The marvellous Mr Andy Edwards returns to the MusicalTalk studio to spill the beans about his adventures at the first night party for Grease and his recent experiences on the national tour of The Producers. We also discuss a panoply of musical theatre fans' pet peeves!

This Week End I realised a pet peeve of mine. Clapping along with the music!

I mean, it's great to see the audience get excited by a piece. But when I go to the theatre I would like to see the actors on stage perform, and I feel that the clapping ruins it for me. Especially when the audience doesn't know what's coming up. I've seen shows where the clapping gets so loud you can't hear what the people on stage are saying/singing. And when the tempo in the song changes and the audience try and follow it but they fail. It's just awful.

So for me, clapping goes after the scene is done.

I recently saw a High School production of 'Guys and Dolls.' The music was fantastic, but we were seated right next to the orchestra because the school dosen't have a pit. The singing was delicious, except somebody decided to only turn the singers mic's on when the orchestra started playing. The scenery was lovely, except they changed it about every seven minutes.

My new found pet peeves:

- sitting next to an orchestra

- mics turning on and off noticably throughout the show

- frequent scene changes

- last but not least; the man I was sitting next to had his eyes closed through the entire first act. At one point, he resorted to reading a book!

The acting was superb however, and I was only mildly bothered by the rest. If you really love musical theatre, you learn to look past it's flaws. However they might test your patience, you look past them.

emily.