Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tickets - a present

Yesterday was a treat. My daughter had bought for Christmas some tickets for both of us to go to the theatre. During the evening of BBC's Children in Need event they had members of the cast from "Charlie" doing a big score, at the time we both said "WoW." Along comes Christmas and I open to find two great tickets just four rows back and in the middle of the theatre.

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After trying to find direct tickets to London we launched our journey at 8.00am to reach Marylebone by 10 ish and be met by my OH  who had been obliged to work this weekend down there. Off we routed ourselves for brunch in a corner shop to be surrounded by yellow protection vested work men so we knew our food would be good and wholesome. After a short stroll we hit gorgeous "Selfridges," the food hall being to die for!!!! at this point OH had to return to work and we just gauped at all the items for sale. Loving the idea we queued for named "Nutella" jars, so both boys now have ones with their names on.

We made our way across two tube lines to finally arrive near Covent Gardens where the Theatre is, one criticism why don't they have more big maps of the whole tube network up! we had to stand behind quite a few others to get an overview of which stations we had to head towards and change. Even when we arrived close by there are NO signs to any of the theatres???? at least where we live there are signs to all the different ones we have. In the end I used Google maps on the pedestrian setting only to find us following another two sets of families both using their phones to follow the route to the theatre, it was quite funny to see us all heads down following religiously the route. Finally we arrived there, beginning to get really excited.

  I was flabbergasted at the quality of the seats my daughter had bought, we certainly weren't going to miss a  look or a note from 4 rows back : )). The theatre was the first wonder, old fashioned and intimate, loads of boxes around the sides gilted and fully decorated. Then the music began and we were straight into the production.





















I've never been to a musical and it was just so fabulous to experience it live. The live orchestra just made the music live and the ernest nature of all the performers, even right at the back, all giving the performance absolutely everything made it a true experience. Certainly, although there was only one number you would remember from the films, it didn't matter all the songs were worthy and the sets were just a wonder. The Umpalumpas were fascinating, initially my science investigative head just wanted to work out who was doing what in the costumes but then I was just drawn in, it didn't matter.

Two and a half hours sped by and we were then swept outside to Covent Garden at dusk. A lovely sight, the lights all twinkling and the hubbub of the world rushing by. I think all the Matinees finished at the same time at the theatres around Covent Garden as we were suddenly surrounded by vast swathes of people rushing for food or the subway. We spent a little time meandering, but unless you wanted a lot to eat there were no obvious places to stop so we made the decision to make our way to Marylebone. OH luckily worked meeting us there into his route back to the hotel which was an extra treat. We finally landed on the train and found ourselves quite exhausted but smiling.