Once the Musical

For Andy's birthday a few weeks ago, I bought him tickets to see "Once", a musical playing at The Princess Theatre in Melbourne. We used to go to the theatre quite a bit in London, but haven't done at all since living in Melbourne. Partly because a lot of the bigger shows we've already seen, and partly because it can be pretty expensive. But I'd read some good reviews about Once and didn't know anything about it (I didn't even know that it was based on a movie), so thought it would be nice to get tickets for us.

We made it into a bit of a date night, with dinner and drinks at Melbourne Supper Club first. It was a beautiful night so we were able to sit outside on the rooftop garden, called Siglo, which was busy even when we arrived at 6pm. (I'm not sure why it has a different name as it's the same place). We had some delicious tapas: the prawn wontons were my favourite, and Andy just had to order the gourmet sausage rolls. Unfortunately the service was pretty poor - our waitress seemed pretty out of it, she never smiled and would take plates away or put things on the table without saying a word. The kicker was that she took my wine glass away while there was still wine in it - unforgivable! She was so fast about it I couldn't even say "I'm not finished with that!" and was just left stewing about my unfinished wine. I had read some really good reviews about Melbourne Supper Club so it was disappointing to have such bad service, but we did leave with full bellies and the atmosphere was really good so maybe we will give it another try sometime.

Siglo, Melbourne Supper Club's rooftop

The Princess Theatre is just a few meters down the road from Melbourne Supper Club. We had tickets in the Dress Circle, which was the first level up. Those that had tickets in the Stalls (the floor) are invited on stage before the show and in the interval to have a drink with the cast, as the stage is set up like a bar. (Those tickets were pretty pricey though... I settled for a more moderately priced ticket for us! I actually considered getting a restricted view ticket as they were REALLy cheap, but thought that might be a bit of a rubbish birthday present!) The whole cast can play a musical instrument, and they are onstage playing throughout the whole show, which was pretty cool. The story line is simple: A Czech girl meets an Irish boy in Dublin, and she recognises his talent as a musician and songwriter. He is about to give up music, but she pushes him to pursue his dream. It's a romantic comedy; the two are both nursing respective broken hearts whist falling in love, and there are a lot of laugh out loud lines. The main difference between this musical and others is that most of the songs don't advance the plot much, they are actually songs that the main character wrote, but of course the lyrics have meanings parallel to the storyline. Also the music isn't really cheesy-musical like music, it's got more of an Indie/pop/folksy feel to it.

I really enjoyed it, although the second half was a bit of a let down compared to the first. Also the theatre was freezing, we had air-conditioning blowing right on us, and the seats were pretty worn and uncomfortable! It was worth seeing though, and I think it would appeal to people who don't like traditional musicals as well as those that do.