There ain’t many things you can do in London if you live on a low budget. Like me. Before making the life-changing and expensive decision to study in London, I had created a detailed list of expenses for a month, which included such necessities as rent, bills, meals, travel,

AND West End Theatre.

By nature we have all acknowledged the priciness and frivolity of such a demand. But at the same time we don’t often happen to live in a city globally recognised as the best place for theatres. There I always knew that the priceless experiences in West End would become one of the frequent payments I was gonna make in London.

It was, though, not until two months after setting foot in this city that I got the first theatre ticket. And it was Matilda.

First impressions

Cambridge Theatre is around a quiet corner in the midst of a most astir area in London. Or at least I felt that way when I came to get the ticket at 10 in the morning. Admittedly it got me wonder more than once whether this five-year-old musical already became less attractive.

On the other hand, don’t laugh, I had to google beforehand if there was a dress code to go to the theatre. And apparently for a long time now people stopped dressing up to theatres. It was no longer so much of a big deal that spectators would want to trade off their comfy jeans and trainers.

But turned out I got it all wrong. When I came back to the very same little Earlham Street, there was already a long queue outside the hall. People of all ages and skin colours in all kinds of fashion — mostly cozy and casual outfits — were gathering there awaiting for the ticket collectors to appear. Some were alone, some were in large groups, some were silent, some were loud. But they shared excitement in their eyes, from which I could tell that to them the musical itself was still a big something.

Matilda

The stage amazed me right away for the feel of a first-year Hogwarts. It was colourful, vibrant, and magical for a reason. The musical was set mainly in the first school year of the kids when they opened up their eyes and minds to life, started walking out of being their mummies’ miracles to chase their own.

So the feel was true… and false.

Obviously Miss Trunchbill’s school was not anywhere near Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. As ugly as the Headmistress’s name suggested, the school was ridiculously unreasonable. And at the same time I bet it is a school that we all can relate. Coming from Vietnam, personally I totally can.

But children are always children. They could be either their parents’ princes and princesses or regrets, either boys or girls, or girls believed to be boys. They could either have known nothing, not even a letter, or have read tonnes of books and learnt the multiplication table, or even taught themselves to speak Russian. They could do magic either by nature or practice, either with their wands, their eyes, or none at all. As long as they are children, they are curious, they are scared, they make mistakes, they have dreams of growing up, and they want to be loved.

And then the revolts — my favourite part. Both the antagonists and protagonists helped it, which is true for any revolution on earth, fictional or not, anyways. When there’s some Miss Trunchbill around, we’ll either need a Miss Honey, a Matilda, her eyes, or have to become them on our own.

The musical

I don’t want to repeat all the signs they’ve got on the advertisement but it was truly exhilarating, sublime, unmissable and all that.

The lyrics were purely ingenious. The irony started with a tagline, “My mummy says I’m a miracle”, which would repeat every once in a while for a hundred different meanings. And every other song just got better and better and never ceased to amaze me until the very end. My favourite was the clever alphabet word-play in School Song (which would remind everyone of their school at least at a certain point, believe me) and the utmost masterpiece of R-E-V-O-L-T-I-N-G Children.

But the fact that I, for the first time, was seeing it performed live by a world-class cast made the glee so real it burst out.

It was still unbelievable to me that almost every actor/actress was a multi-talent artist. I always knew that they could act and sing, but I was absolutely enlightened seeing them as dancers, ballroom-dancers, acrobats, and stage decorators as well. Please also note that they did more than one jobs at the same time, and all so beautifully and completely. To that level of talent and effort I was watching before my eyes, shamefully more than twice I found myself wondering if they were paid well.

And at the end I got the answers on my own.

That there were no better pays to them than the stage uniquely made for their roles and positions. Than the live music to which they were singing their hearts out. Than the spotlight that was revealing their faces to their colleagues much more than to the spectators.

And, what could be a better pay than the ten-minute-long clapping when the curtain was closing, regardless the fact that the audience could hardly know your names?