Review: Musical legends take over Manchester's AO Arena with theatre spectacular

For the third year running, The National Lottery's Big Night of Musicals returned to Manchester's AO Arena with a line up full of musical theatre greats. There were sequins, show-stopping tunes and even a spontaneous appearance by Line of Duty star Daniel Mays who burst into song mid sentence.

Once again, it was hosted by the hilarious Mancunian icon Jason Manford, with performances from Cabaret, Chicago, Mean Girls, Here & Now, Calamity Jane, Bat Out Of Hell, Dear Evan Hansen, Disney's Hercules, Mary Poppins and Titanique.

The show got off to an energetic start with the UK Tour cast of Mary Poppins, led by Stefanie Jones and Jack Chambers, singing musical's famous 'Supercalifragilisticexpilalidocious' complete with an intricate routine which was enough to make me as an audience member feel exhausted just watching it.

The next iconic musical number came from the UK Tour cast of Chicago, who leapt and spun across the stage to the show's overture, before revealing leading lady Djalenga Scott as Velma Kelly, as the crowd cheered to the first few bars of 'All That Jazz'. The ensemble Fosse'ed their way through the iconic routine to the delight of the 12,000 strong audience.

The first standing ovation of the night however, came after a beautiful performance by Vicky McClure's Our Dementia Choir, who sang 'The Impossible Dream' with Michael Ball. Putting aside the big stars and the huge production value numbers that the evening gave us, the choir's performance really did remind us of the importance of music and how it connects us all.

Another celebration of the theatre community came from a fantastic performance by two mega-talented groups of local young people, who sang and danced to 'Electricity' from Billy Elliot.