Raise Your Voice

Started the day watching the Shania Twain documentary, Not Just A Girl, on Netflix. It was well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I never knew about her Lyme Disease story before. I spent the next couple of hours doing the obligatory Saturday morning chores with her music on in the background. Even dusting is better to ‘Life’s About To Get Good’.

Just after 6pm we headed out bound for the Hammersmith Apollo.  Just before lockdown began we had bought tickets to see Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. As with most theatre planned at that time it was postponed, and postponed again, but we finally got to the theatre tonight which is the exact Saturday we would have been seeing it - although the date is a day early - back in 2020.

In the intervening months a calendar clash meant Whoopi was no longer performing and Beverley Knight, fresh from The Drfiter’s Girl, has been brought in to play Deloris.  The Guardian reckoned that “Jennifer Saunders is the main draw, bridling and bristling as Mother Superior” but I disagree. Beverley Knight’s voice makes the show’s musical elements, which are the key plot driver, amazing.  Her soulful belters really stand out from the rest of the music in the show.  

The show is very entertaining. The plot is based on the film but it’s been modified and moved in location (to Philadelphia) and time (back to the 70s) but it remains true to the movie’s themes. I think some of the set pieces are a little too farcical but they make the show move long.  They also seemed to make the audience move too - and not in a good way. Throughout the performance there was a steady stream of people heading to the toilets. And maybe the bars - in the way people behave in concerts.  We were sitting on the very back row and so, maybe, this was more obvious to us than it would have been if we’d been sitting further forward.  However, it was very frustrating.