Review: THE NATIONAL LOTTERY'S BIG NIGHT OF MUSICALS, BBC1

Finally - a major theatrical event in a primetime slot on a Saturday night. Not since Andrew Lloyd Webber's array of reality shows have we seen musical theatre put front and centre on a mainstream channel, and after years of The Olivier Awards broadcast being relegated to a truncated late-night Sunday slot, this feels like a long time coming. And all the more poignant after the rough ride the industry has had these past two years.

It came as no surprise that Jason Manford hosted this glittering event at the AO Arena in Manchester - can we say he's fast becoming our very own Neil Patrick Harris(?!). Perhaps a bit of a stretch, but he opened the show with an ode to Chicago with his trademark stagey flair and Northern charm.

The line-up of the show had something for everyone. The Disney on Stage medley was undoubtedly a highlight for much of the audience with the Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King casts joining Samantha Barks and Stephanie McKeon for an emphatic "Let it Go Finale".

And let us talk about Beauty and the Beast for a moment - a personal highlight for me as I've missed all previous staged productions (and, happily, have booked for the Palladium run in July). Courtney Stapleton and Shaq Taylor pulled off a touching performance, and I don't think it was lost on anyone how incredibly transformative it felt to see two people of colour embody these iconic roles. In fact, the inclusive representation in the complete line-up was encouraging and we can only hope that we see more of this, inspiring younger and marginalised communities to believe in themselves and what they can achieve.

Keala Settle made her debut as The Nurse from & Juliet opposite David Bedella, and I'm not sure what provoked more of a reaction - their dynamic performance, or UK Twitter absolutely gobsmacked that Settle has, in fact, a British accent...! It was fantastic to see a snippet from The Wiz, which surely should come to the West End, or at least get a national tour? Someone make this happen.

From School of Rock, to The Drifters Girl, to Waitress, to Bat out of Hell, we were treated to a fantastic cross-section of some of the more prominent commercial musicals in the West End and on tour. The VT highlighting regional theatres - particularly Theatre Royal Plymouth - was most welcome and an important reminder to the nation that local theatres exist. It's a huge shame that the John Owen-Jones performance wasn't included in the broadcast - according to Owen-Jones's Twitter post, it was due to a delay with the rights approval.

Beth-Hinton-Lever from the Leicester Curve production of A Chorus Line was also featured on a VT highlighting the skillset of the physically disabled performer community, ending on the inspiring note "All I had to do was be myself...and maybe change will come". The work of Ramps on the Moon was also emphasised, as we got a peek into how its work focuses on normalising the presence of deaf and disabled people on and off stage. Ensuring visibility of the sign language interpreters throughout the broadcast was a reminder of how talented they are: actors themselves in their own right.

If the goal of this show was to emphasise the important of theatre and drive audiences back to the auditoriums, I'm hopeful that it did its job. Halfway through the show, I remembered that I'd been intending to book to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks at the Liverpool Empire so I logged onto the website and, to my happy surprise, I was propelled into a queue on the ATG website of over 500 people. (And yes, I got my ticket!)

It's no surprise that the choice was made to focus on musicals rather than the entire theatrical ecosystem. Musicals do, after all, tend to be the gateway drug into other forms of theatre. And in the words of Keala Settle, "When you can't find the words, there's is a song that can that say it better than any word or monologue or dialogue could ever convey."

Watching the AO Arena audience beam their way through the show with laughter, tears and dancing, it's so heartening to see the effect that live performances have, and undoubtedly brought joy into the homes of millions - some of whom can't access theatre at all.
Theatre might still be on its knees, but we, the audience, are the ones that should be kneeling - bowing down in appreciation for the beauty and humanity it creates every single day across the UK and beyond.

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