A couple of things this week have conspired to make me feel my age.

Firstly the eldest daughter came home and announced she is studying the 80’s in history. The 1880’s I asked, no the 1980’s, she dryly replied.

Since when has my childhood become part of history? I am reliably informed that 30+ years is sufficient to make my childhood an historical event and worthy of exploration by the keen young minds of today.

Later in the week we had a family trip out to watch the school musical production of Beauty and the Beast. Again I was transported back to my own memories of half-cocked school productions. Keen players, willing audiences and forgiving scripts could not prevent any production being much more amateur than dramatic.

With this reference structure, and not having been to a school production for 30 years, my expectations were low. I figured that occasionally you had to man up, grin and bear it and smile through whatever gets thrown at you.

Bloody hell! What I experienced was as close to a full on West End production as you can get. Firstly the school orchestra set the tone by playing all the notes (in the right order) with confidence and gusto. There was a wonderful set that transformed you from a village in France, through the Forest and into the Grand Castle. The cast were superbly dressed and delivered their lines with the confidence of professionals.  Every toe tapping song was delivered as any West End theatre director would have demanded. Not a bum note, missed line, or a step out of place all night! Standards had certainly lifted from my day.

Bravo. Bravo indeed!

There was only one slight quirky observation that distracted me a little. Something that the largely Australian audience would not have been aware of, but for any Ancient Brits in the audience it was a little disturbing. The Beast, admittedly this was from a distance, did have a striking resemblance to Bungle out of Rainbow (a kids TV show that I grew up with in the UK).

That’s where the similarities ended, I don’t remember Bungle being able to sing or act quite as well.

For those uninformed you can watch the video below to see what I am on about. I came across this as I was trying to explain myself to the girls. I am not entirely convinced it is the real deal, part of me thinks it has to be one of those fake productions given the subject matter and all the double entendres. Real or not it teaches us all a universal history lesson – what appears to be normal today,  will undoubtedly be the fodder for the good folk of tomorrow to look back on, study and conclude, “what the hell were they thinking?”