As someone who spent much of her youth either on a stage, backstage or sitting in a theatre, it seems perfectly logical to me that there are certain songs that still have the power to transport me through time with the efficiency of a TARDIS. Within a few notes, I’m somewhere completely different.

Some songs take me back to long summer evenings on Whitstable beach, listening to Rubber Biscuit play their Blues Brothers and Commitments set as the sun disappeared into the sea beside the Old Neptune. Others remind me of people I miss. I don’t think I’ll ever hear “Dead Ringer for Love” without smiling and thinking of my Aunty Brenda and our wonderfully… enthusiastic 🤣 karaoke performances.

Music has an extraordinary ability to preserve moments in a way photographs never quite can. It somehow captures not just what happened, but how it felt and who was there. For me, nowhere is that more powerful than musical theatre.

Perhaps it’s because so many of my happiest times were near a stage that I feel so attached. But, for me certainly, a musical isn’t simply entertainment. It’s an invitation to step into someone else’s story for a little while—and, quite often, to rediscover something of your own.

For a couple of hours, we all agree to suspend belief. We leave ordinary life at the auditorium door. Bills, worries, deadlines and bad news all wait patiently outside; and then the overture begins. There is something almost sacred about that moment when the orchestra plays its first notes. I feel it physically. My shoulders drop. I breathe more deeply. The world becomes a little quieter.

On Friday night, I saw Miss Saigon. The actress playing Kim had one of those voices that stops you in your tracks. Beautiful. Effortless. Heartbreaking. As she sang, my own “movie in my mind” began to play…

The soundtrack wasn’t just on the stage.

It was in my memories.

Faces appeared. Friends I’ve laughed with. People I’ve loved. People I’ve lost. Different chapters of my life, all somehow stitched together by music. More than one person now lives permanently inside that score for me, and I suspect they always will.

On the drive home, my friend and I did what theatre people inevitably do—we started reminiscing. One musical led to another. Every title came with its own memories, its own emotions, its own cast of characters. We laughed as we discovered a mutual love of Godspell (which, let’s be honest, is a fairly niche thing to get excited about!). It struck me that we weren’t really talking about musicals at all. We were talking about the people we’ve been, the people we’ve loved, and the journeys that have brought us to where we are today.

One of my favourite songs from Godspell is All Good Gifts and perhaps that’s why the evening felt like a gift.

The Bible often tells us to remember—not because we’re supposed to live in the past, but because looking back helps us to recognise God’s faithfulness.

“I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.” — Psalm 77:11

When I was younger, I didn’t always recognise where God was in my story. Looking back now, I see He was there all along—in friendships, in music, in laughter, in grief, in standing nervously in the wings waiting to go on stage, and in quiet car journeys home after a wonderful evening.

I think every good gift—including music, memories, friendship and the people who walk beside us—is one more way that God gently whispers,

“I was with you there too.”

-Laura