The clue was in the fact that on arrival, the front of house manager had proffered ear-plugs: "It's going to be loud," she warned.
She was right. Roller-mania had nothing on the ear-piercing screams that shook the Edinburgh Playhouse last Sunday every time the name George Sampson was uttered by host Stephen Mulhern.
And when the diminutive would-be Billy Elliot finally made
his entrance, well, even Beatle-mania at its height would have been hard pressed to compete with the growing decibel levels that threatened to cause every window in Greenside Place to shatter in submission.
Welcome to Britain's Got Talent Live – 90 minutes of dodgy variety performed by the very amateurs the nation took their hearts on the prime-time ITV show.
Most were tolerable at best, although Gin the dog got stage-fright; The Cheeky Monkeys should have been renamed the God-Awful Chancers; and Sampson (cue screams) basically danced badly briefly, before doing his trade-mark vertebrae-jarring backflip into some water. Britain might have talent but this wasn't it.
Thankfully the angelic voices of Faryl Smith and Andrew Johnston, who duetted on a show-stopping rendition of Walking In The Air, were worth the ticket price alone.
Still, it was hard to believe that just 24 hours earlier, at the very same venue, the entertainment on offer had been Bill Kenwright's classy production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1978 masterpiece, Evita.
The musical brings to life the dynamic, larger-than-life persona of Eva Peron, wife of former Argentine dictator, Juan Peron. Five-star shows are few and far between – this was one of them. Louise Dearman in the title role was spellbinding, Mark Heenehan as her husband, subtle, while Any Dream Will Do contender Seamus Cullen surely gave the performance of his career as Che Guevara.
Both shows dispelled the long-held myth that the Edinburgh Playhouse has poor acoustics. Two very different shows, two crystal clear deliveries – time for touring companies to up the ante and ensure their mic and sound levels are set correctly and for performers to articulate their lines properly.
After all, it was the great Yehudi Menuhin who, after playing the venue back in 1977, said, "In my travels world-wide, I have never before found such a large auditorium with such naturalness and warmth of sound qualities."
Finally, those ear-plugs came in handy again on Tuesday when Ireland's greatest export after Guinness, the blarney and Westlife popped up like five little leprechauns to watch the one o'clock gun being fired. Yes Boyzone, Ronan, Stephen, Mikey, Keith and Shane were in town to promote their Castle concert next month – tickets still available. And you were wondering why they decided to stop of between gigs to visit the Capital.
"When the going get tough . . ." as they sang back in 1999 on their way to their fourth No 1.
The full article contains 493 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
