There’s no denying that life has been a little gloomy these past few days. And I’m not saying that singing Broadway tunes for 45 minutes will make the pain all go away but well, it’ll help.
So Saturday morning saw us up bright and early and ensuring the residents of Blackheath were up bright and early with us, by parking outside their hugely expensive houses and repeatedly triggering our car alarm. It was an inauspicious return to South London but things were about to get better. We were off to Baby Broadway, an event for kids and adults to enjoy music together, sung by Broadway professionals. The name suggests it’s aimed at mums on mat leave who want to do something a bit more interesting than your average playgroup sing-song – I went to something similar with a toddler Roo, where a classical pianist played for us in a church in Borough and tried to fend off the hundreds of tiny hands also wanting to touch the shiny keys. There were lots of couples with babies there but also a fair smattering of older kids and it worked really well across the ages. Roo, at 7, was probably the oldest there but he had the advantage of knowing most of the set and being able to sing along. Plus, he could read what was coming up:
The venue was Mycanae House, near Greenwich Park which we’d visited once before for an NCT sale many moons ago. It’s a little outside our turf nowadays but not far off the route to Crawley that we were taking later in the afternoon. So, why not stop for a bit of razzmatazz along the way?
Let’s start at the very beginning then – our singers were Robine Landi and Jay Bryce, who have a wealth of theatre experience between them. Robine started by giving a sung guide to what was happening, where the exits were and whether it was OK to dance and sing along. Happily it was, as the very first song was Do Re Mi, which was, as you might predict, a very good place to start. I can’t not sing along to anything from the Sound of Music and Roo knew the words too. I have to say, Robine did a very credible Julie impression….and I can be choosy when it come to Julie impersonators.
Next up was Zip-a-dee-doh, which I’ve recently introduced to the kids via “Now That’s What I Call Disney” and more Julie-channelling in the shape of “Spoonful of Sugar”, which also features on that CD so they knew that one too. I was a little worried about “The Sun Has Got His Hat On” because I seem to remember there’s a very unfortunate verse to it tucked away somewhere…but my worries were unfounded. It was just a verse about peanuts, nothing to see here.
The grown ups all enjoyed a sing along to “Sunny Afternoon”, while Robine delighted the babies with a bubble-trumpet. Then came Eva’s current fave – “Once Upon a Dream”, though both kids noticed that it was introduced as being from “Cinderella”, rather than “Sleeping Beauty”. Nothing gets past Princess-obsessed girl. She listened to it in an awestruck way, because Robine really can sing like a Disney Princess, and afterwards whispered to me that she reayyeyy reayyeyy yiked it. She didn’t produce her normal running commentary on the song (“And dis is where de bunnies are in the boots!”) so I’ll take that as a mark of respect for the singers.
Next, a lovely version of “Over the Rainbow” and then the one Roo had been looking forward to most of all – his favourite song of the moment. It’s Mother Nature’s recipes. Jay taught the kids how to look for ants and Roo and Eva did the maddest little dance at the front. They both love “The Jungle Book” and had already watched it once that morning so it was bound to be a smash hit.
I won’t spoiler the entire set for you but I did know every song and love nearly every song (there may have been one that was schmaltzed up by a boyband in the 90s). We got the chance to sing backing vocals on a “Joseph” classic and by the end we were all up and dancing. Eva took this dance routine very seriously – she had her knees bent in tight alright:
So, an enjoyable treat for our whole family. It was always going to be an easy sell, given that I love musicals and the kids love Disney but it was really well done and both singers (and the pianist) are great at what they do. There was some lovely interaction with the kids and the atmosphere was really relaxed, so crying babies could cry away without parents getting stressed.
Afterwards, I’d hoped to grab a sandwich in the cafe but there was literally only one sandwich left and neither Nathan nor I fancied it much. Luckily I’d packed for the kids, so they had a picnic on a bench under an ever-darkening sky and then we legged it to the car before the torrential rain started. Don’t worry about me and Nathan – we had a panini on the M25 later.
There will be more Baby Broadway events coming soon – have a look here for more details.
