I had the bright idea of taking Tim to see a musical..

I was wonderfully impressed by the performance of Spring Awakening I managed to catch on Broadway in New York, and when I heard about bare, I thought it might be a good easy start to get Tim interested in light-hearted musical theatre.

Boy oh boy was I wrong. I'm not sure if the venue, the set-up or the musical itself that was to blame. It was (still is) showing at Hackett Hall which I have to say is an absolutely ghastly venue for a performance. I'm sure it's fine for a low end country-style hoedown or town meeting, or at a stretch a low budget elementary school play, but it was terrible. The chairs were arbitrarily placed in rows in front of the stage with random numbers half-scrawled on the back in chalk, and the rows were indicated by bits of paper stuck to the back of a chair in said row. The sound was sketchy and too often it was tough to make out the lyrics.

bare has two acts, the first of which dragged to over an hour. The second act I can't speak for - we at the intermission, determined to not waste anymore of our evening. The actors were decent enough, with Rebecca Griffiths making a good meal of playing the unhappy fat girl "Nadia" and Tyler Jones does a gay job portraying the conflicted homosexual catholic boy.

I'm would love to see this play on video, so I could fast forward through the draggy bits which are many. I struggle to understand how something the calibre of bare would be exported anywhere. It's long, drawn-out, draggy ... you get my drift, and really comes across like a poor, twice removed retarded second cousin of Spring Awakening with a religious slant,

Would I recommend going to see bare? Only if you have nothing better to do, are happy to part with $25 to sit on a plastic chair in a small darkened community style hall to test you patience with a long, drawn-out, draggy poor, twice removed retarded second cousin of Spring Awakening.