunted by Meagan Spooner

So I read two books in January, the other book I liked but wasn't something that I would say makes my favourites list, however I did really enjoy reading Hunted. I really liked how it was a retelling but tried to be different to the story that we already know. Yeva used to go hunting with her father in the wood as a child, but then when she grows up, she stops since it is something that a young lady shouldn't do. When their father is forced to sell his home and move to his hunting cottage with his three children, Yeva begins hunting again. Her father goes missing and Yeva goes into the forest to see what has happened to him, which is where she encountered the Beast.

I liked how the relationship built up between Yeva and the Beast, but overall I was not a huge fan of the romance as I felt like that element of the relationship was very rushed into the story. It was great that you could see that they began to understand each other, and a sort of friendship formed between them.

It was a fun book to read, not the best but every book has its flaws and I personally really enjoyed reading this book. It was a very easy to get through and took me three days to finish. I'd say if you were looking for a more romantic book or a book with intensive world building, then this book may not be for you since as mentioned before, the romance feels very rushed, and there is little to no world building in the book.

Movies

Mary Poppins Returns

I went to go and see Mary Poppins Returns, and I absolutely loved it! It made me feel very nostalgic for the original movie! I know quite a few people came out of the film thinking that the entire movie was completely pointless, especially because of the cartoon section in the middle of the movie (which if you say this about Mary Poppins Returns, you should say the same about the original movie since it followed a similar structure).

I've always loved Mary Poppins as a character, and I really looked up to the Julie Andrews version as a child. And don't get me wrong, Julie Andrews is absolutely fabulous as Mary Poppins, but Emily Blunt was absolutely fabulous in the role! Her vocals really suited the role, I was a little fearful since watching the Into the Woods movie, although her acting in that movie was very good, I was not a huge fan of the vocal performance. I absolutely loved Mary's wardrobe in this movie too! She looked fantastic! I initially thought that it would be a little weird watching Mary Poppins and not having Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. Obviously the other characters had aged up so it was probably going to be believable that they were the same characters from the original movie, and with Bert being written out of the movie completely. But I feel like it was a very seamless transition with the new incarnation of Mary Poppins, with her new and still youthful appearance given a nod to with a "never ask a lady her age" joke. 

I was very surprised to see the Dick Van Dyke appearance, I avoided any trailers so I have no idea if this was announced previously, but it was a lovely callback to the first movie and I cannot believe that he can still dance around at his age! It would have been lovely to see Julie Andrews have a similar cameo in the movie, but when reading up on interviews I completely understand her reasoning behind not appearing in the movie and respect her for it. It was lovely to see Angela Lansbury appear in the movie.

Mary Poppins Returns is a lovely family movie, which is appropriate for all to watch. I felt like it took a much more serious tone than the original movie, but it is still the same story that we all know and love.

Gypsy 

I came across the musical Gypsy a few years ago when I was still in school, but had no idea what it was about. In the 2018 Christmas season, I bought this for my mum and we watched it together. I may be biased, since I love anything written by Stephen Sondheim, but I really enjoyed watching this movie. It was the version staring Imelda Staunton, and was a filmed and edited version of a live performance, so I felt hesitant categorising it under the movie category, but I think I will leave it since we did watch it on DVD so that counts right?

The story is basically about a mother and two daughters. The daughters were an act and the mother wanted to them to be stars. Eventually when they grow up, the star of the act runs away to get married, and the other daughter becomes a strip tease artist.

It was not the story that I was expecing before I watched the movie, but the music and the songs are brilliant and help move the story along. I think it especially works since they transition between performing shows and then naturalism, and the music changes between the situations, weather on stage or "onstage". 

I feel like this is a great musical for Sondheim fans if you have somehow missed it, but also for anyone who is looking for a female focused show. The show has so many women in the spotlight and they are all great characters that are not your usual 2 dimensional princesses that you may come across on stage.

Shows

The Guy who didn't like Musicals

So I watched this on Christmas eve 2018 when it originally came out, but I also watched it multiple times since then and managed to convince my flat mates to watch it, so it felt wrong to not include this show on my January Favourites list. This show is unlike anything I have ever seen.

