Guys and Dolls, with unexpected drama

Certain members of my family really love a musical and we have seen quite a few between us. Today we were in London for another. We caught the train to London Bridge station. That is not somewhere I normally get off and I was impressed by how big it is. We walked through the impressive Hay's Galleria to get to the walk by the Thames. I have seen this place on boat trips, but not been in before. They have a cool sculpture that has various water-powered moving parts.

We walked past the mayor's office building, aka the Deathstar, to the Bridge Theatre, which is right next to Tower Bridge. This was a new venue for us.

The production is unusual as it is done 'in the round' with three levels of seating up the sides, but also some of the audience can be in 'the pit' around the performance area. That is where we were. You can see that parts of the floor are raised and they changed level throughout the performance. There were crew, some dressed as New York cops, who directed the audience to where they could stand as things changed. You were free to wander around to get different views. Signs would drop from the ceiling to indicate the current location such as the nightclub, diner, bar etc. The crew would bring on furniture and other props.

If you have seen the 1955 movie starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra you may know the plot that centres around a group of gamblers trying to organise a high stake dice game and a side bet involving seducing a Salvation Army missionary. There is a cast of about 25 with some playing multiple parts. They were really good with some excellent singers and dancers.

It was fun to be so close to the action with cast and crew moving among us. Being up on the top seats would have been a different experience, but you could still enjoy the show. I actually bumped into a lady I see at parkrun who was there for the second time.

The musical numbers were really good. There is a scene set in Havana that I think was a little different to the movie as it took place in a gay club. You can see in the video that most of the cast do a number in the Salvation Army mission with lots of chairs. Near the end of this one of the cast fell off the stage! That was a drop of about 4 foot. I heard that he fell onto some ladies, but they were not hurt. This was the biggest member of the cast playing a gambler called Big Julie who towered over the others. We saw him laying on the floor being attended to. He was moving and seemed to be talking to them, so I hope he was not badly hurt. They decided to stop the performance anyway and we had to leave. This was a real shame, but it would be hard to continue. There were only a couple of scenes to go anyway. They may offer us the chance to go again.

We were all a little in shock, but headed off to the nearby restaurant where we had a table reserved. We ate at Tavolino which has great views of the HMS Belfast battleship and Tower Bridge. The service was really quick and so we were done in an hour. The food was still good. I had a pizza and a chocolate pudding.

We had been at the matinee performance, so it was not too late. There were still lots of people around and there were various stalls along by the river selling food and gift items. We did not have to wait too long for a train home. I have done a quick look to see if there is an update on the injured actor, but have not found anything yet.