Thus the cast kick off with their best-known cover, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", and have hardly drawn breath before we're treated to a series of solo performances, from a show-stopping "Don't Rain on My Parade" by Lea Michele (the show's uptight diva Rachel) to a moving rendition of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" by the big-voiced Amber Riley (who plays bolshy Mercedes).
There are other big increases in Amber Valley, Cherwell, Harrogate, Wandsworth and Welwyn and Hatfield, all of which were "Ukip-free" in 2010 but now have at least 15 Ukip candidates, as Farage continues his quest to win over disillusioned Tories.
He travels all over the world telling people about the magnetospheres of various planets, and when he comes back he brings me presents — a small bronze box from Africa with an alligator embossed on the top, a big piece of amber from Poland with the wings of flies preserved inside it, and, once, a set of delicate, horrifying bracelets made from the hide of an elephant.
The leaves outside our big glass panes are amber and gold, but the sun is shining through them.
This week, Penguin republishes Forever Amber, a big, fat tombstone of a bestseller that has been out of print for 30 years.
The rooms are a little old-fashioned: there are iron chandeliers and big, high-backed chairs; amber table lamps and white linen; black cables snaking from amplifiers across a small stage.
Today, long after most of us ceased reading her poetry, a small crowd is regularly to be found standing before her image at the National Portrait Gallery (she was painted by Wyndham Lewis and Roger Fry, and photographed by Cecil Beaton), and at the V&A people still stare, dumbfounded, at her rings: aquamarines the size of puddles, hunks of amber as big as a cottage loaves.
Big crowd gathering in — Amber Rockliffe (@AmberRGlobal)March 14 , 2015
For Tesco, the appeal of the deal was the roster of big-name writers that Amber could deliver.
A little piece of onyx, agate or amber no bigger than a baby's toenail, a teensy square of lapis lazuli: the eye races with gratitude to these flashes of color.
