To look at them you’d think they’d not aged a single day. Yes, there’s the odd few wrinkles, and flashes of the odd white hair, but, remarkably, Californian emo outfit, Weezer, look more or less exactly like they did when they first burst onto the scene in 1992. Twenty five years later and they are still going, still touring, still making albums, and still getting the likes of me to buy tickets to their gigs.
I have this recurring nightmare that I keep being woken up by the drip of the bathroom tap. The constantly, monotonous, repetitive drip not allowing me the peace of a good night’s sleep. The drip becomes almost deafening, sometimes echoing in volume, others barely audible, sometimes toying with me as it quickens its pace – the drip driving me to insanity. And that my dear reader is in a microcosm the viewing experience of Forced Entertainment’s Real Magic, which I had the pleasure of watching at HOME.
It’s already the hottest ticket in town. The buzz on the streets started almost a year ago when The Lowry announced that it was bringing Elf the Musical to Salford as part of their Christmas program for 2018. The Broadway show debuted in the West End in 2015 and became the fastest selling show at the Dominion Theatre in its history. That fever, it would seem, has been caught by the folks up north making Elf the Musical this season’s must watch production.