An evening at Memphis...

As a huge fan of musical theatre I jumped at the chance to grab preview tickets for the new West End show Memphis. Memphis has been a huge Broadway triumph and US national hit, it has now crossed the Pond and is in preview at the Shaftsbury Theatre.
Memphis is loosely based on Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips, one of the first white DJs to play black music in the 1950s.

The synopsis of the musical is of the underground club scene of the 1950's Memphis Tennessee, where blues, gospel and the first sounds of rock 'n' roll were part of the black culture. Falling in love with a beautiful club singer, one young man’s vision to bring her voice and her music out of the clubs and onto the airwaves of America flew in the face of cultural divides and sparked a music revolution that shook the world."
Here is the show launch at Ronnie Scott's this summer...

          

        
The musical stars Beverley Knight and Killian Donnelly, and they are both phenomenal.

Here is Killian Donnelly singing Memphis in me, which is stunning.

Friday was the 2nd show in its preview run into its London premiere of the 23rd October and at the end all of the audience was on their feet, standing ovation all round.  A new hit has been born in the West End of London. This show is a must see for this season, and I would thoroughly recommend it as a great night out. A fabulous show, which deals with a subject that to my generation is unimaginable but was so real back in the 50's ... Music being a medium that started to break down the race barriers.
I tweeted how much I had enjoyed the show and I got this tweet back from Beverley on Saturday morning.