COMING HOME: Jay Perry, soon to return to his roles in Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

You may know him as a West End superstar, but here at Pocket, we remember Jay Perry from the absolute legendary pop group, S Club Juniors! Jay was a part of the group as a child but has gone on to have a wonderful career in theatre. Before the theatres shut he had been in the London production of the smash-hit Broadway musical Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre.  

Jay is a stand by in Hamilton, covering the roles of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Marquis De Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. He made his debut performance in the production at the beginning of 2020 and unfortunately didn’t have a long run until theatres all over the country closed their doors. Talking to Jay about what he is looking forward to when getting back to the West End, he says “I'm excited for the connection I get between being on stage performing and the audience receiving the performance, I love that buzz and the twinkle in the eye that you catch. The service we offer people is really magical.” 

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Hamilton And Me; An Actor’s Journal’ by Giles Terera

Recently, Olivier Award-winning Giles Terera collected his MBE from St James’s Palace for services to theatre. As if his phenomenal range of acting credits isn’t enough to garner respect, he is also a writer, producer and director. His new release ‘Hamilton and Me’ delves (in journal format) into the creative process of originating the role of Aaron Burr on the West End in ‘Hamilton’; the musical you’ve either seen and adored, or are still desperate to see! If you don’t know anything about the show, you may want to hit Google (and Spotify) hard before continuing on with this review!

This book is made up of refined entries which were written in Terera’s journal throughout his Hamilton journey; from pre-audition through to opening night, he provides the reader with the gut-punching reality of being a performer and the sheer volume of research and work which went into bringing this character to life. 

His memoirs include an array of stories about his creative brainstorming and rehearsal alongside the iconic Hamilton Team (including Lin Manuel-Miranda, Alex Lacamoire, Thomas Kail and Andy Blankenbuehler) as well as naming the stellar West End cast one by one and how they impacted his journey to creating Aaron Burr. 

The Real Housewives of Musical Theatre

If you're anything like me, you would have fallen in the Real Housewives trap. Over this pandemic there hasn't been a lot to do, so of course watching Real Housewives was on the top of my list. But this got me thinking, who would be the Real Housewives of Musical Theatre? Well, let's find out... 

Madame Morrible 

No doubt she'll stir the pot without any of the others knowing, until all is revealed and her evil ways are exposed. 

INTERVIEW: Miriam-Teak Lee, Star of & Juliet on how she is teaming up with her brother, Dex Lee, for an online Festive Concert!

Miriam-Teak Lee originated the role of Juliet in the West End production of '& Juliet' at the Shaftsbury Theatre, a role she has gone on to win an Olivier Award and a Black British Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Not only that but she is a past winner of The Stage Debut award, for which she won for her performance in Dre McOnies production of 'On The Town' at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. As well as appearing in these shows, she was also apart of the original London company of Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre, Lee was in the ensemble and also covered all of the Schuyler Sisters! 

Alongside her Brother, Dex Lee (star of BBC1's Doctors, The Wild Party, Grease, In the Heights), have put together a festive Christmas online stream to get us all to really start feeling all those festive feels! 'Simplee Christmas' is being streamed through the 25th December. Click here to check it out and buy tickets!

Firstly, a huge congratulations! You’ve recently become an Olivier Award winner for your performance in & Juliet! In such a bizarre year, what does it mean to you to be recognised for your portrayal of Juliet? 

Thank you so much! You know it’s not every day that you get to originate a role and work with the entire creative team to find these wonderful nuances and manifest a role that could be become to inspirational to many people. And also, being able to work with an iconic songwriter such as Max Martin whilst getting to live my pop star dreams! I have always been very passionate about this role and this story so it warms my heart and fills me with so much pride to be recognised for that, and to see that the industry feels the same way. Even now I still can’t believe that I won an Olivier Award! I’m still pinching myself! 

Where are you keeping your award? I hear a lot of people keep theirs in the toilet… 

Oh goodness! Who keeps it in the toilet? I actually keep it in my bedroom on my shelf next to my WhatsOnStage, BBTA and my Stage Debut Award (all of which I am unbelievably grateful for!) It does make me smile when I see it every morning when I wake up and before I go to sleep. It’s like a little motivation to kick start a fantastic day!

20 Production shots that describe the struggles of being in a Musical | Part 2

Following our overwhelming response to our article last year, we have decided to bring this back! Production Pictures that describe the struggles of being in a musical smashed all of our records last year and we had such fun creating it, so here's another one! We hope you all like it as much as last year and enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. 

