The View From Lower Down

For about 3 weeks now, I have been writing a blog post about how the timeline in the Mamma Mia movies doesn't make sense . This meant that for about 20 days, there was a partly finished post available for your viewing pleasure. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily; but it does mean that people have been reading posts with bits missing. Would you go see a movie if it just stopped halfway through just because the release date was earlier than advertised? Of course you wouldn't. Would you see a movie that had a massive chunk missing from the middle (I tend not to write posts in a logical order. Skip to the bottom of the post linked above to see why)? Of course not. Who's this weird asthmatic guy claiming to be the main character's father? And what on earth is he wearing? So from now on, all unfinished posts will show UNCOOKED in the title. If you still want to read them, that's your business. But I recommend that you wait instead. Plus, if you go in early, you

I was watching New Girl the other day ( more TV recommendations ) and a certain guest star caught my attention. I'll get onto him in a minute. But what I want to focus on first is the following collaboration. The collaborators are: Andrew Lloyd Webber (ALW), composer of many musicals including, but not limited to, Cats; Phantom of the Opera; Jesus Christ Superstar; Starlight Express; Joseph and the Unnecessarily Long Title and many more. Julian Fellowes, writer of Gosford Park, and the Titanic miniseries on ITV in 2012, but probably best known as the creator and writer of Downton Abbey . Now, without looking it up, what do you think the two collaborated on? Answer below (Clue: it's a stage show based on an existing property) The Answer: School of Rock: The Musical No, really. I'm not saying it's bad; on the contrary, I've literally ONLY heard good things. And I've looked. Hard. When lockdown is lifted, I recommend you check it ou

For a TL;DR of my other post , see below: The world is basically locked down atm, so no one is able to go to the theatre. Therefore, some musicals and plays are being uploaded in full to YouTube. Sorry about missing last week. The show was West End Unplugged, a series of interviews with west end stars and singing some showtunes. This week is West End Unplugged 2, which is more of the same but with different people. That's not strictly true anymore as some theatres are opening again with reduced seating and different social distancing rules in place, but the YT shows are coming back anyway. Some links are below: The Shows Must Go On YT channel  (Shows trailers for what's coming up, and also individual numbers from shows that were already broadcast West End Unplugged 2 Trailer West End Unplugged 2 full show (may not be live when you read this, but should be live from 7pm 20 Nov-7pm 20 Nov (Both times GMT)

Congratulations to all one of you who got the reference in the title of this post. Okay, strictly speaking, what I'm about to talk about isn't so much a disease as it is a syndrome. See, I recently watched Groundhog Day. Those of you who know it, good for you, but if you don't, here's a basic explanation of the plot: Newsman Phil Connors is sent by his network with a small crew (a cameraman and a producer) to film a short segment involving a weather-predicting groundhog. After they are stranded in the town due to bad weather conditions, Phil wakes up in the same place on the same day and is forced to live out the same day many times Some fun facts about that movie: A total of 38 full or partial days are shown in the film There are multiple guesses for how long Phil spends repeating Groundhog Day, based on (MINOR SPOILERS) the fact that he becomes an expert in Piano playing Ice sculpting French literature The writer and the director claim that it's r