Thursday, February 11, 2010

Cirque Du Soleil

Ok, so it's taken me a little while to process the whole experience, but I'm finally ready to create a blog detailing our experience of attending a performance by the world famous Cirque Du Soleil. For those of you who don't know (and I'm not sure who you might be, but just in case), Cirque Du Soleil is French for Circus of the Sun and is: "a dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment". Their website is: http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/world/en/uk/index.asp
Now, since like, FOREVER I've wanted to see them live and sometime in November I received a notification from a website over here called 'last minute' which does cheap theatre/restaurant deals and it said that they were doing tickets to Cirque du Soleil from £35 and I was all like "Shelley, have you seen this?" and we checked it out and realised that the seats were just too bad to bother and I, personally, kinda forgot about it. Apparently, Shelley didn't. Unbeknownst to me, she purchased very good tickets (and I know what she paid for them, tap tap tap) as a Christmas/Birthday combined present (She knows I don't normally allow people to do this, but as it was a big present, she thought it would be ok). Unfortunately, the way that she purchased them meant that she didn't receive tickets, so, to have something to give me she ordered a poster from offline, knowing full well that as soon as I saw it I would know what it meant. The first impediment to this plan was America. As the ONLY place that she could find the poster was somewhere in America, the postage was going to take a while. And, apparently, the company in question was slllllooooooooowwwwwwwwww and dispatching it. The second impediment was, the snow. As I'm sure you are all aware, the snow here was a pretty major disruption, especially to the post and for a week before Christmas we didn't receive any mail at all. Needless to say, Shelley was getting very stressed, as she did not think that it would arrive in time, she decided on a back up plan and bought me a, VERY pretty leather backpack and the Sweeney Todd soundtrack (which were both very awesome Christmas presents! and I love them). ANYWAY, the poster still hadn't arrived by my birthday and Shelley had to admit to me that my present was very delayed. As a consolation prize, she used our Christmas present from her parents to take me to see Chicago on my birthday so that I would at least have something special for my birthday. That was awesome enough on it's own!!
A couple of weeks went by and, to be honest, I had forgotten about the whole thing. Shelley didn't and every now and again she would complain about either the post or American companies. . .
Mid Januaryish a tube arrived from America. . .As soon as I saw it, I realised what it would be, but Shelley was at work and so I wasn't allowed to open it! When Shelley came home I excitedly dragged her into our room and showed her the tube and she insisted that she double check it for an invoice before I got it and that I had to close my eyes while she checked. (luckily she did as there was an invoice in there)
When I was FINALLY allowed to see, I saw this (or, close to this, but I did recognise this guy):
and squealed so loudly that I think I hurt Shelley's ears. . .
When Shelley told me the date and I found out that it was like less than two weeks to go, I believe I started bouncing and didn't stop. . .
So - the 24th of January rolls around. . .I spend all day grinning like a maniac and then, just before we go, we get all dressed up and ask Li to take a nice photo of us:

The performance itself was going to be in The Royal Albert Hall, which is and I quote Shelley here, "Apparently famous". Just to see a show there, was amazing enough, for it to be CIRQUE DU SOLEIL just, blew me away! The Royal Albert hall is HUGE and there are multiple doors to enter through. First off we had to find "Door 12" to pick up our tickets and then, as we were there early, we asked for the bar. We were directed to "Door 6". Once inside at "Door 6" we were told to head down the corridor. . .we started walking down the corridor looking very confused. . .thankfully there were loads of stewards wearing red jackets who obviously are used to people wandering around looking confused who told us to go downstairs to the "West basement" which is where we would find the bar. . .Three stewards later, we found it. . .It was decorated with some amazing pics of the Cirque 'players' and to show the amazing costumes and make up I, first of all double-checked I could and then, snapped some pics. . .

Yes, that is Shelley relaxing with her wine there. . .

The Hall itself was amazing and although we were told "no photos", we kinda assumed that taking photos before the show would be ok and before we were pounced upon by a couple of stewards, Shelley did manage to snap this one:
You can sort of see from this photo that the Hall has about Four terraces to it. . .we were on the ground floor about 7 rows away from the stage!!!
The show is. . .indescribably amazing. . .
I actually had tears in my eyes as the show started as this was like, my ultimate dream and to be THAT close to the stage and seeing such an amazing theatrical performance was a HUGE emotional rush. . .
I've been trying to think of some words to describe it and all I can come up with is that it was a feast for the eyes. The word gluttony also springs to mind in reference to that metaphor as well.
There was so much to take in and at times you didn't know where to look but it didn't matter cause WHEREVER you looked, something was happenning. . .The COSTUMES. . .the MAKE-UP. . .the ACTS. . .the only words/noises I could make were "wow". There was one act that had Shelley and I on the edge of our seat with our hearts in our mouths, it was just SSSSOOOOO exciting!!!!


As the bows where being taken, I admit that I pouted. . .I did NOT want the amazingness to end. . .

ANYWAY, I will finish up this post now to make room for our Amsterdam news! We have three sleeps to go before we leave and then five nights there!!