I feel like a huge flaw with it is the fact that the main character does not have a song of his own, but at the same time this is a huge reason why I love this show. There isn't another show that I am aware of where the main character does not have at least one solo. It feels very Alice in Wonderland esque since there are a lot of characters that we are introduced to that go away after one or two scenes, and we stay with the same main character through out. 

As a Team Starkid fan, I can say that this has easily become one of my favourite Starkid musicals and may be one of my favourite musicals ever. The music is amazing and is integrated into the script really well, and the acting and singing from the actors in the show is outstanding.

I don't really want to go into too much here, but the whole musical is available on YouTube for free if you want to watch it. 

The Rocky Horror Show

The Rocky Horror show is currently on a tour around the UK, and I went to see it at the Manchester Opera House with my friend for his 20th Birthday, and the whole experience was not anything like I was expecting.

I knew that people dressed up to go to see the show, but I had no idea that people shouted during the performance. I was really thrown at first because I was not sure if it was supposed to happen or if it was just a really drunk person shouting at the actors on stage, therefore I was not sure if I was supposed to laugh or be really angry with them. As it got further through the performance, I realised that this was just a thing that happened during Rocky Horror. 

The actors were fantastic, I had no idea how they were ale to keep a straight face with some of the things that the audience were shouting at the stage. I loved the choreography in this show too, even though there were such iconic songs in this show, the choreography was unlike anything that I have ever seen before. 

This was one of my favourite how experiences, the show itself was very good, but there was also just a general feel good atmosphere in the theatre, which is a feeling I have never really experienced before in a live theatre performance.

Music

The Guy who didn't like Musicals

This links back to the section above. I really enjoyed the music in The Guy who didn't like Musicals, and bought the soundtrack. There isn't really much I can say here that I didn't really say in the section above, but all I can say is that this is a really high quality cast recording and sounds absolutely fantastic, whether you are playing this through your phone, headphones, laptop or speaker. Plus buying the album is supporting Team Starkid so they have money to put towards putting on their next production. 

Six: The Musical

I recently discovered this musical when listening to recommended music on Spotify, and I fell in love with it instantly. I think that musicals based on our history is a brilliant idea - especially seeing the huge success of Hamilton - and it really gets young people interested in the stories of the past.

How many of us have sat through history class with the whole "Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced Beheaded, Survived" thing going on. I know that during history I didn't really think that these women had much of a personality, I just thought they all got married to the King to become Queen, and were all pretty much okay with it when the King divorced them or wanted to move on. I always felt odd assuming this, but this type of thinking is what my early history classes encouraged. 

This musical - although not the most historically accurate (but then again what musical is? Look at Anastasia, that entire story is pretty much fictional) I think that the fact that this show depicts Henry VIII's wives with personalities and allows them to explain their own stories rather than the musical explaining it from Henry's point of view is very refreshing and important, especially for women of that time. 

I also love how every Queen's song is clearly written in the style of a female singer, just adding to the reasons why I love this soundtrack. The album is available on Spotify or available on Youtube to listen to. It is truly incredible. 

Company 

Just to make this clear, this is not the Company 2018 cast recording (although a post about that may be appearing in the not so distant future...stay tuned!!) Before going back to University, I was advised to listen and watch a version of Company by Stephen Sondheim as we would be looking at some of his works in the next term at University (particularly the opening number). 

I did listen to the Company soundtrack before January 2019, but I was very confused with what was going on and was not a huge fan of the album. However, after doing some research and understanding that it was a concept musical and what it was about, the songs grew on me and I eventually ended up enjoying listening to it. 

Particular favourites on the soundtrack for me was Another Hundred People and the famous song Being Alive, but I do also enjoy the other songs on the album. I do wish that this was something that I had watched first to understand what was going on before listening to the soundtrack, but I do love the songs in this musical now, and that is the important thing!

The Greatest Showman: Re-imagined

The Greatest Showman had some lovely songs in it anyway, but I love this new version of the soundtrack. The songs feel fresh and new and I love the way that this new album sounds! Its definitely one that I have listened to a lot while writing blog posts!

She used to be mine (from the musical Waitress)

I have not watched or listened to the entire soundtrack of Waitress, but I was recommended to add this song to my rep book by one of my friends since she thought that it would really suit my voice, which lead me to listening to this song. And I fell in love. 

