Ask me what my highlight was

Go on...

What was the highlight of our three-month USA road trip you ask?

Well it's a tough call because there were some really good bits, but if I really had to choose, I suppose it would have to be... SPIDER MAN THE MUSICAL, on Broadway no less. Fuck off it was amazing. Yeah for real.
I had to beg Josh to let me go. "Pleeeeeease Jossssssssssh, pleeeeeease let me, it will probably be amaaaaaaaazing".  Like a 5 year-old and Disney Land but much better because it's Spider-Man, the musical and I'm pushing 30.

It's a 'visual feast'.  Here's the trailer. I can't stop watching it. At first Josh said no because it was the last day of our trip left and we had run out of money. I say 'we' but my credit card stopped working the first week we got there. Also he said no because tickets are one hundred and fifty bucks. Gasp, if you will. That's a serious wad of cash. It's also SPIDER-MAN the MUSICAL though. A once in a lifetime opportunity. I even said I would go on my own, to save money, I didn't mind. Josh said it sounded shit. All the reviews are terrible, the production has been plagued with drama including several serious injuries and one death by falling. The week before the director had been sacked. The whole thing had cost over 65 million dollars and, according to one review, would need to sell out every night for 8 years to break even. That's what I mean though. Once in a lifetime (it has since shut down for three months to re-write the ending, again).

Some quite degrading begging later I found seats that cost a mere $76, they were in the very highest balcony, at the back. Here:

the red dots are our seats

Cheap seats is an understatement. Eventually Josh let me get them. "If it's shit, I promise, we can leave and it will be all my fault". I said it gleefully though, even if it's shit it's got to be amazing. It's SPIDER-MAN the MUSICAL.

That Sunday, our last in town, we set off for breakfast. I don my Spiderman top, it's from a set of kids pajamas that Dan gave me for Christmas, at least 4 years ago. It's for 7-10 year olds. It's amazing I can get it on. It looks like this:

Spideytime

We had about three hours to kill after breakfast so we walked 50 blocks to Time Square and Broadway. Well, Josh walked, I practically skipped the whole way. Josh the resident grownup, looking after his 7-year old wife. I practically dragged him the last 5 blocks 'what if we're late, hurry UP Josh, we're nearly there, it's nearly time. SPIDER MAN!' (yeah, exclamation marks and everything).

We get to the theatre with a throng of general public. Suddenly I feel an idiot clutching my Spiderman wallet and I do my hoody up to cover the fact that I am a woman in a child's t-shirt. I'm still excited on the inside but I half wish we had a kid with us to pretend it was for them. We make our way up the bazillion stairs all the way to the cheap seats. Even right at the back it looks cool as fuck. We have to lean right forward to see the stage at all but who cares? It's actually going to start and I am super excited. The guy sitting next to us chucks an eyebrow at me 'cheap seats huh?' You knows it gent. I wondered what he was doing there on his own.

At this point a kid in the official spidey show t-shirt comes up to us 'you guys are excited right?' Josh says 'she is, like you wouldn't believe', like he's my dad making excuses for my behaviour. 'And it's just you two in your party?' it is. Then he says 'would you rather come sit at the front?'
At the say what now? I think I might pee a little, he says 'if you give me your tickets, I will give you tickets for seats at the front, would you like that?' typical Londoners, we don't trust this punk. He's trying to trick us. Dubiously I say 'yesssss, I would like that. Quite a lot' he laughs at us and goes 'come on then' and we're off! Down the front like! The cheap seats guy goes 'lucky you' as we head back down the stairs to the fucking super pricey seats, here:

Fuck yeah

We are enjoying our new row when the same guy leads a handsome couple of boys to sit next to us. They are similarly excited and were also sitting in the top balcony. The guy sitting next to me says 'I have heard this is truly terrible' I say 'I know me too'. We can't wait. On our way to the good seats the staff kid said 'do me a favour? I want you to cheer and whoop when it's time, get involved and make yourselves heard?' he has got the wrong crowd for that kind of thing but we assure him we'll try. Josh says 'if there's audience participation I'm leaving' I assure him if there's audience participation it will only be in the form of an accident (apparently in one performance a baddie got stuck in his wires and dangled above the crowd for 10 minutes while they and fixed it).

The 'orchestra' is a Russell Brand lookalike who stands on the stage next to us rocking out on various electric guitars. It's genius. We're in stitches and it hasn't even started. There is a definite sense of nervous tension in the crowd and in the actors alike, there have been so very many accidents.

