Whistle Down The Wind

It left me whistling the haunting melodies all the way home but I didn't think it would turn out that way. A visit to Newcastle means an eighty miles round trip on the treacherous A1 and on that particular day there had been torrential rain resulting in flooding just about everywhere and then the mist and fog from the coast spread inland to the A1. My thoughtful daughter had decided to take me to see Whistle Down the Wind as a birthday treat and if only she hadn't spent so much on the tickets (£55), perhaps we could have just given it a miss but I'm so glad we didn't. We had superb seats right at the front. The pre-performance ...

I knew I was going to have a bad evening when my usually reliable car decided it didn’t want to start. After much debate with my Dad we decided it was the starter motor. Bugger – not an easy thing to fix at 5.45pm on Good Friday evening when you are due at the Manchester Opera House for 7.30pm for a show. Cue a frantic call to the Box Office for a ticket for Mum – who landed the plum job of taxi driver for the evening and also a much better seat than those of us who booked early – and a dash to Manchester for curtain-up on Whistle Down the Wind, visiting Manchester on its tour for a couple of days. The front of house announcer ...

The Story We begin in a church in a small Louisiana town just before Christmas 1959. A Baptist minister is delivering a sermon to the townsfolk about how Jesus will return and anyone who doesn't recognise him will burn in hell (The Vaults Of Heaven). As the sermon ends the people disperse (Overture). Swallow, Brat And Poor Baby are three children who start to discuss church and how they never get what they pray for (I Never Get What I Pray For). They start to play and on stage a platform rises turning into an elevated Highway. They are having so much fun they don't realise it's become dark and that their father will start to worry about them ...