As a family, we recently went on a short-break to London. Naturally, there’s endless possibilities of things to do, in between sight-seeing visits and eating out.
We were fortunate to purchase excellent deal on two west-end shows and here taking a look at the first one in a brief series of Beyond South Wales features, Seren and Rachel Howells check out Waitress, starring Wales own Lucie Jones at The Adelphi Theatre!
On Monday 5th August, we managed to secure tickets to Waitress, one of the newest musicals on London’s West End.
Based on the 2007 Film by Adrienne Shelly, Waitress has been brought to life on stage by an all-female creative team including music by Sara Bareilles, a book by Jessie Nelson and direction by Tony Award® winner Diane Paulus.
Waitress follows the journey of Jenna, a waitress and expert pie-maker who has made mistakes in her life but is trying to fix them for the arrival of her baby. When a new doctor arrives in town, life gets complicated. With the support of her workmates Becky and Dawn, Jenna overcomes the challenges she faces and finds that laughter, love and friendship can provide the perfect recipe for happiness.
The lighting and set design really amplified the show by drawing the audience in. By transitioning between bright colours and darker ones this helped to take us on the characters journey by showing us the duller moments and the brighter ones.
Waitress The Musical which currently runs at The Adelphi Theatre, London.
The productions choreography was also outstanding with completely synchronised movement enhancing several routines.
The characters personalities were projected very well by the cast, which helped you to understand each of them in a different way.
Lucie Jones played Jenna with such warmth that you quickly fell in love with her. She has great charisma on stage making friends with her customers in the diner. The chemistry between Lucie’s Jenna and David Hunter (Dr. Pomatter) sizzled from their first meeting and really developed in the song Bad Idea.
Almost stealing the show with his song, Never Getting Rid of Me, was Blake Harrison as Ogie. Harrison brought a strong quirkiness to the character, while displaying great chemistry with Ashley Roberts as Dawn.
Awaiting the beginning of Waitress the musical at London’s Adelphi Theatre. Photograph by Rachel Howells.
We also really enjoyed Marisha Wallace and Stephen Leask as Becky and Cal respectively, as their relationship developed bringing touches of comedy into the show.
Dealing with real life issues, Lucie Jones helps us all to relate with Jenna, while the all-female creative team have given us a musical that really empowers women to believe in themselves and knowing whatever their current circumstances are they can achieve anything they set their mind to.
This entire cast totally deserved a standing ovation, because we laughed and cried and felt happy just by watching the incredible show.
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For Waitress, the ticket price (which we purchased on a budget scale the day before) was exceptional value for money, so always worth checking the official website (waitressthemusical.co.uk) for a last minute theatre deal!
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MAIN PHOTO: Seren Howells pictured with the star of Waitress, Lucie Jones. Photo: Rachel Howells