This song is such an emotional song to sing and to listen to. I don't know much about the context since I want to see Waitress before I know the details about the story, but I beliee that in this song its about an abused woman in her 30's who is pregnant, and this song sounds as though it comes at a point where this character is at her lowest point and is singing about how things used to be.

I may be completely wrong, but this it how I interpret the song as someone who has never seen or heard any of the other songs from Waitress. The song is absolutely beautiful and has easily become one of my favourite songs that I have added to my rep book.

So there you have it, here are my favourites for January 2019. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed writing about these things and experiencing them during the month. Did you have any favourites in January? Let me know!

Update: Nine Roles I'd like to Play

Wow, the first list like this was posted on my blog in 2016, way back when I was young. I'm interested to see how much things will have changed over time since a lot has changed since I originally made that list and I now have different opinions than I did back then. So here we are, this is an updated list of roles I would like to play.

9 - Wendla in "Spring Awakening"

Beginning the list with a role that was on my original ten roles I would like to play is the role of Wendla from "Spring Awakening". I love the songs in Spring Awakening and I feel like the role itself is very much in my character type. I feel like my looks may let me down on this one since I look older than I actually am, so I don't think that at 20 years old I would be able to convincingly play Wendla. As briefly mentioned above, I adore the music style in Spring Awakening and part of the reason why I would like to play Wendla is because of the songs that she sings in the show. 

 8 - Heather Chandler in "Heathers: The Musical"

Heather Chandler as really out of my casting type, but given the opportunity I would love to play a role as good as this. I feel like if I was being realistic, I am more likely to be cast as Heather Mcnamara (who again, is a great character), but I would like to be pushed out of my comfort zone every once in a while. Because I am so opposite to this type of character in real life (or I would at least hope that I am not like this character!). I did dress up as Heather Chandler for Halloween which was great through!

7 - Madame Thenardier in "Les Miserables"

I think it is really interesting to see that I listed this show in my other list, but I now have a completely different character on my list. Madame Thenardier is someone I would love to play. She is such an over the top character and I feel like she also is the comic relief in such a serious and sad show.

She is not the nicest person, but I love how she is written in the show and I love that she is given just as much stage time as her husband. In the "Brick" written by Victor Hugo, Madame Thenardier is arrested and then dies in prison, which if they included this part in the muscial she would not be included in Act 2 at all. This would then mean that there are two female characters left in the whole musical. I love Les Mis so much, but one of my biggest issues I have with it is the lack of female characters, but I guess that it is to do with it being a period piece and with the role women played in life at the time.

I am all for accurate adaptations of books, but I feel like not killing off Madame Thenardier was a very good move on the writers part, since one of my favourite scenes is the confrontation at the wedding. In the 2015 production that I was involved in, this was always a scene that I wanted to try to watch from the wings of the stage since I did just find the actors playing the Thenardier's so funny at this part in the show, so I would love to put my own spin on this one day.

6 -  Sally Bowles from "Cabaret"

I first watched Cabaret in 2017 when I bought my mum the DVD for Christmas, and I was very confused with what was going on. At the time it was not one of my favourite musical, however, after doing a character study in an Acting class during my first semester at university, I became more invested into the story. 

Going into Cabaret, I had the mindset that this was the original Chicago. I love both the stage and the movie version of Chicago and when I watched Cabaret and it wasn't quite the same I felt a little let down. Now that it has been a few years and I can now separate the two shows, I feel like I have a new found appreciation for Cabaret and the character Sally Bowles. It is quite a tragic story, and the song "Life is a Cabaret" is actually much darker than I originally thought it was. It is a character who is at her breaking point having a meltdown whilst performing in a job that isn't really getting her anywhere and she has not become the big star she wanted to be, as well as the trauma that has also probably come from the implied abortion that she has had offstage. 

With the new found appreciation for the show I found, I also found that I fell in love with the character of Sally Bowles and I think that portraying her ultimate breakdown at the end of the show would be a challenge, but one I would love to take on. 

