Best of This Week’s Theatre Blogs – 18 Dec 2009

What were your theatrical moments of the last decade? At Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals the subject was, rather fittingly, the best musicals of the decade, complete with a two-part top twenty (plus honourable mentions) with (for British audiences at least) an unexpected number one. Meanwhile, Steve On Broadway continued his series of ‘theatrical firsts of the noughties’ with a post about the rise of the independent theatre blogger.
At 99seats, however, it was the Christmas party which was up for discussion. Three very different theatrical parties and some heavy lifting later, 99seats reflected on what each party demonstrated about the American theatre scene.

For theatre Bloggers in Britain Christmas could only mean one thing: panto. Or, even more specifically, Pamela Anderson‘s somewhat delayed appearance in Aladdin. Webcowgirl battled a panto -curse and provided an American’s view on proceedings whilst the West End Whingers had an unexpected encounter with the Genie in the Lamp.

Finally, pantomime moved firmly into the noughties as Birmingham Hippodrome ‘staged’ Robin Hood – Men in Twights, a pantomime created especially for twitter…

Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals – The Best Musicals of the 2000s (Part One and Part Two)
“The fact that there were so many strong musicals to choose from certainly belies the notion that musicals are a dying art form. There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary…Musical theater may never be the cultural force that it once was, but reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.”

Steve On Broadway – SOB’s Theatrical Firsts Of The Noughties: My First Blog Meet-Up
“While the silence at first was deafening as I wondered who on earth could ever possibly find little old me, let alone want to, I was surprised as the hits started coming and a dialogue was formed with you, my dear readers, along with a growing contingent of other bloggers who are fellow theatre enthusiasts.”

99seats– Three Parties
“Most of the event staff was made up of former interns, all largely doing the same thing I was, but all were about ten years younger. Old folks like me shouldn’t be up at midnight on a school night lugging boxes down the back stairs of a fancy banquet hall”

Life in the Cheap Seats – Aladdin’s Magic: Limp
“As an American, I figured her visit to the annual extravaganza at the Wimbledon Theatre … presented nearly unlimited opportunities for naff, whether due to her limited acting skills, her utter inexperience on the stage, or her complete lack of familiarity with the panto form.”

West End Whingers – Review – Aladdin with Pamela Anderson , New Wimbledon Theatre
“As the bar-woman said to Andrew as she served him yet another bottle of the Wibbas Down Inn’s very competitively priced bottles of red wine (£4.99) and shaking her head in disbelief, “It wasn’t like this when John Barrowman came in.”