October Favourites - 2019

Well here we are, my favourites for the spookiest month of the year! I have almost made it to making a favourites post for the entire year, with only my November and December favourites left to go! If you have missed any of my previous favourites posts, you can find them listed below:

• January Favourites - Click Here
• February Favourites - Click Here
• March Favourites - Click Here
• April Favourites - Click Here
• May Favourites - Click Here
• June Favourites - Click Here
• July Favourites - Click Here
• August Favourites - Click Here
• September Favourites - Click Here

Unfortunately I do not have as much to list for my October Favourites as I did for my other Favourites lists, it will probably be the shortest list of the year. But here we are. This is what my favourites were for the month of October:

Songs 

Drive you Outta your Mind from Bare: the Musical

Photo Credit: @Wiki

As you may or may not know, I was a part of the cast of Bare: A Pop Opera in May 2019. Bare: The Musical is an updated version of Bare: A Pop Opera, which was not as well received as the original, which I can completely understand. They took out characters, added characters, merged characters, it was a hot mess!

I did come across this song thous, Drive you outta your mind, which is sung by the character Nadia. In this version of the story, Nadia is merged with the character Lucas, so she is Jason's sister but also the school's drug dealer - makes sense right!

Although it is a questionable character decision, I absolutely love this song for Nadia, as she was never really given a really good belty song to sing, those were saved for Ivy. I absolutely love this song and I love that Barret Wilbert Weed originated this version of the character! So although Bare: The Musical is a hot mess, this song is anything but that!

The Sparkling Diamond from Moulin Rouge

Photo Credit: @icollectmedia

I absolutely love Moulin Rouge - it is probably my favourite jukebox musical as it does something really interesting with the music that is borrows from artists. I absolutely love the movie, and think that this song is such an iconic, genius mashup.

I never really noticed until I did some research into this song - just to clarify I am refering to the movie version and not the version from the 2019 musical, so it is purely a mix of Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend from Gentlemen prefer Blondes and Material Girl by Madonna. I never realised, but these songs are literally the same. Not musically, if you listen to them, there isn't anything musically similar about them. But the lyrics and the subjects that they are covering are very similar, how women value wealth. They may grow older and may fall out of love, but money/diamonds will always be there for them. I didn't even realise that both of the music videos are the same!

I absolutely love where this song comes in the musical, and it is just such a refreshing take on both of these iconic songs!

Backstage Romance from Moulin Rouge

Photo Credit: @broadwaydirect

As mentioned above, I love Moulin Rouge for doing something different with the songs that it takes from artists, and this is a mashup that I absolutely love!

Mixing songs such as Bad Romance, Toxic, Tainted Love ect, it creates a mash up that is unbelievable! Once I found this song, I could not stop listening to it. I would absolutely love to see how this is choreographed and executed on stage, since I imagine it being one of those numbers where you don't know where to look for amazement! This is definitely a song you have to add to your playlist!

The Chances Are from Girlfriends

Photo Credit: @OperettaResearchCentre 

I have been given the amazing opportunity to be a part of the cast of Girlfriends in 2020, and as part of that I started familiarizing myself with the music so that I would be ready when it comes to putting the show together in January. One of the songs that really stood out for me was The Chances Are, sung by the character Jane.

Girlfriends is about women in the Airforce in World War Two, and this particular song is aout the character Jane saying how she lost her partner in the war, and that the chances are that Amy's boyfriend will die in the army and that she should embrace that now so that it is less painful when it actually happens.

The music in Girlfriends is stunning anyway, and I would totally recomend to anyone to listen to the full thing, but if there is just one song that you want to listen to, make it this one. The album is fully available on spotify to listen to!

Books

All that she can see by Carrie Hope Fletcher

Photo Credit: @CarrieHFletcher

Cherry has a hidden talent. She can see things other people can't and she decided a long time ago to use this skill to help others. According to the town, she is simply the kind-hearted young woman who runs a local bakery, but in private, she uses her gift to add something special to her cakes. This gift impacts the townspeople, and they start to feel better about their lives.

They don't know why they are drawn to Cherry's bakery - they just know that they're safe there and that's how Cherry likes it. No one will ever need to know the truth behind her gift; she can help them in secret. It turns out she's not the only one who can see what she sees, since everything starts to change when Chase arrives in town and threatens to undo all the good that Cherry has done...

All That She Can See has a whimsical yet grown up and contemporary fairy tale vibe, which has carried over from her debut novel On The Other Side. Carrie clearly has a fantastic imagination and a beautiful way with words, which results in a modern story that contains themes of morals, humanity and issues (such as mental health), but written in a reasonably simplified and easy to comprehend style.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book this month, and if you would like to read more about what I thought of it, you can click here to read my review!

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (Audiobook)

Photo Credit: @Amazon

Shakespeare has always been something i have struggled to enjoy, however I really enjoyed reading (or, more accurately, listening) to Twelfth Night. I found listening to it much easier than trying to read the book, plus it allowed me to make notes as I was listening to it so I could better understand what was going on in the story. Before now, I had not used an Audio Book before, but I may look into using Audiobooks more often in the future since I really enjoyed listening to this one!

Other

Halloween Costume

Due to having to pay for two trips to London in just over a month apart from each other, I had a very tight budget for my Halloween costume this year, so I did one of my favourite things - digging through my wardrobe to see what I already had. I have always had a bright pink leather skirt, and I had the pink leather jacket that I brought back from my holiday in Florida, and I thought there if there is something that is associated with pink it is Barbie.

I wanted to put a Halloween Spin on this, so I decided I would be Barbie with plastic surgery that has gone wrong, and do you want to know how much I spent on this costume? 45p, and that was on the fake blood! Everything else was stuff that I already had! 

So it may not have been the most extravagant or amazing Halloween costume, but for the price I am incredibly proud! I also really liked getting to play around with my makeup skills. I have never done any special effects makeup before, and although I wouldn't really say this is that type of make up, its not a bad start to it!

That is all for my October Favourites. What were your favourite things in October? Let my know in the comments below, and be sure to stick around for my November and December Favourites coming in the next couple of weeks!