5 - Maureen Johnson in "Rent"

This is a role that I am very surprised that this role was left off my other list. Maureen Johnson is a character that I love. I feel like she is supposed to be unlikable due to how she keeps leading Mark on after they have just broke up and how that impacts her relationship with Joanne, but I think that it would be really fun to try and portray this on stage. This is especially because it is a type of character I have never really looked at playing before. 

One of my favourite parts in Rent is Over the Moon. When I was younger it used to just be because of the sheer randomness of the scene, but as I watched it more and understood what was going on I realised the real meaning behind the song. 

4 - Janis in "Mean Girls"

I have been waiting for Mean Girls to be turned into a musical for so long, so finally when it opened in 2018 I was so happy that Janis because a character that I could add to my "Dream Musical Theatre Roles" list.

In the 2004 movie "Mean Girls", Janis was always my favourite character (fun fact for my first audition I actually did a monologue Janis says in the movie) but I have so many issues with this incarnation of Janis that the musical fixes. I mean, I feel like one of the running themes of the movie is that nobody is perfect which I totally understand, but Janis is portrayed as a lesbian throughout the entire movie then ends up dating a man at the end of the movie. This would have been totally fine if she was established as bisexual in the movie, but it did feel like the movie was queer-bating people. 

I am so glad that in the musical she is written and portrayed as a lesbian, I feel like people still have issues with gay women even in 2019, and to have a character I love also be a lesbian is really awesome.

I love how amazing she is in the show too, she has really cool costumes to wear and although she is not a massive part in the story I do love the songs that she gets to sing (Apex Predator and I'd Rather Be Me). 2018 Janice is the Janice I would like to be given the opportunity to play.

3 - The Baker's Wife in "Into the Woods"

I find it interesting that on the original post I made, I said that I would love to play the role of The Witch in Into the Woods. This has now changed and I feel like the role of the Baker's Wife would fit me best in this show. 

After being in a production of Into the Woods at the end of 2016, I think I just realised that my singing voice wasn't quite suited for the role of the Witch. When studying Stephen Sondheim and revisiting the Into the Woods score at University, I came to the realisation that The Baker's Wife is a ole that would suit me much better.

The Baker's Wife is a very fun character to play. I do believe that all characters in Into the Woods are very interesting and it would be great to step into any of their shoes. Moments in the Woods is one of my favourite songs from the musical, and I do think that her small affair in the woods is comedic yet tragic. Portraying this on stage would be very interesting and I would love to get the chance to portray this in the future. 

2 - Mrs Lovett in "Sweeney Todd"

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to play Mrs Lovett in my college showcase back in 2017. Although we did not do the whole show of Sweeney Todd, I really enjoyed my time playing Mrs Lovett and I am dying to play her in a full length production of Sweeney Todd.

Mrs Lovett is quite a tragic character, but at the same time very manipulative. I would love to explore this side of her more and to be allowed to fully develop this side of her character, rather than just portraying one side of her in an excerpt of the story.

1 - Nancy in "Oliver"

So this is possibly my dream role in a musical that also I could see myself realistically achieving. I love Oliver a lot, I feel like a lot of this comes from it being the first real musical that I was ever involved in (way back in 2012) and still to this day I think it is in my top five shows that I have done.

I remember working so hard and wanting this role really badly, but I was not experienced with auditions and wasn't exactly filled with much confidence so I didn't get the role, but there was a time where I got the opportunity to read in for Nancy when the girl playing the role was ill and it was one of the best times of my life (at that point). It felt like someone had just given me £1,000,000.

I love Nancy as a character and I feel like she is a really great role model for girls, she starts off not in the greatest position in life and with her being in a pretty bad relationship. Through Oliver, she manages to build the courage to get herself out of that situation and wants to give this little boy a better life by taking him to his grandfather. Unfortunately this doesn't end well for Nancy, but I would love to portray this on stage one day, and cockney accent is probably me go to accent at this point.

So here is the updated list. There is only nine roles on my list, but I only really had these roles in mind right now, I'm sure if you ask me next week I'll have another ten roles to add to the list. I tried to keep these roles to things that I could potentially see myself playing. I myself am very against type casting and am open to non-traditional casting, but I feel like wanting to go into this profession I do at least have to acknowledge the type of roles I would be considered for. I would love to do another list of roles I would never play but would like to if given the chance to. Thank you for reading along and if you are interested here is a link to my original top ten list. I would love to know what roles you would like to play!

