Oh my! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun. It only seems two minutes since I was updating this site with news of Sophia being cast as Sophie Sheridan in Mamma Mia and now here I was in London to see her farewell appearances in the role. I can't believe twelve months could go so fast!

The matinee

The afternoon show was just a scream from start to finish. So many things happening to make the show different and with loads of jokes amongst the cast it was always going to be a fantastic afternoon. If you're familiar with the show and this cast then I'm sure you'll appreciate:-

Nikki Davis-Jones and Hayley Doyle playing Lisa and Ali in the style of Lara Mulcahy's and Kim Ismay's Rosie and Tanya, complete with accents and mannerisms, and (from the end seat of Row D) spotting Lucy Harris, Lara and others in the wings, cracking up watching them on stage.

The set revolving before Does Your Mother Know to reveal Kim receiving a massage from one of the scantily clad male ensemble members, and in the same scene, Lara returning from the fishing trip wearing a big luminous lifejacket.

And, was it my imagination, but were the girls getting more intimate than usual with the three dads during Gimme Gimme Gimme?

Yes, there were more and I'm sure loads that my untrained eye didn't spot, but the show, with a lively audience was excellent. I'm sure Viv Parry was actually crying during Slipping Through My Fingers with Sophia and The Winner Takes It All and the whole cast was really up for it and having a fantastic time on stage.

The audience loved it and everybody in the place was on their feet and dancing by the end of the first song of the finale.

I hot-footed it round to the stage door after the matinee and managed to grab a quick word with Sophia and after twelve months of Mamma Mia she is looking forward to a break (not too long a break hopefully, Sophia).

Sophia's final show

The evening of Saturday 4th March - Sophia's final performance in Mamma Mia along with most of the other cast members and.....WHAT A SHOW!!

The whole cast was in absolutely fantastic form and the best audience I've been lucky enough to be part of at Mamma Mia (surely loads of fans of the show and the cast in the Prince of Wales tonight!) responded enthusiastically at every moment. The perfect show with just so much emotion running right the way through the evening with everybody giving 110% in their performance.

Everyone in the auditorium was on their feet on the very last note of I Have A Dream and danced all the way through the finale from the very first note of Mamma Mia. The party feel of the show was added to by the trillion pieces of glitter floating down from the ceiling at the end of Waterloo. The applause surely would have lasted all night had Simon Slater not hushed the audience to give an emotional speech recognising the cast members that were leaving especially the ones for whom Mamma Mia has been such a part of their life, such as Andy Couchman who was leaving after seven years. Simon also thanked just about everybody else who makes the show so great, from the producers to the lighting guys. The emotions and tears were running freely from Sophia and the rest of the cast and quite a few people in the audience. Even some webmasters had to fight back tears. The final curtain call before the cast headed off to their party and we all headed of home, stopping only to grab a handfull of glitter from the floor as a souvenir of a brilliant night and memories of a brilliant cast.

Thank you Sophia and the whole cast for some great performances over the past year and so many memories of all my ten visits to the Prince of Wales Theatre (thank heavens for Mastercard!).

Iain's notes

My own personal favourite memories (the webmasters self-indulgent bit) include the understudy Bill accidentally throwing his jacket into the audience during Take A Chance On Me and watching Lara quickly having to recover her composure to stop herself bursting out laughing, the stage door "ambushes" with Jazz from the Lucy Harris website (cut down on the caffeine, girl), the night I found myself sitting near David and Victoria Beckham, and buying a ticket from a tout for a sold out Friday night show and finding myself sat in the middle of an all male group of too friendly, moustached Germans with a worryingly encylopedic knowledge of Abba lyrics.

And finally, a bit of Mamma Mia fun. Jazz's, mine and Michaela's "You know you're obsessed with Mamma Mia when.."