there was this hateful late stage development in the almost kiss beat in the first agony where it was less comedy teetering and more comedy .... inclining in naturally and expectantly. i shan’t speak

BEREFT at no ollie for closing, obviously, tells and i have been Handling it all day, but the thing is that i feel so, so, so lucky that we were there on friday when he and chumisa were both suddenly back and gabrielle and sophie both had their last scheduled covers - in retrospect i think it's obvious that both ollie and chumisa were also treating it like potentially their last time out of an abundance of caution, and it was such a perfect, slightly feverish show

horrible wolf noises, unhinged agonies - this dreadful high kick made an appearance all last week on you are everything maidens could wish for, So That Was Good, their wobbliest i shall always love the maiden who ran away / and i the faraway prince ever, chumisa sobbing and sobbing on sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. tender stroking at curtain call again and then the most joyous ollie and chumisa race offstage, just a really really perfect night. i feel very lucky!

hughie sent me insane at the last matinee by adding "and a hungry little girl" to the once upon a time dialogue and gracie did such a face about it and i loved it. a really good textual intervention! my king! his best no more ever for me twice in one day, really great stuff

so much nuzzling in it takes two! he's very gentle with her in it except when they're throwing each other about and it's upsetting!

i DID post about this already but chumisa's cinderella they/themming jack felt soooo deliberate to me having missed it for most of the week and i love it so much

jack being sooo awed and THRILLED by the witch transformation so moving and good imo

rhys and gracie squeezing each other's hands on the penultimate i think i see a glimmer, bad

bella on the point of tears all week and being jollied along in the background via a lot of face pulling, a lot of unpleasant hip rolls, etc, except then she and rhys were just having a proper collapsed hug at the end of the last ever after. Which Killed Me

i feel crazy about mel's witch generally, i think it is such an unbelievably good performance, but her visibly getting her hunch back at the end of last midnight and the way the realisation of this flowed into realising rapunzel has come to get her is going to stick with me forever probably!!

all week there were sooooo many lovely moments where you could see people - i'm being general bc i don't think there's anyone i didn't clock an instance of this with! - quietly checking in with each other or looking rueful about how everyone was about to cry or just breaking slightly to look fond while they weren't the focal point of a scene. sooooo much care across the whole company, very very moving. it actually kind of felt like there was such an excess of general tenderness through the week that everyone had kind of become relatively normal again by closing and the emotional intensity there was back to being about the piece, which was in many ways a relief