Can you ever finish writing a musical?

As I am writing this on the 2nd February 2019, the Company 2018 cast recording has just been released which got me thinking about if a musical is ever finished and if there will ever be a true final version of a show.

When doing research into Stephen Sondheim for my Musical Theatre classes, I found that Sondheim not only approved of changing Bobby's Character to be female, but also of many of the other characters in musical. One thing that stood out to me is that Amy and Paul have been changed to Jaime and Paul. Although there are quite a few gender swaps in the musical, most of the couples have remained heterosexual, just like they are in the original piece, so it surprised me to see that just Amy had been changed in this instance. However, this change is not unwelcoming, in fact I believe that it updates the musical to reflect a society welcoming of homosexual couples. Although few people interpreted Bobby as gay in the original production or productions that have followed the traditional casting, the musical was written in 1970 which was a society that was less welcoming to the LGBT Community, so I do believe that updating Amy and Paul to be a gay couple was a great move! Following this, Not Getting Married Today sounds terrific on the cast album!

Looking into this for my work at university got me thinking if work is ever done on a musical, since Sondheim was willing to come back to one of his greatest musicals to change it around so there is a female lead, and to change many of the characters. Although it doesn't sound like a huge change (its not as if he has completely changed the ending of the story), it still must have taken time when he worked with the director to make these changes. There are many lyric changes and he would have had to transpose some of the songs to fit with the new characters vocal range. Still, I think it is amazing that Sondheim can come back to a piece of his work and change it up even 40+ years later to re imagine it as something greater.

This made me start to think about other changes that may have been made in other musicals that could have impacted or changes the story even in the slightest way.

Even with the 2018 production of Heathers the Musical, there were changes made. There where changes made to the production as the show was still running at The Other Palace Theatre, with Veronica's song "I Say No" being added to the production in the last few weeks of the song. Two additional songs were added to the production before it started, with "You're Welcome" and  "Never Shut Up" being added to replace the song "Blue" and it's reprise. It was felt that Blue didn't really fit the production, and that You're Welcome was a better fit for the show, and then Never Shut Up was added to give Heather Duke more character development during the show.
I never got to see this particular production of Heathers the Musical, but I can see where the producers were coming from when they said that Blue felt a little out of place. I admire how they can see that this song wasn't the greatest for the production and sought out the best way to improve it, it just makes me wonder what other composers would change about their musicals if they were ever given the option.

Even though I adore musical theatre and I rarely come out of a how thinking  "That could have been so much better", I still think that there are many ways that could make the musical better.

In Les Miserables, I always feel like Cosette should have her own song at some point in the story. It seems like almost every major character get's their own song, but I feel like Cosette's only big moment is during "A Heart Full of Love", which is a beautiful song, but I think Cosette deserves a bit more than that. After all, she is the face of Les Miserables, and the story is just as much hers as it is Jean Val Jean's story.

I had similar thoughts when watching the movie Frozen for the first time in 2014. I absolutely loved the move, but I felt like Anna needed a song at some point, especially since she is the central character to the story in my eyes. Listening to "True Love" for the first time made me so happy that Anna finally got the solo she deserved, and it added so much more to the character in my opinion. Again, I have not seen the Broadway Production of Frozen, so I have not seen it in context of the story, but as far as I know and knowing where abouts in the story the song comes in, I believe that it will add so much more to the story.

With all points considered, is it ever possible to finish a musical? I guess it depends on the circumstances. Everyone may have their own opinion about something, and may think that some changes need to be made and that some things should just stay the same. I have read some reviews about the 2018 production of Company where the critics absolutely hate the new character of Bobbie and say that it is an insult to the original production. There is no such thing as a perfect musical, and everything can be improved upon, so I believe that it would depend on the individual production. The World of Theatre is different now to how it has ever been, and that is a good thing, there is so much more diversity and non-traditional casting, so re-imagining characters or adding/taking away songs is great to bring the musical into modern society. However, people will always respect the classics for what they were.