Watching Dear Evan Hansen on West End in London

You may have seen on my Twitter but I went to watch one of my favourite musicals, Dear Evan Hansen for the first time on the 18th December. I’ve been a fan of the soundtrack for so long and I read the book. Straight away, I fell in love with the storyline!

As a Christmas present, my mum paid for 2 tickets so my sister and I could watch it in London. She also paid for first class tickets on the train, which was another experience in itself!

We caught the train at 20 to 10 and first class was completely different to any other part of the train. It was very spaced out and everyone had a table with a cracker, a mug and a small packet of cookies. The only negative was the seating arrangement. My sister had seat numbers that were supposed to be next to each other. For some reason, they weren’t? It was the same for everyone though.

Breakfast was offered on the train also and I chose a warm maple and pecan pastry which was so good! I accompanied mine with a coffee. My preferred coffee is sweet, I added 3 sugars but it still wasn’t enough! The man opposite me was staring though so I fought against the urge to add another!

Overall, the journey was comfortable and didn’t take too long. It was good to get off the train despite it being comfy. Immediately my sister and I went to buy chocolate, sweets and drinks for the show. We then caught a taxi to the theatre which looked amazing since it was decorated for Dear Evan Hansen.

Unfortunately, we were there quite early so we had to kill some time. We mainly just looked around some shops and soon enough it was time to go back!

The first thing we did when we got into the theatre was to buy merch. My main goal going was to buy the white t-shirt. It was £25 which I think is great considering it was sold by the theatre. Of course, I couldn’t pass up a programme so I purchased one for £4.50. Again, I thought this was a very good price.

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, we were let in! We were in the royal circle and the view was incredible! We discovered we were also there for David Breed’s debut performance. At first we were a little disheartened as we had wanted to see Sam Tutty. As soon as David started singing though, we were absolutely ecstatic. He was amazing!

I’ll not go into too many details of the play as they generally don’t give a lot away on the website. What I will say is that it’s a very emotional storyline. Hearing the songs live gave me goosebumps and the story was so interesting! There was no way that you’d get distracted whilst watching this play.

During the interval, the couple sat beside us were complaining that the Evan wasn’t the one that they wanted to see. I thought this was extremely rude, especially as David was amazing at the role! I didn’t say anything to them but I was not happy hearing it at all!

After West End shows, you can go to the stage doors and meet some of the cast. As soon as we finished the applause, my sister and I ran to the stage door. My sister was so excited that she almost threw up! We met 3 of the cast members; Jack Loxton who plays Jared, Doug Colling who plays Connor and David Breeds who played Evan. They were all extremely lovely. We had our programmes signed and had photos with each of us. My sister and I refer to them as “The sincerely me crew”. This is simply due to the song that only the 3 of them are in.

The best moment though was watching David see his parents after the show. They were so proud and all 3 of them were crying! It was one of the loveliest moments to have witnessed!

We wanted to meet more yet unfortunately, we had to leave as we still had to get food before the train. Although we left a little earlier than we would have liked, we were still ecstatic with the signatures we did get. No taxis were available and we weren’t familiar with local companies anyway so we got an Uber back to the station. It was a little increased due to the rush time but it wasn’t bank breaking.

Since we wanted to stay by the station so we didn’t miss our train, we decided on Nando’s. We settled for the share platter and it was great although part of my chicken was pink. The texture looked cooked although I didn’t want to risk it so I left quite a big part of it.

Getting the train home was a bit of a nightmare, as the platform wasn’t displayed until 5 minutes before the train set off. Thankfully the platform was pretty close. We had booked seats for the return journey too. This time, they were next to each other and we had a pleasant journey back.

What have you asked for for Christmas this year?