'Barnum' at the Menier Chocolate Factory

'Barnum' is a big show so how will it play at a more bijou theatre like the Choccy Factory? The dreary days of January are the perfect time to find out, grey outside and full of colour inside. It's also full of circus acts, singing, energetic dancing, giant elephants, tight-rope walking, invisible lions, flame eating and everything else you'd expect from the greatest show on earth - except that we don't see 'the greatest show on earth', we see everything that leads up to it.

I'd never seen 'Barnum' before so the story was new to me. It tells the tale of PT Barnum, a showman living off humbug and blarney married to his young wife with their children. We see his career grow as he gradually finds his role, always yearning for the colour and magic of performance and, seemingly, getting it. His wife is his stalwart critic and supporter and it's her that sends him to Europe to hire a famous singer to bring back to America. He brings the singer and then has an affair with her, leaving his wife to run the family business. He ultimately goes back to his wife, tries to settle down, gets into politics and then his wife dies. He then meets Mr Bailey who seeks his advice on setting up a new circus and the show ends when he agrees to join Bailey to produce the greatest show on earth.

It's a fast-moving monster of a show that somehow fits into the Choccy factory. I don't know how, but it does. For the first time in its history, the Choccy has transformed the bar/box office area to create a circus atmosphere with the walls covered in canvas with adverts for the various acts, signs on doors to warn of dangerous animals (the lion lived behind one of those doors) and the theatre space is now a circus ring. I heartily approve.

I loved it and have decided that I will run away and join a circus when I grow up. Some of the cast seem to have had some circus training to perform their acts, there are singers and dancers aplenty and a special shout out to Danny Collins who played a couple of roles. I thought Marcus Brigstocke (Barnum) and Laura Pitt-Pulford (Mrs Barnum) had a great on-stage presence together, nicely playing off each other. I found it hard to hear Marcus Brigstocke singing (a problem with the mic?) but that's my only criticism of the show. It's great fun! Such great fun, in fact, that I've already got tickets to see it again!

'A Little Night Music' at the Palace Theatre

On Monday we went to the Palace Theatre to see a staged concert version of Sondheim's 'A Little Night Music' to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary in London. I've seen the show twice before and enjoyed it both times, firstly the revival at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2008 and then the same production on Broadway in 2010 with Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and with Alexander Hanson playing Frederick in both shows.

This is possibly one of my favourite Sondheim's, not too challenging but quite delightful with great songs and roles for three generations of actors. It's nice and there's nothing wrong with nice. It's a tale of love, of ageing and still loving, of finding your true love and all of the characters find their lovers eventually (apart from Desiree's daughter, who has her life ahead of her). With some people it just takes a bit longer but it will come, don't worry...

There's a great score and some great songs - and not just 'Send In The Clowns' - with a lot of scope to make this show your own. I left this show wanting the concert cast to do a full on stage version - and a cast recording, obv - and I'd like it to open next weekend please. Can you arrange it?

It was the women who ruled this concert version, with Janie Dee as Desiree, Anne Reid as Mme Armfeldt (her mother), Joanna Riding as an incredibly deadpan Countess and Laura Pitt-Pulford as the earthy servant girl. They were all excellent and the sequence of Janie's 'Send In The Clowns', sitting at the front of the stage followed by Laura's feisty 'Millers Son' was marvellous. Anne Reid was great as the woman who's seen it all and Joanna was great fun as the disillusioned wife of the count who's having an affair with Desiree - such great one-liners! And kudos to Bibi Jay as Desiree's young daughter, Fredrika.

In the final moments of the show during the reprise of 'Send in the Clowns' Janie seemed to forget the lines of the song. Is that possible? So the orchestra stopped and started again so she and David Birrell (as Fredrick) could start again. Did she really forget the lines or was it an opportunity for her to milk the applause when she sang 'was that a farce' - I'm in two minds!

It was a great evening, lovely to hear that music and those songs again and to see those people on the stage. I'd say 'go if you can' but it was a one-off event. I hope there's another revival in the works since this is definitely a show worth seeing.