canadian_turtle

When I went to the theatre yesterday Jude Law was sitting in the seat in front of me!!! Those of you on Twitter already saw me squeeing about this but I'll try to write a little more coherent about it today:

I went to the final performance of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as performed by the National Youth Music Theatre at the Village Underground. Now I couldn't stand the Johnny Depp movie and I normally don't know about amateur performances but I saw the NYMT perform a few of the songs during West End Live in June and was incredibly impressed (especially by the two leads Matt Nalton and Lizzie Wofford). I'm still not very fond of the storyline itself, but I was amazed by every single performance given during the show and couldn't believe the actors were only aged between 8 and 21 years. They were brilliant. And if I had gone earlier this week I would've probably tried to get a ticket for a second performance, they were just that good.

The show was set in the Village Underground in Shoreditch, which I hadn't been to before and looks like a space that might usually be a club? They had four rows of seats in a half circle around the stage area (which was just the floor really) and the actors used every inch of it. The barber shop was set up in the far back but the rest of the space varied in use between the judge's home, the pie shop and the general streets of London. Before the show and partly during the intermission the assemble was just wandering the "streets" looking very homeless and/or mental, which was a great way to set the mood. The show itself was just incredible. I really can not put into words how amazing it was. I was probably most impressed by Matt Nalton, who played Sweeney Todd, who looked and sounded as if he'd been performing on the West End all his life. I'm sure we'll be hearing plenty from him soon enough.

The reason Jude was there (I assume) is because he started off with the NYTM himself, many, many years ago (in fact, he's from Lewisham, were I currently live *random fact of the day*) and recently became a patron for them. Still, he currently lives in the States, there were ten performances all-together and loads of places he could've sat for each of them so the fact he was sitting in the seat in front of me during the one show I went to? Pretty damn awesome.

He was with two of his kids so I didn't bother him but that didn't stop me from glancing in his direction quite often. Partly because I had to look his way to catch what was happening on the stage in front of him, partly well, because he was looking so damn fine. He was wearing a tight grey t-shirt with very short sleeves making his upper arms look huge and his hair looked all crazy and amazing and he kept leaning on his hand giving him a dreamy look and... Okay I admit I was looking at him for pretty much 3 hours straight. I did see the whole show properly though, so it wasn't that bad. I can't help it he was sitting within my eye sight of the stage ;)

Afterwards I was a bit disappointed I didn't have any pictures (though I do not regret not bothering him, it wasn't the place for it) until I realised I already have his picture and signature from when I saw him during the the film festival in Toronto in 2006 XD

And that was my random celebrity encounter of the day story.