What Sophie Said

I didn’t intend to take such a long break from posting here, or any break at all, really. I’ve been writing but not publishing. Writing as a way to try and process thoughts I don’t understand myself yet. There’s been a lot going on over the last few months. I’ve written on here about my journey with anxiety over a number of years, and about the fact that in June this year I completely crashed with my anxiety and depression. There’s been a lot of rebuilding going on. A lot of pulling thoughts apart to their very roots and learning how to change them so they’re no longer damaging. Finally, I acknowledged that I needed to face everything properly, rather than continuing to wear a mask and pretending I was ok. It’s been going well. I found a counsellor who understands me. He knows what I’m describing before I finish describing it. He doesn’t let me get away with taking the easy route, and he challenges beliefs I’ve been leaning on for years. About a month ago, I realised t...

I’m going to start by laying my cards on the table: I was not a huge fan of The Bodyguard the musical.  What I did like and enjoy was a tribute to Whitney Houston featuring one of my very favourite voices, Beverley Knight. I know people absolutely love this musical and I desperately wanted to feel the same way but I just didn’t. I came away happy because I saw Beverley Knight and Rachel John perform stunning renditions of classic songs. That was the part I loved. Beverley Knight (Rachel Marron) is a firm favourite of mine, a position confirmed further when I saw her in Memphis  last year. In Memphis her character, her songs and the rest of the cast were all fantastic. In this, she is one of only a couple of standouts, and the beauty of her role is not so much in the acting as it is in the music. She is a star, and she performs the role of a star well. One Moment in Time had me in tears, and I Will Always Love You was breath-taking. Rachel John (who, in fact, w...

Yesterday marked exactly a year since I moved to London. I didn’t think it would ever be a move I would make, but it has led to one of the busiest years of my life and probably the one in which I have changed and learned the most. The move was about breaking out of my comfort zone, and throwing off the comfort blankets I’d surrounded myself with. Without challenging myself, I was never going to overcome a lot of the fears I had built up and learned to live with. The timings suddenly clicked. I was really unhappy in my job, living alone with the flexibility to move, and there was nothing tying me to stay in the same place. When the job hunt began, I was offered a role at a company I’ve admired for years, which sealed the deal and to London I came. It’s been a year of extreme highs and some very real lows, and one year on I can say it’s been one of the biggest learning experiences I’ve had. I’m in a new city, facing ‘fears’ like the tube, living with stranger...

Finding a place to rent can be a bit of a nightmare. Finding a room to rent in London is on another level. It’s definitely stressful and it’s definitely fast-paced, so almost a year after moving I thought I’d try to share some tips. There are places out there. It can be very easy to panic as places move quickly and the process can be overwhelming, but people are always on the move and there are options out there if you keep calm and look properly. Know what you want. Do you want an extension of university life, living with people who are also going to be your friends, or do you want a quiet place you can head home to after work or socialising? Think carefully about the type of environment you want to be in. Visit multiple places. So many places look ok online, but the reality can be a different story. I saw places that looked about triple the size online, I went to a house where the other three occupants smoked and left beer bottles everywhere, I went to one house tha...

As soon as I heard tickets for Tim Minchin’s latest project, Groundhog Day, had been released, I bought my ticket. I’ve not actually seen the classic film, so my thoughts are based on the musical as a standalone, having known nothing about the story. I have really mixed feelings about the show, which overall are very positive but with a few question marks left over. I’m going to start with the less positive thoughts and move through to the highlights. Firstly, it really was ‘a show of two halves’. Act One was fantastic: slick, laugh-out-loud funny, great staging and we spent the interval talking about how brilliantly the show had been done. Act Two retained the feeling of the show but felt incomplete. I think for me this was partly because I just wasn’t the biggest fan of the story. I like the concept but the context is a little odd and I found it very hard to identify with many characters. Even the main character I really enjoyed watching and thought it was played brilliantly...

A couple of weeks ago, I took my first trip to Brighton for my birthday weekend. It's a place people go on and on about and so many love, so I was really looking forward to it. After to everything I've been going through recently it was the perfect escape from London and opportunity to slow the pace and take time to relax. We arrived Saturday morning and had a cooked breakfast looking over the beach, followed by a stroll along the pier. Sitting and chatting on the pier was the perfect place to be able to mull over my thoughts and clear out some of the things that have been contributing to my state of mind over the last couple of months. I loved The Lanes, although they weren't what I expected at all. They're such a maze of cute little shops and great to wander. I've got to say, I loved the way such a huge proportion of the shops in Brighton are independent. All the usual chains were there, but the overall feel was a very independent one with so many inte...

I think I enjoyed my second visit to Matilda the Musical even more than my first a few years ago. I was worried that because I loved it so much first time round I’d have built it up too much, but it was every bit as brilliant as I remembered. I also saw it from a completely different perspective this time, sitting on the third row, rather than up at the top back of the theatre. I often describe Tim Minchin as a Roald Dahl for grown-ups, and I think his input is part of what makes the show so fantastic. It feels so authentically ‘Roald Dahl’, yet adds even more layers. The musical is all about Matilda’s love of stories and storytelling and I think this is what makes it so magical. The wordplay is very clever, and the lyrics fantastic. Just listen to ‘The School Song’, preferably watching clips to see the staging, and you’ll see just how clever every moment of the show is. What I love most about the musical is the added depth, and the story of the escapologist’s d...