Even though The Beautiful Game (TBG) only started previews on the 5th of September, and we had tickets for the 11th, I'd already heard a lot about the show before I saw it. And I was not disappointed. TBG is set in Belfast in 1969, and follows the fortunes of a teenage football team and their girlfriends, as they search for ways to live and love in peace.

The main thing I'd heard was that the show was not suitable for children, and it certainly is not. There's a lot of swearing, the jokes are adult, and there's quite a lot of violence. That said, it's an amazing show. It's not sung through - unlike many other Andrew Lloyd Webber shows - and several scenes are mostly dialogue. But this does work, because (for example in Whistle Down the Wind) the tunes used for the 'dialogue' sections can be overused, so by the time you get to the actual song you're sick of the tune. In TBG, although one song in particular ('Don't Like You') was reprised at least one too many times, the tunes are good and used well. I was humming 'Our Kind of Love' for days afterwards.

So in summary - don't take the kids (take them to see Starlight Express or something), be prepared for some bad language and violence, and then be prepared to have a great evening! Really different from anything Lloyd Webber's done before, but still amazing.