Theatrical
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy!
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!
Hope dreams of working backstage in a theatre, and she’s determined to make it without the help of her famous costume designer mum. So when she lands an internship on a major production, she tells no one. But with a stroppy Hollywood star and his hot young understudy upstaging Hope’s focus, she’s soon struggling to keep her cool… and her secret.
I LOVE MAGGIE HARCOURT! There I said, I love her books. She consistently delivers relatable MC's and blows me away with her accuracy. Which is why I'm so stoked to be part of the blog tour for her latest release Theatrical!
I loved Unconventional, it was brilliant. It was relatable...I'd been there. It was accurate. It was overall a cracking read and I've been looking forward to seeing what Maggie would write next...and she gave us Theatrical. Going in I knew it was going to be an A+ read and Maggie didn't let me down.
The other reason I'm excited about this blog tour? Theatre is one of my loves and I've been given free reign by Stevie (thanks Stevie!) to talk about my experiences before I kick off this review, so grab a cup of tea and settle in for story time folks!
I've been going to the theatre since I was a child, I'm not going to lie. I love a good musical, I love singing along to a musical soundtrack and my absolute favourite show has to be Phantom of the Opera, I got sucked so badly in to the story it was honestly jarring when it came to the interval. Phantom's cast ruined me for any other Phantom cast. I can't even watch the movie. *shudder* Wicked is another of my favourites...it's just magical, and really wrenches my emotions. I have been known to belt out Defying Gravity terrifyingly off key.
As a drama student, of course I got to go to the theatre even more! Shakespeare...the creepy witches will forever haunt me, they genuinely sent a shiver down my spine. The Chalk Circle...The Woman in Black, which was you know...hands down the creepiest show I've ever attended. I have never been so freaked out in my life...and there where only a couple of actors involved. Mind blowing. But I've not always just been an audience member when it comes to theatre.
I'm not sure if you guys know this, but I worked in a theatre when I was younger. I was in the chorus in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at Woking and Windsor theatre, and I've done performing arts all my life, singing, dancing, acting. Right now I work in movies/TV. I never feel more at home than in a theatre, or on a set. Casts and crews become like family. I recently finished working on a movie that I was on for three months, and considering the stuff we had to do and overcome, we bonded more than ever before. Everyone's in the same boat. We've all been up at 3/4am to make a 4/5am call time. We're all gutted the catering ran out of sausage baps. We're all tired, and hot and bothered. (No joke, it was 20+ degrees and our costumes had 6 layers. Six.) That's why it's so emotional when a theatre run/shoot comes to an end. You've seen these people everyday, spent 14+ hours with them a day, maybe more, maybe less. You've struggled and bared your emotions to all.
My favourite memories are from when I was in Joseph, and I have one specific memory. Every single performance, there was a specific part that I could hear the audience chuckling and I didn't know why. We weren't allowed to turn around and watch obviously, we had to face forward and you know...do our job. I actually hadn't seen the show properly, and there was a lot I missed because I was in it and our chaperone/teacher was very serious about us facing forward and not moving...breathing...blinking. I'm joking.
Kind of.
Anyway, we got free tickets because I was involved in the show, so after the matinee show, my mum and I basically hung about in Woking's shopping mall, and then went to the evening performance. I was still in my costume, it wasn't much, just jeans and a Joseph t-shirt. I started to come down with something, I think it was a cold or flu or something, but I started to feel really bad during the show. I still loved the show, I finally saw why everyone laughed during one song, and then at the end when the curtain went down, the actor playing Joseph spotted me. We'd been given front row centre, but he spotted me and waved at me, and bent down and carried on waving at me until the curtain had completely gone down. Yes I was super embarrassed because everyone was looking at me but...it's one of my favourite memories ever. That and the run of shows I was picked to be centre stage at the opening of act two. BOOM.
It's safe to say the setting of Theatrical is very familiar ground to me, a lot of the crew roles in theatre are familiar to me despite the fact I work in film right now. I honestly felt like I'd come home reading this, I could smell that comforting theatre smell...feel the excitement before the performance.
This book had me so damn nostalgic throughout. Vivid memories of sitting in rehearsals in a rehearsal room running each song over and over. Rehearsals in the theatre. Doing homework backstage in the dressing room..and getting the main casts help or one of the crews. Watching sound check. Doing a matinee show, then rushing out to get lunch from wherever was around. Obviously being a child I wasn't allowed to do every single show, but I did a fair chunk of them. Bizarrely I even remember a load of us collecting those sticker packs for those World Cup sticker book things?!
Why am I telling you all this? Partially because I've been given free license to as part of this blog tour (Thanks Stevie!)...but also because I want you guys to understand how badly in the feels this book hit me as I was reading it! And you know...I want you guys to love theatre if you don't already...or even get curious enough to check it out, and I will willingly get behind that!
I want you guys to understand that for me, Theatrical was like putting on my favourite, warm, cosy, and very familiar jumper. I felt so...comforted reading this book!
Right from the start, I was loving it. "Act one, Scene One" Instead of regular old chapter one. The book's divided in to parts based on the process of bringing a show to the stage. I also had a sense of anticipation too, I was fully ready to get stuck in to this journey.
Hope...I admired her a hell of a lot. She wants to do things on her own terms without her mums name helping her. I really respected her for that because a lot of people wouldn't make that choice, in an industry that a lot of the time is all about who you know. She's an incredibly relatable character, you're on her side and you're rooting for her throughout. I wanted her to succeed, I wanted her to take this step and smash it out of the park.
George...I have to mention him. I loved him, he was so funny! He's one of many supporting characters brought to vivid life in the story, and added some magic. Plus I know a loooott of costume department lovelies who are very similar to him!
Now...as much as I got Hope and loved her and so on...I got Luke even more. He's an actor, I'm an actor, I understood him and his work process and he had me smiling a lot. He brought so many memories for me! Both he and Hope are brilliant characters, and I loved the chemistry and relationship between the two of them and while the romance is a main part of the book...Hope's self discovery and everything she overcomes, all of her personal struggles, is too. And of course the theatre because we're not left hanging my friends, we see this show through to the very end. I loved the balance between all these different aspects!
I'm not going to lie to you all...I really didn't like Tommy at first, but I kinda ended up feeling sorry for the poor guy. He goes from being this bratty start, to having layers peeled off until you could see the regular old human underneath. The characters go on some brilliant journeys throughout this book, and they grow and change, which makes them all the more real.
I'm gonna give you another dose of honesty...I got so caught up reading this book, and being all nostalgic that I actually didn't pause long enough to take notes while I was reading like I usually do....which is probably a bad thing to admit but...I was hooked!
Theatrical is a proper love letter to the theatre, if you love the theatre already or if you've never been before....it's going to highlight everything you love, or everything to love, and fill you with nostalgia and a strong urge to go! Not to mention it perfectly illustrates the magic of the theatre...as well as all the hard work that goes in to bringing that magic to life. I actually felt quite emotional finishing the book, and seeing the show come to fruition.
Like Unconventional, Maggie knows what she's talking about. She knows all the ins and outs, all the terms, the process...everything was spot on accurate. Which makes it so easy to get swept up in the book, and you're really there with the characters. These settings spring to life around you, you're right there with them, regardless of if you've ever been in a practice room or a theatre before. You're fully on this journey with the characters, you're on this team. You see the show build up from the bare bones, you watch it build up and build up, and the pace of the book reflects that.
Honestly, Theatrical is just completely bloody brilliant. The writing is on point, there's humour, there's drama, there's nostalgia...and there's all the magic of the theatre contained in one book, and brought to life by some very relatable characters, and a very talented author.
