From The Ridiculous To The Sublime

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Today we watched two things on the telly. The first was Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. It is a very silly film but we just loved it anyway. Caro loved the song-a-long. Meanwhile I was very fond of Ja Ja Ding Dong.

Bizarrely, it might actually be the best looking film of Edinburgh I've seen too. And I include Trainspotting, Restless Natives and Avengers: Infinity War in this. It looked just lovely and just how I remember it.

Sigh.

So I was feeling quite emotional and fragile when we put Hamilton on. Maybe I should have held off.

Holy effing ess. I was not expecting anything like that. I started it as I made dinner and I kept forgetting what I was doing with vegetables as it drew me right in. 

IT BLEW MY MIND. Is what I am saying.

I mean, I'd heard it was amazing, but I wasn't expecting it to be the version of amazing where you have to break that word up into three distinct syllables. The songs, the dancing, the set and the story. It was all so clever, so imaginative. I've never seen a musical like it. 

I've certainly never seen a musical where they do "Matrix" style slow-mo of gunshots LIVE ON STAGE.

I've definitely never heard songs that have so many clever ideas and wordplay just STUFFED into them. I'm going to have to watch it all over again because I'm sure I missed 80% of it. It was just incredible to watch those actors spitting out all the wordy lyrics with not a mis-step. It was like "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General" to a hip-hop beat.

And that was just the start of how a-may-zing it is. I loved the song "Satisfied" where the cast rewinds the previous song so you see it sung again from a different perspective, and I loved how they manage to make the workings of government exciting, emotional and funny. 

(Caro and me found King George III and Thomas Jefferson to be our comic highlights. They were an absolute hoot.) 

Caro? You may be saying. Doesn't she NOT LIKE MUSICALS? Well yes, correct, but she abso-bloody-lutely LOVED this. She had a big cry during a few of the songs, especially "It's Quiet Uptown".

Not me though. Obviously. Look. Shut up. I had something in my eye. For several minutes. 

So, yes. Gosh. I feel quite worn out now. That sort of feeling where you know you won't be able to feel anything about anything else for a few hours. Oh my yes. 

Or ja, ja ding-dong, as they say in Iceland.

S.

p.s. As you can see, Punky is loving his deck.