“We’re Flying the Flag” – West End Eurovision, Dominion Theatre, London. 22.05.2014

After awaiting at the stage door and successfully having a cuddle with Oliver Tompsett, it was back to the front of the Dominon theatre and through the opening doors into the commotion of the charity event that was, the West End Eurovision, and tonight with deep regret it would be the Final Battle, the Final West End Eurovision…I was gutted to have heard this, as it is such an amazing show for an great cause, but it just made it all the more reason to go once again and support!

Being I was my second time seeing this show, when buying tickets it was clear where we needed to be seated, and this year was again we were seated a little closer to the stage in Row B and then seats 10,11 towards the aisle. Great view and meant that we would be close to the judging panel, aka the stars of the west end shows! We paid about £45 for these seats, which I was happy to spend as I knew it was going to the amazing cause that the show supported so every penny was worth it!

MadTrust’s West End Eurovision (WEE) is a charity late night performance, shown at the Dominion Theatre  in London. MadTrust or Make a Difference Trust is a charity that provides HIV care, support and education. With a wide range of fundraising idea’s and a lot of support, one of these is TheatreMAD, where the West end Supports this amazing charity in doing various charity events, including WestEnd Bares, and a Christmas show. Though tonight on the 22rd May, it was WestEnd Eurovision. This is where 10 top West End shows currently playing compete in there very own Eurovision, by each performing a different song from a past Eurovision and make it there own, they get judged but 2 performers from each of these musicals, given them points like the countries do in the Eurovision ranging from 0 points to 12, and also get voted in by the audience at the end of the show.  They also compete in a video Indent each with its own unique comic approach which gets voted by the public and rewarded with a prize! just look at the MadTrust YouTube account to see each indent from this years they were really good, and very different from last years!

This years 10 contenders were:

Billy Elliot

Les Miserables

Mamma Mia!

Once

The Bodyguard

The Book of Mormon

The Commitments

The Phantom of the Opera

Wicked

with opening number by Cast of We Will Rock You.

Now this year was different from last year, being that I had only seen 5 out of the 11 shows that were competing, and those shows have had recent cast changes so I was not aware of all the west enders that were performing I believe Les Miserables and We Will Rock You were my most known.   So when scanning the audience I didn’t see many performers I recognised.  Except for Clive Rowe who I had seen earlier in January in the Light Princess and played King Darius, I only received an autograph but he was thankful for coming up and saying hi, and I had to tell him that I loved his performance, then quickly noticing two faces taking their seats Carrie Hope Fletcher, and Wendy Ferguson Eponie, and Madame Thenardier, we quickly ran over for a signature and a photo with them both, or a sandwich selfie! Lucky we got it in just before the countdown began to start the show!

The show opened with a quick video Indent from We Will Rock You, and first onstage was Oliver Tompsett, with an amazing voice he sung the first verse of Queen’s amazing song The Show Must Go On it was so powerful and brought on an amazing roar of excitement from the audience and a huge applause. You could tell they were all passionate toward the song, and all meant the lyrics they were singing, for they knew not only it was the Last WEE, but their last week of performances, and they were going out with a BANG!

After the opening number walked on this years host and the same host from last year Richard Gauntlett, and was just as funny as last year.  He introduced this years top celeb judges, again Rylan Clark made an appearance having enjoyed it so much last year, then Birds of a feather star, and pantomime actress Lesley Joseph, Then from the original cast of Les Miserables and TV star came Caroline Quentin, but my most excited Judge was the Graham Norton, having met him briefly last year in the audience, I was excited to see what he would bring to the judge panel, I mean if he makes the normal Eurovision enjoyable, I was interested to see what he could bring to this…not that he had to make it enjoyable that was a given!

With the introductions completed it was time for the performances, and the first half of the competition was performed by:

Once, Performing Making Your Mind Up (United Kingdom 1981)

The Book of Mormon, Performing Ding-A-Dong (The Netherlands 1975)

The Commitments, Performing Rock ‘n’ Roll (Ireland 1994)

Les Miserables, Performing Flying the Flag (For You) (United Kingdom 2002)

The Phantom of the Opera, Performing Congratulations (United Kingdom 1968)

Now there were many differences from last years show, for instance a lot of the musical chose local songs to perform from the past Eurovision and only 4 chose foreign, but I could see that these songs were recognisable as apposed to last year, it also allowed the audience to join in with the songs, and gave the shows a chance to be creative.

First up Once, last years winners, and being a new cast they had a lot to live up to, performing Making you Mind up they brought the United Kingdom number an irish twist, keeping up with the Once tradition of all the cast playing their own instruments you had 4 of the cast dressed up like the original, and then adding a few leprechauns jumping around in the background, it was good but not brilliant in my opinion and they could have done a lot more! Either way they started the competition, and following behind them was Book of Mormon.

