Singin’ in the Rain was so wonderful that it made me cry.
If you are in Manchester and have a spare evening in which you are not already doing something, then go and see it for yourselves. It was utterly fantastic.
I don’t want to spoil it for anybody thus inspired, but since they warn you when you go in I don’t suppose it’s a secret, it really rains.
The two young men playing the lead roles were brilliant. Even the chorus were brilliant. I loved every minute and sat with a huge grin on my face right through until we jumped to our feet to applaud at the end. It was an incredible production, and I am so glad that we went.
I have run out of superlatives now and so I am going to have to stop, but it was such a splendid evening. We staggered back, drunk with music and dancing, and collapsed into the Midland bar for hot chocolate before bed.
It has been a jolly good day, actually. The Midland does a large and satisfactory buffet breakfast, of which we availed ourselves thoroughly. I am going to be at least two stones heavier when we go home, indigestion is becoming a fairly constant factor in my life at the moment, I am wearing myself out with excess.
After breakfast we strolled out to explore the Christmas markets. Actually there wasn’t much exploring involved, they don’t seem to change very much from year to year, the stalls even staying in more or less the same places. This is quite nice in a predictable sort of way, but a bit dull. In any case we didn’t really want to buy anything, so we didn’t. We examined candles from The White Company, which we know that we like because we have purchased them before, but the prices have gone up since and even Mark, who is wonderfully reckless with money, agreed that a hundred and seventy five quid was a bit much for a candle.
Also the lady reminded us of the bit that I had forgotten, which was that they don’t burn down properly, and the outside bit stays solid, so you don’t really get your money’s worth. Also there are lots of dried oranges and decorative bits in the wax, which when we thought about it, we remembered caught fire rather excitingly at the end.
We bought a little candle instead. That will be just fine.
We ambled back to the hotel, laden with shopping even though we hadn’t wanted anything, and were reunited with the children for a swim.
They did not mind playing the Shark Game a little bit, for reasons of nostalgia.
We sat in the steam room, which was properly, wonderfully piping hot, not one of these cheating places that is only a bit warm and misty, and then had ice showers followed by a social gathering in the jacuzzi. We have got a perfectly good jacuzzi at home but we never use it because I always feel that it would be the most shocking waste of money to heat up all of those gallons and gallons of water and then just slosh them away down the plughole, but this water presumably stays there for ages with just the occasional rejuvenating slosh of disinfectant as a pick-me-up, so it was all right.
We were exhausted by the time we had finished, and staggered up to our separate rooms in order to collapse on to the beds and groan for a little while.
We needed coffee laced with whisky in order to fortify ourselves for the evening.
It was fantastic.
Go and see it.
It is not actually raining, by the way. The weather is cold but fairly clement.
