Happy March, everyone! Bit of a delay with this post but better late than never! Here’s what I got up to in February!

Theatre/Live Shows

• First show I saw in February was Saint Joan at the Donmar Warehouse as I managed to grab a free ticket in the Donmar’s Young + Free scheme. I thought Gemma Arterton was outstanding as Joan. The show is now closed but you can still read my review here!
• Next I went to see the amazing Jack Whitehall at Wembley Arena. Jack is one of my favourite comedians. My friend and I loved the show so much, we travelled to Birmingham two weeks later to see it again. We had a meet & greet both times and he’s one of the most loveliest people I’ve met. You can read my review of his Wembley show here!
• Then I went to see The Wild Party at the newly opened theatre The Other Palace. It’s currently running until 1st April and I loved it so much. You can read my review here.
• I also went to see The Girls at the Phoenix Theatre & Lizzie: The Musical at the Greenwich Theatre courtesy of my friend Olivia at RewriteThisStory! The Girls was really, really good. I enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to, it’s certainly an uplifting story. Lizzie has an amazing cast with insane voices and I loved the music. But the show felt very much like a concept album and I don’t see it going any further than that.
• Second to last, I saw A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Young Vic which you can read about here.
• And the last show I saw in February was Sex With Strangers at the Hampstead Theatre. And I really didn’t like this. I thought Emilia Fox and Theo James worked really well together but ultimately the script was flat, the transitions were too long and it was just quite boring and predictable.

TV

• I managed to finish all three seasons of Bad Education on Netflix before Jack’s show at Wembley! Highly recommend, it’s absolutely hilarious even if the continuity is a bit all over the shop.
• I stuck with the comedy and binged the two seasons of Don’t Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23. It was great to see Krysten Ritter in a role complete opposite to Jessica Jones. But it felt like every generic American comedy. Not exactly the best written show but it definitely contains some fun episodes.
• And a bunch of shows that I like came back off hiatus including Supergirl, The Flash, The Walking Dead and Broadchurch. It’s exciting to see where the plots develop over the next few weeks!

Movies

• After Jack Whitehall’s show, my friend Claire and I ended up watching the Bad Education Movie which had some hilarious moments, even if the continuity was a bit off. But still enjoyable! I also ended up watching Jack Whitehall:Live which is his earlier stand up on Netflix. I had seen it before but it still made me laugh.
• I also watched Pitch Perfect 2 as it was in the ‘last chance’ area of Sky on Demand. I really enjoyed it but I’m not sure whether they could take the story any further in the third one.
• In the middle of February I went to a screening of Disney’s Newsies: The Broadway Musical. I have, literally, been waiting five years to see some real life version of Newsies. And a cinema screening was the closest I got. But who could complain when Disney brought back some of the original cast to star in it? Including everyone’s favourite goofball Jeremy Jordan! And his performance, along with the rest of the show, was everything I had imagined it could be and more. I raved about the show here if you want to have a look!
• And lastly, I was invited to the UK premiere of the incredible film Bitter Harvest starring Samantha Barks & Max Irons. It’s an incredibly moving film about a period of Ukrainian history called the Holodomor (death by starvation) that was kept under wraps until the early 1990s. You can read my experience about it here! 

Books

• First book I finished was A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler. Picked this up as it was about a big family across four generations. Nothing much happened and the writing was quite plain. I would have preferred it to be a short story collection rather than a novel with a time jumping narrative.
• Second book I finished was Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. I did a full review of this, which you can see here, because I enjoyed it so much!
• I also finished Girl Up by Laura Bates, who is the founder of the Everyday Sexism project. I enjoyed Everyday Sexism a lot more than this book. Girl Up felt very much a book for white women, like Laura Bates. This book could’ve definitely benefitted more from having a range of diverse voices offer advice into being a girl.
• I saw the movie trailer for Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon had been released and had to pick up the book right away. Mostly because, most readers had said that the trailer spoils every major plot point in the book. And it absolutely does. Some plot points in the book I could see coming from a mile off but Nicola Yoon does have gorgeous writing. I’m hoping to pick up her second book ‘The Sun is Also A Star’ soon!
• And I finished the month by reading the Of Mice and Men play text by John Steinbeck. It was one of the oldest books on my TBR. I had seen the play when I went on holiday to New York for the first time and bought a playtext at the theatre. In May 2014. Glad to have finally read it. I didn’t really think much of it, it’s pretty much the same length as the novel.

Other Exciting Things!

• I mentioned last month that I really enjoyed Wing Jones by Katherine Webber and I finally posted my review this month which you can read here.
• The original cast album for Dear Evan Hansen was released and it was the only thing I listened to for two week straight. It’s my favourite album of the year so far. My favourite songs are For Forever, Words Fail and Sincerely, Me. I’m seeing the show on Broadway in June and I predict I am going to shed lots of tears.
• The Oscars were in February! I did a post on some fantastic musical films, if you’ve had a craving since seeing the not so best picture winner La La Land. And you can read that here.
• I visited the Temple of Seitan in Morning Lane in Hackney. Temple of Seitan is a vegan friendly “chicken shop!” It’s a really lovely food place that uses meat alternatives and is completely vegan. If you’re ever in Hackney Central then I highly recommend the temple burger!
• Also, I created a Facebook page! If you fancy seeing other tidbits me then you can follow me here! 

And that’s all from me! What did you get up to in February?

Until next time,