Jack and the Beansprout

The day after my little embarrassing experience, I woke up with a headache. Not a serious one, just a mild ache on the right side of my cranium but painful enough to make me not want to get out of bed.

But get up I must, as I have bought tickets to a musical / pantomime called "Jack and the Beansprout". I bought two tickets end of last month to take advantage of the early bird discount.

The musical was at the National Library. I was still feeling somewhat sick from last night and didn't feel like eating at all even though I hadn't eaten anything since the night before.

But I force myself to have a sandwich just before the show started.

Anyway, it is pretty obvious that it's a local take on the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack's mom was played by Ivan Heng, the Artistic Director of W!ld Rice production house itself.

And damn, this guy is really good in drag. He literally brought the house down with his antics.

This was not really a gay play, but more like for children in conjunction with the school holidays and Christmas. Hence, about half the attendees were children.

In addition, there were interactions with the crowd, something like an interactive play. Jack, played by Sebastian Tan who by the way looks kinda cute in secondary school uniform with knee-length pants, would ask the crowd "Should Jack continue to climb or go down?"

Of course, the adults were not forgotten as there were some "adult" jokes which were lost on the kids. But maybe not, seeing nowadays how kids can be pretty smart.

There were a few phrases in Hokkien, which I could not understand. But I still laughed anyway, as I could vaguely guessed the correct meaning. I think.

The supporting actors were fabulous as well. The harp and the golden goose could really sing well and their voices were superb.

As for the songs, some of them are really catchy. All very up-tempo and upbeat.

One character that was really cute is Bamboo, the Giant's housekeeper. She was dressed in those cute Japanese dresses which are quite outrageous and which you would only find girls wearing them in Japan.

The thing that was really adorable about her was how she made all those exaggerated gestures when she is happy or sad. Like those you see in manga or anime.

In fact, when she cried, she actually used her hands and draw out half M's from her eyes, like she was making a McDonald's sign but starting from both her eyes.

Really kawaii and funny! I was laughing like mad!

Overall, I really enjoyed the show. Though it was a bit draggy at two and a half hours, it didn't feel that long and it managed to keep me entertained for the most up.