Please note, this article is merely light-hearted entertainment. We respect and adore all the performers and shows involved in this and hope that it is viewed in the same way. 

Hardest Male roles in Musical Theatre

Being a musical theatre performer is not easy in the slightest; from the auditions to get the job in the first place, to the constant rehearsals and finally recreating an incredible performance for a paying audience night after night. This is even before you look at some of the challenges some roles might have within them; either emotionally, physically or vocally. Here at Pocket we have teamed up with our friends at LondonBoxOffice.co.uk and put together a list of characters we think are among some of the hardest. And don't just take our word for it; we've had help from some of our performer friends who have played the roles to give you an insight into what it was like from their perspective. 

There are so many more that could be on this list so if we've missed any, tweet us what you think should be on it! @PocketSizeBlog

Theatre Tickets: Every West End shows top and lowest price ticket!

Theatre has been critiqued a lot over the past few years at how expensive the tickets are so we thought we'd take a look at the official box offices and compare their highest price ticket to the lowest. What can you get for your money in the West End? Lets find out!

To make it fair, we looked at the same date (August 17th 2019, 7.30pm) for every show and have compared the most expensive seat available to the cheapest available for this day. 

Hamilton tops and bottoms both our lists, its the most expensive theatre ticket in London at £250 and has the most expensive cheapest ticket which comes in at £100. If you are on the UK minimum wage (£8.21, for someone 25 and over) you would have to work about 30 hours to afford a premium seat. A family of 4 would cost £1,000, equal to about 122 hours of work on minimum wage. 

The Lion King closely follows as one of the most expensive at £228.50 followed by Wicked and The Book of Mormon at just over £202 each. 

If we look at the cheapest seats available through official box offices School of Rock, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Only Fools and Horses are all priced at £15 closely followed The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ and Six at £19.50. 

For £20 (Almost 2 and a half hours work on the national minimum wage) you can see Everybody's Talking About Jamie, The Lion King, Fiddler on the Roof, Matilda and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This article was written in July 2019. Ticket prices may have changed or altered since our research. 

INTERVIEW: Jon Robyns, star of Hamilton and soon to appear in ‘The Best of… Rock Musicals’

Jon is a celebrated musical theatre star, with a CV as one as my arm! He is currently paying King George in the West End production of Hamilton and will feature in ‘The Best of… Rock Musicals’ concert on the 12 May at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith. His other credits include Robbie in the Wedding Singer (UK tour); Emmett Forrest in Legally Blonde (Curve Theatre, Leicester); Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Alternate Huey in Memphis (Shaftesbury Theatre); Adam Nehemiah in Dessa Rose (Trafalgar Studios); Jamie in The Last Five Years (Greenwich Theatre); Galahad in Spamalot (Harold Pinter and Playhouse Theatres); Hollis in Road Show (Menier Chocolate Factory); Enjolras in Les Miserablés (25th Anniversary Tour); Marius in Les Miserablés (Queen's Theatre); Princeton/Rod in Avenue Q (Noel Coward Theatre); Mark in Rent (English Theatre Frankfurt); Alternate Chris in Miss Saigon (UK tour).

Tell us a bit about what we can expect from ‘The Best of… Rock Musicals’. 

An epic celebration of all things Rock Musical. There are some genuine legends of the theatre involved in the show and the set list is going to be just as awesome. My guess is that it’ll be LOUD! 

The concert will be in aid of The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, which raises awareness of, and offers support and education to those affected by, depression and mental illness. For you, what is so special about being involved in this event for this amazing charity? 

Mental health has been, until very recently, hidden away as a private affliction. Thankfully, charities such as The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust are bringing topics like depression, anxiety and even suicide out into the open so their social stigma can be taken away and dealt with care and compassion. 

Have you ever had a moment in your career where you think you could have benefitted from the work of this charity? 

We all suffer from anxiety and stress both in and away from work. I haven’t had cause to contact the Trust, but should I need to I’m glad it’s there. That’s why we’re all getting together to support them in May.

Pocket Size Theatre 5th Anniversary: Our Top 10 News Stories!

Our News features and articles are one of our most popular things to post, our readers love being kept in the loop and we've been known to break the news first for quite a few big things! Heres a list of our most popular news articles, some of them surprised us! Follow us on twitter to keep up to date with all of our future news posts! 

