Jersey Boys Review.

A brief plug for Jersey Boys. Mrs CFD and I went to see it the other day. Most enjoyable it was too.

Jersey Boys is of course the sort of thing where you know largely what you are getting. Lots of Four Seasons songs and Frankie Valli - Still much depends on how well the thing is done.

In this case it was most excellent. I am reluctant to single any one of the cast out in particular, as they were all very, very, good - But it must be said that Ryan Malloy does a very good Frankie Valli and there is a certain resemblance also and Glenn Carter made a memorable Tommy DeVito.

The Prince Edward Theatre was packed to the gunnels, in significant numbers with persons of a certain age, old enough to remember the songs when they first came out.

One gets the impression the cast were really enjoying themselves and the positive feedback they were getting from the audience.

As mentioned the cast were effectively a really good tribute band and turned out a star performance, with many old favourites such as ‘Walk like a man’, ‘Sherry’, ‘Rag doll’, ‘My Mother's Eyes’, ‘Big girls don’t cry’, ‘Bye, Bye, Baby’, etc. etc. Combined with a potted bigraphical history of the group, acted out as a background to the songs.

The theatre were touting the cast CD for £16 and the original artist CD for £22. A little pricy given that the CD of the original US cast is available for £8.98 on Amazon. I might have coughed up £10 or £12.

There was a well deserved standing ovation at the end of the show.

If you even vaguely like this sort of music, ‘my hand to God’ you should enjoy the show.

Fifth series of Dr Who to be postponed 'til 2010

Shock Horror! It seems the fifth of the new series of DR Who is to be postponed until 2010.

The BBC were no doubt cunningly hoping to bury this nugget of appalling news amongst less important stuff like Gordon Brown reneging on NU-Lab’s commitment for a referendum on the EU Treaty. New Russian sabre rattling. Troop withdrawals in Basra, etc. etc.

All is not completely lost though. There will be a Christmas special this year starring David Tennant and (We should be so lucky) Kylie Minogue. There is the 4th series (still in production) to be screened in 2008.

The controller of BBC Fiction, Jane Tranter, indicates they are also planning three specials in 2009.