Just Go!

Honestly, do yourself a favour and book a theatre ticket this week. The UK is very lucky at the moment with two wonderful, very different options open to theatregoers. Gypsy at the Savoy is currently stunning audiences and running until November. It's been 40 years since this show has been in the West End and the Chichester Festival Theatre production, starring Imelda Staunton and Lara Pulver has received glowing notices all round. It's great fun to see on Facebook various friends posting their own reports of how great the show is. When I took Sean to see it in Chichester last year, he admitted it was probably the best piece of theatre he had ever seen. For me, it was the first 5-star review I had ever given.

The second show is a little more ephemeral and certainly won't be around until November. JM Barrie's Peter Pan is currently running at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and it's easily the best adaptation I have ever seen.  More often than not seen at Christmas, this production still has all the magic of the original but uses the events of the First World War as a catalyst to the story. It's a genuine piece of theatrical magic and features the most courageous and imaginative flying sequences you are ever likely to witness.

There is a mini heat wave approaching so with that guarantee of good weather, make a day of it. Catch a matinee of Peter Pan and an evening of Gypsy - or vice versa. It won't be a cheap day out but seriously, commercial theatre doesn't get much better than this.