Wendy Parkin Website

Return to the Forbidden Planet – Final Performance of the 2002 Tour

Saturday 7th December 2002 – Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton

From the moment I walked into the theatre for the final performance of the 2002 tour I knew it was going to be special. It had a special atmosphere and people were decked out in Planet T-shirts, the emotion was visible on some people’s faces as the crew came down to take us through the drill one last time.

Soon we all went through the drill together and the crew made their way up onto the bridge, as this happened the audience started to clap in time with the music playing in the background, this was something that had started some weeks back and tonight was no exception, all the crew started to join in and some were even dancing, you could see that they couldn’t believe the response they were getting.

As soon as the show started you could tell that they were all putting everything into the performance and it was certainly going to be a performance that I wouldn’t forget.

The show continued until one of my favourite bits and one of the major highlights of the show – Cookie’s solo, Phil seemed to be putting more into it than normal tonight and I sat there transfixed throughout, as did several people around me.

I sat there during the interval hardly believing that the first act was over but I hardly had time to catch my breath before the second act started.

During Who’s Sorry Now, instead of Ariel singing he got the audience to do it, I noticed that some of the members of crew and Gloria were smiling at this point. At the end of the song, instead of Ariel looking at Gloria’s cleavage and saying ‘Get Thee to a Nunnery’, he came out with ‘Hmmm very nice’ – I was in stitches.

Go Now was so emaotional, I had tears rolling down my face, Gloria was the same and Prospero had tears in his eyes, the song had more poignancy than normal and all the crew seemed emotional.

Soon it was time for Hey Mr Spaceman and Miranda got the audience clapping in time with the drum beat, it was a great noise hearing everyone clapping together.

By the time Monster Mash started everyone was on their feet, clapping and dancing to the music, Great Balls of Fire has always been a great song to get the audience bopping and tonight was no exception, all the cast were really getting in to it, with Cookie seeming more lively than normal and Bosun and Ariel doing some strange dance.

The crew disappeared and everyone started clapping and stamping their feet to get them back on stage.

Phil did the end of tour thank yous, just like in Richmond, thanking everyone he could mention – in between each mentioned the whole audience had to say Yeah.

After this Nick and Fredrick came to the front of the stage, at this point I knew this was going to be a different encore to the normal one, they started singing Stay with Fredrick singing ‘Oh Won’t You Stay’ and Nick singing in a very sexy deep voice ‘Just a Little Big Longer’ then Jane joined in with the sing and it was just amazing – could anything get any better than this.

Ally, Jane and Wendy sand Shake Your Tail Feathers and by this point I had tears rolling down my face, then came Phil singing Johnny B Goode, the audience were loving it and there were massive screams and Phil, Ian and Wendy did their guitar solos, all too soon the song finished.

They all waved at the audience and went off again, I thought it was odd that the theatre lights didn’t come back on and the whole audience carried on clapping. Out they all came again and we were treated to an extra song, Drift Away. James started the singing and then Cameron joined in, I always knew that Cameron was a fantastic musician but he has a great singing voice as well and it was just wonderful to gear him singing, soon all the cast joined in and it was such an emotional song to end on, some members of the cast and many members of the audience were crying, when they song finished they waved and disappeared.

I did hope that they would come out again but unfortunately no, that was it, the end of the tour – it was a fantastic night and one I will remember for a long time to come.

A huge thank you to all the cast who not only made the last night but the whole tour so memorable.

Claire Brookes
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