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Gran & Al’s World Tour

By nathanmckean ⋅ June 22, 2007 ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ Post a comment

I was fortunate to receive another visit from Gran and Al on their World Tour. Having pulled into their hotel near Victoria Station, I had pre-arranged tickets to Wicked The Musical. Having no idea of what it was about, and quite tired, the followed me around the corner from their hotel (convenient) to the Victoria Apollo.

For those that don’t know, Wicked is based on a novel by Gregory Maguire, “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West”, which I have to say was an unusual read - but a very entertaining musical.

The story centres around the back story of Oz and ties up all of the loose ends about everything you didn’t know from the Wizard of Oz. How did the Wizard get to Oz? How did the Tinman, Scarecrow and Lion come to be and what exactly did ‘The Wizard of Oz’ not show us?

I’ve got to say I loved it. The story was strong, the music was great (although a little out of balance and hard to hear clearly in parts) and they certainly spared no expense on the set or props.

After a little bit of difficulty getting into the start of it, I think it really grew on Gran and Al and in the end, they thought it was great. I really didn’t know what to expect because it was always going to be a gamble whether or not it was their kind of thing.

All in all a great night out.

On Sunday afternoon, I caught up with them again and we went for a drink and some food at the Shakespeare, near their hotel. Not a bad little pub, but again, part of a chain, so the menu (to me) was very familiar. Still, you can’t go past the Chicken Kiev.

And that was it. Short and sweet. It was really nice to catch up with them and is probably the last time I’ll see them face to face for at least a year. Still, I guess I get to see all of their hijinx on the rest of the tour, when I edit their video.