Our Evening at the Royal Albert Hall with Danny Elfman

I thought I'd better get the last of the posts about our December London trip out of the way before starting on a couple about our Easter Holiday so the final instalment is...the Royal Albert Hall, somewhere I've wanted to visit for years.

Andrew had actually been there before; he was part of a Methodist church youth club when he was a teenager and they had a festival-style thingy with lots of other youth clubs from across the UK. I'd only ever walked past the outside of it and never been in or seen a show there.

When I started planning my birthday weekend in London, I realised we'd have Friday night free and thought that would be an opportune moment to tick that one off the list. A quick check of the Royal Albert Hall's website revealed that the show that evening was none other than one hosted by Danny Elfman! Him off the Tim Burton films! The one with the music! Him, yes him! Eeeeeek!

(and for someone who doesn't really "do" 'eeek', that was rather exciting news)


Obviously when I booked the tickets I didn't realise I'd break my ankle in the meantime and end up on crutches but I can safely say that the staff at the Albert Hall are very good. I was allowed in the venue early and when we couldn't find anywhere to sit in the café, they went and found me a chair.

So, the venue...firstly there aren't really any words to describe the sheer size of the place. The outside does it no justice whatsoever and it's only when you get inside to your seat that you start saying "wow" over and over again.

We had a box on the second tier, box 74, seats 1 and 2 (if I was going to visit the Hall, I was going to do it right) and even though it was on the side, we still had an amazing view.

And that ceiling! Look! A-MAZING.

The show we saw had the catchy title of 'Danny Elfman's Music from the Films of Tim Burton' and featured tunes from 14 of Tim Burton's films expertly played by the London Concert Orchestra. The screen above the orchestra showed clips of each film and sketches drawn by Tim Burton for things like the costumes and puppets.

We saw and heard: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow, Mars Attacks, Big Fish, Batman/Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, Corpse Bride, Dark Shadows, Frankenweenie, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland.

It kind of goes without saying that it was a spectacular show; the orchestra were so good you didn't even notice you were in this massive space with other people and there were even a few films there I'd forgotten about.

Highlight of the show though had to be The Nightmare Before Christmas bit, Danny Elfman came out and performed the songs (some in a group and some on his own) and for the Oogie Boogie Song, the conductor played the role of Santa Claus, complete with silly Christmas hat.

I said when we left the Hall, "we'll have to come back again and see something else" but I think it'll have to be something pretty special to be able to compete with that show!