観劇、そして感激/ 'Awesome' watching musical

25.2.2010
　初めて学校をサボり、アユミ（クラスメイト）とバスに乗ってピカデリーへ。彼女は今週末に日本に帰る予定で色々観光したいとのことで、便乗して一緒にミュージカルを観に行くことになった。ピカデリーではどれを観たら良いか迷うくらい色々なミュージカルを日々公演している。どのミュージカルも当日券だとほぼ半額で購入できるのが嬉しい。今回は大人１人￡６０のところを￡３０（約４２００円）で購入。

チケットセンターのすぐ横に行列が出来ていて、何かと思ったら「ALICE IN WONDER LAND（ジョニーデップ出演）」のワールドプレミア上演の行列だった。熱烈なジョニーファンのコスプレ集団（シザーハンズ、パイレーツオブカリビアン、アリス）がいたので、すかさず写真を…全ジョニーを撮影したかったがタイミング悪く２人のジョニーが別の場所に移動。でもアリスと一緒にいたジョニーの撮影には成功。

公演は午後３時からなので、お昼ゴハンをパブで。前回同じパブに彼女と来た時にイギリスでは珍しくクーポン券を貰ったので、今回早速使用してみる。クーポンの内容はドリンクを１杯頼むと手羽先カラ揚げ（１kg・バケツ入り）をサービスするというもの。ビールと一緒に熱々のカラ揚げを甘辛いバーベキューソースで頂く…美味い！骨が多いから２kg頼むべきだったかとも思ったけど、意外とお腹にたまる。

公演時間まで周辺をウロウロ散策し、いよいよ劇場へ。平日だったせいか、客層はほぼ学生…はしゃぎまくり。自分達の席はドレスフロア（２階席）の前から５列目。程よく舞台全体が見渡せる。今回観たのは「BLOOD BROTHERS」、日本語にすると「義兄弟」。友情を誓い合った２人の主人公達は実は生き別れの双子で云々…な話。日本だと拍手だけで済みそうな場面でもほぼ全ての客が大歓声で応え、キスシーンは盛り上がりまくりラストはカーテンコール４回。すごい。次回は「オペラ座の怪人」を観に行きたい。

Ayumi, a friend of mine, and I were absent from school and went to Piccadilly by bus this morning. We did this because she’s going back to Japan this Saturday, and she wanted to do some sightseeing before then, so that’s why I shared her idea to watch a musical together.
Many kinds of musicals are shown at theatres in Piccadilly everyday as much as you waver over which the best is. It was nice for us that each musical has a ticket on the day of the performance for almost half price. We bought a ticket for ￡30 (about 4200yen) per adult, which was ￡60 before.

There was a long line beside the ticket centre when we bought the ticket. What I thought was that the people were waiting for the world premier preview of the movie “ALICE IN WONDER LAND (Johnny Depp appears)”. I saw a group who were mad about the actor in the line, wearing costumes from his movies (such as Scissor hands, Pirates of Caribbean and Alice), I immediately thought I wanted to take their picture… but unfortunately, 2 of the Johnnies moved away. Yet I succeeded to take a picture of one of them with Alice.

The opening time was 3pm, so we had lunch at the pub. The pub’s staff gave a coupon to each of us (unusual for English pubs) when we went there last time, so that we used it quickly.
On it was written; redeemable for 1kg bucket of deep fried chicken wings if you order a drink. We had fresh and hot chicken wings with sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, and beer…delicious!! We thought that we should have ordered 2kg of it before eating, because basically chicken wings are bony, but we became fuller than we thought after all.

We strolled around theatre until the opening time, then finally we entranced into it. There were somehow lots of students; it might have been because it was a weekday, and they were very excited. Our seats were 5 from the front line of the Dress floor (1st floor). It was good for seeing the whole stage. What we watched this time was “BLOOD BROTHERS”, in Japanese, “GI-KYOUDAI”. In this story, there were 2 heroes vow to keep their friendship with each other; actually, they are twin brothers who had been separated at birth. Etc.
To my surprise, there were some scenes which only get applause if it were Japan, but here, the audience weren’t only applauding but were cheering loudly for actors, and were very excited in by Kissing scene. And at the end, we saw the curtain call four times! Awesome. I want to watch “The phantom of the opera” next time.

From this time, my English teacher has helped me checking my Diary. I appriciate for her kindness.