So yesterday was my day off from any work, which makes a change, so as a treat my friend and I travelled over to Birmingham for the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular that was on at the Barclaycard Arena.
Now I do have to point out that as it was my day off, I wasn’t going to write about the show as it was purely for pleasure than work, but I just couldn’t resist bring you something about the day.
This is not going to be so much of a review, but more of a standard, old school, blog post about the day and the show.
The Road To Birmingham
It wasn’t an early start to travel over to the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, we didn’t start our journey until 11am, it doesn’t really take that long to travel over to Birmingham from North Wales, well saying that, we did have to travel the M6, a motorway that is known for being a car park at times!
Travelling down to Birmingham was quiet strange for me, I’m usually driving but this time my friend Phil was driving, so it gave me chance to sit back, relax and do some tweeting on route, although I would have done more, but my phones bandwidth and battery life were both on the edge of no return!
Tweeting On Our Journey To See Doctor Who
On our way to to #DrWhoBham at #BarclayCardArena http://t.co/vUYhZ8Jl3d pic.twitter.com/9dFgZ7C1oP
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
Stuck in traffic on the way to #birmingham! http://t.co/darFBNhgGM pic.twitter.com/zpUN8HOY6u
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
Time for munchies on route to #DrWhoBham #NikNaks http://t.co/IpELSZDWhD pic.twitter.com/GullYIOUHQ
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
Wooo whoooo it's the #RAC http://t.co/1YEPwoHGTD pic.twitter.com/BFP5xTnHdS
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
After spending just over 3 hours travelling to the Barclaycard Arena (NIA), we arrived in the Birmingham City Centre and made our way to the car park that is beneath the arena, wow that’s a big place, more queueing was involved in the car park this time for the ticket machine to park the car.
But thankfully you can speed the process up by using your phone to pay or a ticket. It’s a bit of a rabbit warren coming out of the car park to the entrance for the arena and what really surprise us was that only one entrance was open for everyone to get in to the, so yes, you guessed it more queueing up, but this moved very quickly.
Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular at the Barclaycard Arena
Wow this place is big, we finally found the “block” that we were seated in and it was really high up, I mean really high up, the view down to the stage and the orchestra was helped out with three screens, one huge one and a smaller one either side of it.
Getting very excited for #DrWhoBham at #BarclayCardArena http://t.co/u0MVavmXSh pic.twitter.com/CTYLXaYqWE
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
We sat in anticipation for the show to start, after a while the lights dimmed down and we were informed by a cyberman’s voice to turn off our mobile phones and that flash photography was not allowed, yeah like that was going to happen, I could see loads of flashes and lit mobile phones in the lower section of the arena during the show.
The wondrous music of Murray Gold’s amazing and moving music from Doctor Who was performed with so much passion by the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales led by the beautiful sound of soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and conducted by Ben Foster.
The lovely 5th Doctor, Peter Davidson, treated us to some insights to the music and some rather witty banter about Colin Baker, which had the audience laughing and applauding.
Let’s also not forget to mention the collection of Doctor Who monsters that were moving around the lower audience throughout the show, including the Daleks, Oode, Cybermen, a mummy and I was told the Silence as well, but I have to say I can’t remember seeing them, but I do have a large amount of marks on my arm.
I have to say that the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular was an amazing experience and I’m so glad that I got chance to see the show and to hear the amazing music of Murray Gold performed live.
If you do get the chance to see the show, I highly recommend it, it’s not only exciting, but it can also be rather moving with music that brings memories of past episodes of Doctor Who to mind and the screens showing specially edited footage of key moments from the years that Gold has composed music for the TV series.
The Journey Home
So our day came to an end and it was time to get on the road with the Birmingham traffic again, which was a slow as it was going, but after leaving the town centre we managed to get a good speed going, of course I had to do some tweeting again on the way home and even had some tweets with the RAC!
@RAC_Care we did give you a wave, just like Max & Paddy lol ????
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
@HallsOfScotland just gone past one of your lorries, very peckish now! #Haggis pic.twitter.com/2lPRt64I64
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
We've got some awesome tunes playing on the way home @PetShopBoys with Disco 4. #Rammstein
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
Beams of #nature pic.twitter.com/hUU8rFddRo
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
A train carriage on the motorway!! #BizarreSights pic.twitter.com/C1V4njSVgp
— Karen Woodham (@BlazingMinds) May 26, 2015
And there ends our trip to Birmingham, thanks Phil for a great day out and to the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular for an amazing show and the Barclaycard Arena for putting to such a brilliant, not forgetting all those that I tweeted with and spoke to during the day.
Go see the show folks, it’s well worth seeing.
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.