This week something happened that affected the majority of people I know in a very big way. Yep, you guessed it – The iOS software update for the iPhone (bear with me, I am going somewhere with this). With change comes complication and I had to completely wipe my phone in order to get it to work properly again. However, being me, I found a silver lining to this annoying circumstance. I got to re-download all of my podcasts. I know what you’re thinking, my life is crazy exciting. Just in case you aren’t a slave to Apple products I’ll add the information that when you haven’t listened to your podcasts they leave a red notification bubble on your screen. I cannot be dealing with these reminders clogging up my floating picture (my favourite feature of the update) of Mary Poppins. I’ll just have to listen to all my podcasts again – joyous news. I have been absolutely loving listening to them all over again and felt I needed to share the happiness. I fear that people may have missed the podcast bandwagon and that needs to change!

If you aren’t a podcast person I do not blame you – I never used to be. It was actually my friend Jack who introduced me to them earlier this year with an episode involving Mandy Patinkin talking about his time in ‘Sunday in the park with George’. Straight away Mandy’s voice was filled with passion when talking about the song ‘Move On’. I was swooning away at his commentary when his voice changed suddenly and he got all choked up, I stopped swooning and was hanging on his every word. He talks about how cannot listen to ‘Move On’ because he misses it too much and that ‘Sunday (ITPWG)’ was the best part of his life on the stage. I challenge anyone who performs to listen to that podcast and not well up (I cry every time but I am an overly stagey emotional person). Naturally I had to hear more so I downloaded the entire Sondheim series. I have since downloaded the entire Masterworks Broadway podcast collection. There are interviews with critics, creatives and the Broadway legends themselves. As well as snippets of scores you get to learn about the works and hear the experiences of the people involved. For a nerd like me, nothing could be more appealing.

To get them in your life your options are as follows:

  1. If you have an iPhone* download the Podcast app, search for Masterworks Broadway, subscribe and then download all of them so you can listen to them without internet streaming (the perfect commuting companion).
  2. If you don’t have an iPhone but do have iTunes, skip the app step but search for Masterworks Broadway in the iTunes Store.
  3. If you don’t have either of the above you can listen to them all via the Masterworks Broadway website.

*NB: I am not being endorsed to advertise Apple products. I wish I was.

So that’s it for this week really! Short and sweet, spreading the Sondheim and general stage love.

As an additional note, remaining on the Sondheim theme, my theatrical visit this week is to Guildford to see ‘Putting It Together’. I adore the show and cannot wait to see it live – especially with the incredible cast line up of this production (David Bedella, Daniel Crossley, Janie Dee, Damian Humbley and Caroline Sheen).

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“This chair is completely out of proportion”

If you don’t get the above reference then you clearly haven’t seen the 1999 Broadway production which is a huge gaping hole in your life that you didn’t know about. Unfortunately you can’t watch the whole thing on Youtube (you have to be crazy like me and buy an American DVD player just to watch your theatrical DVDs) but you can watch one of the best showstoppers of all time here. You should also try and get to Guildford to see this limited run (4 shows only Friday – Sunday) – I’m going tomorrow (Friday). Hopefully I’ll see you there, or, if not I hope you’re at least listening to the Sondheim podcasts in solidarity. Let me know if you managed to avoid tears at the Mandy Patinkin ‘Move On’ episode and if you find any podcasts that you love. Happy listening!

PS. More Sondheim: on this day (26th September) in 1957, West Side Story opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, Broadway.

“Every moment makes a contribution, every little detail plays a part. Having just a vision’s no solution, everything depends on execution: putting it together- that’s what counts!”

– Rebecca Ridout