The first half of the production is relatively sensible. The plot basically follows the story from Spider-man 1 with the slightly weird addition of 'Arachne' the spider queen (I think) who has a crush on Spider-man (I think) and so makes his suit for him as a present (I thought).  She, by the way, has been turned into a spider by a Greek God whom she beat in a weaving competition (WTF?)

Arachne - awesome at weaving

The best (funniest) bit of the first half is when Spider-man has his powers and it's all go and then for no apparent reason they use a toy, an actual toy doll version of him and just hoist it up on a string, it's hard to take any of this seriously (and why would you?). At one point Spider-man gets raped by the baddy spider queen woman. I think technically he's supposed to be dreaming it so it doesn't really happen? Or maybe she drugged his suit so he loves her?. It's hard to say for sure, it's hard to watch with a straight face. Spider rape shouldn't be funny, but it is.

The songs, by the way, are fucking AWFUL. They are written by Bono and The Edge and they all sound like vaguely fiddled with U2 songs. The lyrics have been written by a GCSE student after a heavy night out. Most of the rhymes are either one syllable or so tenuous you have to laugh. I don't know why this isn't billed as a comedy because we spent the whole time rocking with the giggles.

When the lights come up for the intermission I say I'm almost disappointed in how not too stupid it is, Craig (giggle buddy #1) reassures me that the seriously stupid stuff happens in the second act. For a start they have done the whole first film in act 1, the green goblin is dead, Spidey and Mary Jane are an item, Mary Jane has made it on Broadway, technically speaking the plot has tied up and is done. I can't help but wonder what act two will hold.


The short answer to that mystery is 'I have absolutely no idea', in the second act you meet 7 new bad guys, some of them are true to the comic and some of them are just made up. There's one character that the director invented, based on a Swiss Army Knife and called Miss Swiss. She is totally silver and has a toothpick for an arm. I'm not kidding. And her other arm is a spinning drill that they must have forgotten to charge because it starts to splutter and slow down while she's doing her thing. Craig leans over and whispers that it's Lady Gaga dressed as Grace Jones. The other baddies come out one at a time in a cat walk style show, the boys roar with laughter at each new character, they are so ridiculous it's amazing. The costumes are unbelievable. The premise is unbelievable. This experience is unbelievable.  I'm pretty sure groaning and laughing isn't what the boy had in mind when he moved the four of us to the front but it's all we can do. Our row is in stitches, Russell Brand slings us evils.  This is so good. Here are some of the baddies:

toothpick armed Miss Swiss

Freddy Mercury in Lion Skirt

Carnage (like the script). I know he looks cool but in real life he was all plastic and too short to be a proper baddie (and he shoots jam at the crowd)

Aside from the incomprehensible plot and insane characters, there's the additional thrill of the flying about. It's quite exciting watching them jump around the place but even better is watching the Mexican wave of fear in the crowd below as they go over.

Just when we think it can't get any better/camper/nonsensical(er) there's the scene which finishes us all off.

It's a musical number featuring Arachne, the evil Spiderqueen who raped Spidey. She says 'What does Mary Jane have that I don't? All she has is two legs and... and some SHOOOOES' I have eight legs and... BRING ME SOME SHOES' Craig says audibly 'no. fucking. way.' and before you can finish saying whaaaaaaatt? there's a pile of shoes on the stage, and spider dancer girls singing a song called (and I am not making this up) 'Can You Resist, My Spider's Kiss' It is so totally inappropriate we all just sat there gaping at them. The one at the front puts her fanny right in our collective face.

short answer = YES

 The second half gets consistently more baffling as it goes on. At one point all the baddies that Spider-Man has previously fought come back for more. It doesn't make sense until the Spider Queen says she made it all up, because she has control of 'the World Wide Web'. Then it makes even less sense. Seriously? All that for a joke about the internet? Did that just happen?

This is where my blog ends, because that's pretty much how the musical ends. Spider Man loses the fight and then the spider baddy makes a bad joke and then she goes 'actually, you can win if you want, I'm bored of this' then she decides to go to heaven (or just go up a wall? Or a spout?), then some kid sings a song about something (love? victory? Spiders?) and then the curtain comes up and there's a collective 'sorry, what just happened?' from the crowd and we all go home.
That's actually what happened. For real. It was genius.