Simply the best

I relived my high school days last night, bopping to Nutbush City Limits at TINA – The Tina Turner Musical after scoring a pair of free tickets.

I took my sister and we enjoyed a pre-show drink at a secret bar.

It’s called Door Knock and you need to be a detective to find it. There’s a nondescript doorway on Pitt Street, then you wander down a dark corridor filled with flickering candles.

At the end of the corridor there’s another nondescript door and you have to knock three times to be let in. Then you discover the bar is actually not so secret because it is heaving with people and the bartender even asks if you have a booking.

Er, no, call us old fashioned but we thought bars were places where you just wandered in and grabbed a seat.

It was very cool though, so we ordered a cocktail each, snacked on Mac n cheese croquettes and had a lovely time.

Then we wandered up to the Theatre Royal for a pre-show glass of bubbles.

That’s when my phone started madly buzzing and the youngest announced she’d locked herself out of the apartment, 25 minutes before curtains up for Tina.

I told her to grab an Uber and hot foot it into town. I walked out onto King Street, handed her my keys and raced back to my seat.

At interval I checked my phone and got a message to say she’d found her keys in the front door, which makes no sense to me. This is how the text exchange went …

I still don’t get it.

As for the production, it’s come to Sydney direct from Broadway and is a “celebration of an unstoppable woman who became the Queen of Rock n’ Roll”.

With 37 award nominations including BEST NEW MUSICAL (Olivier Awards) and BEST MUSICAL (Tony Awards) the musical is having previews ahead of its opening night next week.

The show is filled with iconic songs including “Simply The Best”, “What’s Love Got To Do With It”, and “Proud Mary”.

I felt like I was at a Tina Turner concert at the end, when the full band took to the stage and started belting out tunes. The star Ruva Ngwenya is incredible. She has the most remarkable voice and boy can she move.

The audience kept breaking into song with her during the show, they were so invested in her journey.

The “encore” at the end gave me flashbacks to high school when the cast launched into Nutbush City Limits. Did you know Australia is the only country in the world that does the Nutbush City Limits dance and for some bizarre reasons teaches it to kids as part of the unofficial curriculum.

No one quite knows why Aussies invented and champion the dance. We even held the world’s largest ‘Nutbush’ dance session at the Birdsville Big Red Bash last year.

4,084 revellers bopped on the red dirt of the music festival, setting a new world record for the largest Nutbush City Limits dance. The previous record – an impressive 2,878 – was set at the same festival back in 2021.

My only complaint about Tina the Musical is that it finished at 10.30pm, which is way too late for a school night. I was so tired as I wobbled down to the bus stop to head home.

The youngest had to stay up to let me in, poor her. Well, maybe don’t pity her, since she was the doofus who left her keys in the front door and didn’t notice.

Have a great weekend and I will catch you next week.

Song of the day: Nutbush City Limits