@PocketSizeBlog

"Sheena Easton - the Grammy Award winning artist who has sold over 20 million records around the world - is to make her West End debut in the forthcoming production of 42nd Street. Easton, who remains the only artist in history to have top five records on five major Billboard charts.... " 

Click here to read more. 

"Selladoor Worldwide is delighted to announce that they will tour a brand-new production of The Producers this Autumn. The laugh-out-loud musical spectacle opens at Shanghai Culture Square, prior to a 14 week tour of China. This tour marks Selladoor Worldwide’s 8th International tour since 2014..."

Click here to read more.

"The Union Theatre is thrilled to announce the cast for the upcoming production of Irving Berlin's ANNIE GET YOUR GUN. GEMMA MACLEAN will head up the company as the infamous, sharp shooting Annie Oakley. Gemma most recently starred as Liz Imbrie in "High Society" at Sonning Mill not long..."

Click here to read more.

REVIEW: Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre

So much had been written about Hamilton, the story of a long forgotten immigrant founding father of America, that it sold out for its opening months when it went on sale in January 2017, long before Cameron Mackintosh knew whether his refurbishment of the wonderful Matcham Victoria Palace would be complete in time. The cancellation of the first performances after a wait of nearly a year added to this anticipation and you could feel the excitement in the theatre before and throughout the show. The audience whooped and cheered at every entrance, look and song showing a familiarity with the production that is only possible in this modern internet world. For those not familiar with the style, historical background or music , the show takes time to adjust to. The opening number "Alexander Hamilton" sets the scene but too many of the words get lost.

The first half is unrelentingly fast paced hip hop and rap telling of the American war of independence and rise of Alexander Hamilton in first the army and then politics. It requires intense concentration to catch the fast talking verbose language set against the heavy rap beat and some of the cast lost the clarity of delivery in this breathless energetic non stop story telling. However in the second half that changes , the mood darkens , the music becomes more melodic, there is more light and shade and the emotional connections between characters and with the audience develops to create a much more satisfying and enjoyable piece of modern innovative theatre.

Further tickets released for upcoming West End production of HAMILTON

Jeffrey Seller and Cameron Mackintosh today announce a further release of tickets for the first booking period of HAMILTON which will go on sale tomorrow, 3 November 2017, at 12 noon GMT.

The reseating process necessitated by the rescheduling of preview performances is now complete. As previously announced by the Producers, once the extensive reconstruction of the Victoria Palace Theatre was nearing completion, a further allocation of tickets for the first booking period of HAMILTONwas to become available for sale. This further release includes newly created boxes, the remaining reseat tickets and some production seats. In addition, as well as the previously announced Daily Lottery tickets, new standing tickets will become available, details of which will be announced at a later date. Additionally, Patrons are advised to check the official HAMILTON channels for news of late release of seats which may become available at short notice.Full ticketing information can be found on the official website at hamiltonthemusical.co.uk

HAMILTON postpones opening in West End, full casting announced

HAMILTON will re-open the brand-new Victoria Palace Theatre with previews now beginning on 6 December 2017 rather than 21 November 2017 as originally announced. Following a multi-million pound expansion and restoration to the listed building, the Victoria Palace Theatre will open two weeks later than previously announced, with the need to reschedule 16 performances. 

Customers who have purchased tickets via official HAMILTON channels for the performances affected by the rescheduled previews will be contacted directly by Ticketmaster in order to be re-seated. All seats that were put on sale for the first booking period to June 2018 have now sold out, however, a large numbers of seats were held in reserve to be released at the time the building was nearing completion which will allow affected patrons to be re-seated early in the run with a minimum of inconvenience. Once the reseating has been completed, the remaining tickets for this first booking period will be put on sale in October.

The official opening night will now take place on 21 December 2017. HAMILTON is currently booking at the Victoria Palace Theatre to 30 June 2018, with a new booking period to be announced by the end of this year.

ALBUM REVIEW: Hamilton, Original Broadway Cast Recording

While at the moment, the show can only be seen on Broadway (for those who are fortunate enough to be able to spend up to $300 for a single ticket), for the majority of people, we are limited to this album to involve us in the musical phenomenon. Anyone who has heard it will understand the cultural significance. 

This is the first hip hop/rap musical to ever grace Broadway. David Cote of New 

York’s ‘Time Out’ described Hamilton as “a sublime conjunction of radio-ready hip-hop (as well as R&B, Britpop and trad showstoppers)”, and I totally agree. This cast recording is explosive.