As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I was born in London (and I will stress again, I still see myself as Scottish) and spent the first 18 years of my life there. I now live in Hull and have done for 10 years, after a brief 3 year stay in Norfolk, where my parents and my brother still live.
I loved living in London, and I think it brought with it a lot of experiences that some people just don't get. Since moving away from London I have been constantly surprised by the amount of people that I have met who have never been to London. I find it really odd, considering it is our capital city and holds so many interesting and historical sites. One of the things that I loved most about living in London was the easy access to the West End. My parent's have always encouraged my brother and I to be open to new experiences and most of that come from them taking us to the theatre regularly. My brother hasn't developed the love of theatre that I have, I think he has an appreciation for it, but it's just not really his bag! Whereas, people who have read my blog before, or who know me, know that I love the theatre. In fact I love the arts in all their forms. Art, literature and film are my other big interests.
I could never move back to London, much as I love the place and I love to visit regularly, I find it too big to live comfortably. But one of the things that I do miss dearly is how easy it is to go to see shows on the West End when you live in the city. Living as far away as I do, it takes a lot of planning; you have to think of petrol and expenses during your stay. Fortunately for my wife and I, my brother-in-law lives with his girlfriend in North London so we can go down and stay with them, but this still takes planning and money. Whereas when I lived there, the only money I needed over and above the ticket price was money for the tube.
As well as anything else, I sometimes feel out of the loop living up North. As an example, you may remember me writing a blog about "Into The Woods" and how much I loved it, well, I found out last weekend during a trip to London that there is currently a professional production on this on at the Royal Opera House studio, but it finishes this weekend. Had I have had prior warning of this production I might have tried to plan a trip to see it, but I didn't know about it.
Does anyone know of a publication that I could subscribe to that would keep me abreast of what is happening on the West End? I have considered subscribing to Time Out, but this is a weekly publication, and may get a bit much. A monthly publication that gives info on future and current productions would be good. A bit like Empire does for the film industry but for theatre. Can anyone help?
Just to end on a reminder, tonight is Hessle Theatre Company's concert at the Guildhall in Hull. See you there!
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An online publication that is useful is Playbill, you can find a link to it in the list of 'other links' on my Music Man blog.
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