Once the Musical - April 2014

Three months ago, it was announced that Declan Bennett was to leave Once, at which point, the discussions began as to who would be his replacement. Jokingly, while seeing Once for the first time myself, we had this discussion and brought up the possibility of Arthur Darvill, well known for his role as Rory Williams on Doctor Who, of being that person. He had just recently finished playing the lead role on Broadway and as far as anyone was aware, he had nothing lined up. Much to my delight and squeals, he was announced, barely a couple of weeks later, to be taking over the lead role for a limited engagement. Obviously, I had to go and see him perform and so, I booked tickets for the Easter weekend, which just so happened to tie in with my birthday! Happy Birthday Me!

Originally my friend, Harriet, was meant to be coming with me, but sadly, she had to pull out due to other commitments. So I thought I would take Rachael with me, as she desperately wanted to see Arthur as well. Then it clicked, I could take my friend, Kirsty, with me instead as she had mentioned to me, the weekend before, that she was planning to go and see it. Luckily, she said yes and before heading to the theatre for pre-show drinks, we had dinner and drinks! I should say thank you again to her for being so nice and paying for the meal!

As I mentioned, last time I went, before the show and during the interval, the audience is able to go on stage and buy drinks from the onstage bar. As we knew it would be too hard to get down from the upper circle for a drink in the interval, we decided to head there before the show. I should note now, on the tickets, it says the bar opens at 6pm, this is only for the theatre bars. The onstage bar does not open till 7pm when the auditorium opens. We took a few photos while on stage, waiting to hopefully see the preshow, but as they were not out 7:15pm, we decided to make our way up to the upper circle. The view from the back of the upper circle is actually pretty decent, thanks to the Phoenix Theatre to be one of the smaller ones in the West End. For the cost I paid, around £40 or so, I felt it was very good money for value.

Quick rant: if you have tickets for a show and it states it starts at a certain time, then make the effort to turn up and be in your seats at least five minutes before so! It is bloody irritating when people turn up thirty minutes into the show and do not come in quietly and therefore ruining it for other people!

I was so excited to be seeing this again and so soon. As already mentioned, Arthur was a big part of this. But I was also excited to be able to see the fabulous Zrinka Cvitesic again as she had just recently won Best Actress in a Musical at the Oliviers! You only have to see her deliver the line, "I am always serious, I'm Czech!" to understand why she won! It is one of my favourite lines in the show and has me laughing every time it is said!

The show, as always, was fantastic, amazing and so beautiful. The new cast members have fitted well into show and made it so you feel like they have always been there! The show is so incredibly funny that one woman was cackling so loudly that, as we found out later from a cast member, she made Arthur laugh onstage at a point when he was not meant to, and it is the only time it has ever happened to him! While it may have made him laugh, after a while, it became extremely irritating especially when it was just her laughing and none of the other audience members!

Arthur was absolutely amazing in the role. Dare I say, perhaps even better than Declan? I thought at times, he was perhaps slipping in and out of the required Irish accent needed for the role, but I was corrected by Kirsty, who has Irish roots, that he did in fact, pull off the accent very well and never slipped from it! Vocally, he was stunning and made the songs his own. My favourite song he performed was Gold and I just downloaded the Broadway version, which has been on repeat for a good hour already today! His voice also blended so well with Zrinka's, especially on Falling Slowly. They had fantastic chemistry, making you root for the characters to be a couple! There is not much more I can say on Zrinka, as she was, as always, so amazing in her role and last night just proved why she was so deserving on her Olivier Award!

After the show, we did head to the stage door. Sadly, Zrinka shot off past the fans before we even realised it was her and Arthur never came out. I was slightly annoyed at first as I wanted to see if I could get a "Happy Birthday" from them, but in the end, I was not so fussed as we had met them at the Oliviers the weekend before. And to be honest, even if you go to the stage door, there is never a guarantee you will get to meet any of the cast members!