Month: May 2020

Lockdown Favourites – Weeks 5-8

Hello again, hope you’re all keeping safe and well. We’ve now had nearly 3 months of lockdown, and this ‘new normal’ still feels surreal. It certainly puts everything in perspective, that a microscopic virus can temporarily shut down the entire planet in a matter of weeks. It’s a stark reminder of how powerful nature can be.

Everyone’s perception of time is rather weird at the moment too, with the weeks seeming to fly by, but that can be explained by science at least. Although, of course, it will be dragging much more slowly for those going through a particularly rough time at the moment, and you have my sympathies if that applies to you.

As I see it, the current small changes to our lockdown, as part of the government’s long term recovery plan, are basically urging people to use their common sense, as the virus is still circulating. We must continue to stay at home and work from home if at all possible, and obey the other safety rules. But provided we do so, we have a little bit more freedom now. So I hope people will continue to be careful and sensible, as we’re nowhere near out of the woods yet, but we’re getting there slowly. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And obviously for disabled people things are more complicated, as Lucy Edwards has discussed with a couple of her fellow blind activists in a recent video.

As for me though, I’m still doing fine. I’ve been staying indoors to keep my elderly mother safe, but recently I went out for the first time in over 5 weeks, as a couple of essential items were missing from our online shopping delivery. So I was very pleased to find that there were hardly any people and very few cars about, and that I was able to use the priority hour for disabled people at the supermarket, which was fully stocked and had social distancing measures very well enforced. So my risk of exposure was hopefully minimal.

But otherwise I’m still staying at home, and I’ve continued to keep myself entertained in various ways. So here’s my latest recap of what I’ve been enjoying and discovering recently, along with videos summarising week 5, week 6, week 7 & week 8. As usual nothing is sponsored or gifted, and all opinions are my own. So I hope you enjoy!

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Kerry Ellis Album Reviews

Kerry Ellis is a renowned musical theatre star, who I first became aware of through her work with Queen guitarist Brian May. She collaborated with him after starring in the We Will Rock You musical (which amazingly I still haven’t seen yet), and since then she has appeared in many major productions, as well as releasing a number of albums, with and without Brian’s involvement.

Most recently she’s been doing live streams on her Instagram, some of which are available on Youtube, as well as launching her own podcast – Keep Calm And Kerry On – where she talks to stars of stage, song and screen about their careers and their experiences of lockdown. So she’s keeping herself busy!

I haven’t had the good fortune to see her live in person yet, but I have been an admirer of her music for some years now, because she has a stunning voice and is very versatile, and I love musicals just like she does. I was therefore very excited to receive a signed copy of her brand new album recently (which, like all her albums, I bought myself – none of this is sponsored or gifted).

But as well as reviewing that, I thought I would also take the opportunity to give my opinions on her previous releases as well, because I have the time to do so right now, and it’s a good excuse (if one were needed) to go through them all again. So this a special post for the Bank Holiday weekend going through all her albums, plus a live concert on Blu-ray, and there’s a contents list below if you want to jump to specific titles. So I hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “Kerry Ellis Album Reviews”