Book of Mormon is a show that I really REALLY want to see but being in such high demand the ticket prices are ridiculous, coming at just over £160 for a top price ticket and so far it doesn’t seem to be reducing! Watching the Cast perform Jan Jan just made me want to see it more,

they were Hilarious, especially with the amazing baby throwing, and African tribe, it had us all in stitches, just adding to their amazing winning indent!

Next rolled up The Commitments, amazingly performing an Ireland entry Rock ‘N’ Roll Kids, however they brought a twist to this number, starting the performance with a white sheet and like the Britain’s got Talent Winners Attraction they created shadows of the shows that were competition and performing it in the way that they would have done, for instance Phantom of the Opera being very operatic, and then Les Mis number did the amazing marching dance, it would be seen again this theme later in the show.

Then came Les Miserables performing Flying the Flag, my most known song of the Eurovision, and one of my favourites of the show, with the cast dressed up as a cabin crew, with some very dishy pilots if I do say so myself. it was greatly entertaining and with a check cameo of Cameron Mackintosh it won the hearts of the audience 🙂 and got the audience dancing and singing in their seats I know I was!

To close act 1 was Phantom of the Opera, having won the best indent this year they too had a lot to live up to, but this year it sadly didn’t cut, they performed the cliff Richard number congratulations, compared to their rocking number last year it was disappointing and wasn’t one that was remembered.

The interval came, which allowed for a little more scanning of the audience, and checking twitter it was found that Nathan Amzi was somewhere in the audience, so the hunt was on, and in 2 secs we had found him in the circle bar, it felt great for him to notice me, I mean I did hope so! we had a quick chat about what we had thought of the first few performances and then after a cuddle/photo and signature it was off to our seats again! Sadly being that I didn’t know many of the west end performers being that I hadn’t seen any of the new casts in their shows the autographs and celebs were limited this year which was a disappointment but didn’t ruin the evening.

It wasn’t long until the second act started, the final performances were as follows:

The Bodyguard, Performing Disco Tango (Denmark 1979)

Billy Elliot, Performing Marry Me (Finland 2013)

Wicked, Performing Jan Jan (Armenia 2009)

and Mamma Mia, Performing Waterloo (Sweden 1974)

The Bodyguard performing wit the amazing Beverly Knight, performed a brilliant disco rendition with some amazing bright costumes, and with the close at hand Bodyguard of Tristan Gemmill. it was all under control, and wow that Beverley I could see what all the fuss was about her, and she is defiantly on my list to see perform in something in the near future.

Then up was Billy Elliot with Marry Me, and what can only be described for the theme was the many different entertainers that can be seen during weddings..it was very random and with so many things going on it was hard to keep track, it didn’t really make any sense, and looked like something they had put together in a half an hour. But . that was my opinion.

Next up was Wicked performing Jan Jan, and again it wasn’t really anything special, though there Indent was very good can’t not love a bit of Hunger Games parody.

The final number was performed by Mamma Mia, and when I first looked at the number they were performing I thought it was a bit of a cop out doing Waterloo, which is by Abba, and what Mamma Mia is all about, but what they did surprised us all…in more ways then one. The cast had created the number and with a twist, as like the Commitments they brought they shows of the West end to the number also and with each show that they

portrayed they also sang Waterloo to the songs of the particular show they were acting…for instance when they did wicked they had Glinda perform the number in the form of Popular. it was brilliant! and they didn’t restrict themselves to the ones that were competing but went in deeper, and when they did the musical Hair…they went all out, with a nice naked bottom running across the stage!

With all the performances done it was time to do the voting, and each of the show’s Judge panel’s form the shows stood up on stage and gave their tallies of who gets what points and then the lines opened for the audience to start texting in, this time being the last one I had to vote and tonight my vote went to Les Miserables, and Mamma Mia…I couldn’t choose between the two!

While the votes were being counted, we had a brief speech from director Andrew Keates, and then as a special guest Sonia, a past Eurovision performer and unlike last year I didn’t know who she really was, and she didn’t have as many people dancing in the aisles like last year!

Once all done it was time to hear the new winners of WEE in 2015, the best indent as I said before went to The Book Of Mormon and without a doubt it was the funniest one of the bunch! After a quick celebration it was on to the best performance, and tonight’s winner…or shall I say Winners were Les Miserable, and Mamma Mia!! it was a joint and final win for both of them, and they all came onto the stage to celebrate.

And So finished the end of the finale and I must admit compared to last year it was a abrupt ending and left me and Hayleigh sitting in out seats going oh is it time to go now? We were expecting a repeat of both the winners which sadly didn’t happen like it did last time. We took ourselves to the stage door quickly but it wasn’t as exciting as last time we managed to get a quick chat with Beverley, and then with Brenda but it seemed everyone was busy heading off to the after show party or already left the building.

So it was off to the hotel after a busy night at the theatre once again, its sad to think that there won’t be another one of these great shows. But with many things it runs its course. I was glad I was part of it, and if you wanted to read about 2013’s performance just click Here you will be gutted you missed out!