“That’s great carpet”, a friend and colleague said to me tonight as we sat in a near empty bar in the city.

We had just been to see the opening night of “Wicked” at the nearby Capitol Theatre, and, since it was only 10pm, weren’t quite ready to head off home yet.

“Wicked” by the way was excellent.

Although I’ve been familiar with the soundtrack for some time, and knew vaguely that it was a “prequel” to “The Wizard Of Oz”. I didn’t really know what to expect.

I knew “Popular” and “Flying High” as great songs.

What I didn’t know was how funny the script was, with lots of great one-liners throughout.

“It’s got a 1950s musical theme, but with quite contemporary dialogue”, I noted as we sat and had a drink afterwards.

As well as a great story, great songs, and great dialogue, it’s also incredibly theatrical. The end of the first half, in particular is spectacular.

Although a couple of the performances are “okay” – Bert and MIllsy – the singers and actors who play the lead roles, in particular, are bloody excellent.

It was also great to see Lucy Durack in the role of the Good Witch, as I have watched her career develop over the last few years since the first time I saw her perform in cabaret at Bar Me.

To put it simply, it was one of the best musical theatre experiences I’ve had. Bloody terrific.

After the show we wandered along George Street looking for a bar to have a drink in. Unfortunately everything seemed a little busy and a little “young”, so we headed off towards the Civic, normally a pretty good venue.

As we walked towards the bar’s entrance, we noticed there was a cover charge. Boring. So we headed into another entrance.

Somehow, entering through the pokie room, and while the girl on the counter was looking at herself in the mirror, we sneaked in without paying the cover charge.

As we sat and chatted about the musical experience we had enjoyed, we soon noted the entrance of a large number of police into the bar (with sniffer dogs).

“Oh my goodness, I hope I haven’t touched anything I shouldn’t”, I said to my friend, hoping the interest of the sniffer dogs would not be alerted. “You never know when you put your clothes in for dry-cleaning”, I thought to myself.

“Can you imagine the headlines?”, my friend/colleague said to me, if we had to explain we had been arrested? :)

The night was, clearly, far too cool for us, as we stood outside for a while, as my friend smoked, and I drank, as we watched the young things come into the bar.

And from there we headed off to the Crown Hotel which, I told my friend, was where I go every Tuesday night ahead of Swedish class.

Co-incidentally, there was a group of Finnish people at the table next to us.

We got chatting with one of the guys in particular, who was impressed that I had photographs from my trip to Finland on my mobile phone. Unfortunately, our versions of speaking Swedish didn’t really match up though.

Meanwhile, there was a bucks night in the pub, with some very loud young men participating in the karaoke, including the would-be groom who thought it was okay to drop his pants to the floor while singing.

The Finns were involved in the karaoke too. I shouldn’t generalise on the basis of just three singers, but they weren’t particularly tuneful singers.

“Karaoke is part of our culture” the young bloke told us. My colleague and I looked at each other, noting that we thought it was actually Japanese.

“Goodness knows what they must think of us”, my friend commented at the drunken and loud behaviour of the bucks night.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine…”, I told her… as the young man told us Finns drink too much and have a high suicide rate.

It was a great night. Lots of fun.