By Kathryn Courtney-O'Neill

The show opens to a musical medley of ABBA tunes revealing on stage a lone figure of daughter Sophie Sheridan played with warmth and enthusiasm by Haley Flaherty who is in the process of sealing wedding invites and sending them to three ex-boyfriends of her mothers. Having found her diary Sophie learns that one of them just maybe her father and the only way to find out is to invite them to her wedding without her mum knowing! Of course all three men accept the invitations and arrive on the island much to the shock and surprise of mother Donna Sheridan who is played superbly by Carolanne Weidle. Her ability to switch between a strong independent woman to someone who has buried her vulnerability only for it to reappear in a chain of events that she has no real control over is pure genius.

The only difference with the London production and the Bristol production is the stage flooring. In London it lights up, whether it be a disco, sand or sea. And a 'wooden' walkway rises up out the floor in the last scene. But that makes no difference to the overall production of the show. The storyline intricately woven with ABBA songs - 22 of them in fact! - and is the must see show for the season. It will have you crying with laughter and standing to your feet in appreciation. You will end up clapping and dancing along to the finale that you just can't help yourself. And finally you'll leave that theatre on a high, although dancing down the street may get you the odd stare or two. But I defy anyone to say .... it was ok.

• There are currently more productions of "Mamma Mia!" playing around the world than any other musical.

• A total of 8 global productions (6 resident productions and 2 tours) are generating over $8 million a week in ticket sales.

• "Mamma Mia!" has been seen by over 30 million people worldwide.

• Over 17,000 people see the show around the world every night.

• "Mamma Mia! has already grossed over $2 billion at the box office.

• "Mamma Mia!" has premiered in more cities worldwide faster than any other musical in history, opening in more than 170 major cities since the first production in London eight years ago.

• "Mamma Mia!" has so far played in 172 cities worldwide

• Current productions of the show include London UK, Broadway USA, Las Vegas USA, Moscow Russia, Essen Germany, Berlin Germany, Barcelona Spain, North American Tour, and International Tour.

• "Mamma Mia!" has also had productions in Toronto Canada, Australia and Asia, Tokyo Japan, Utrecht The Netherlands, Seoul Korea, Daegu Korea, Madrid Spain, Osaka Japan, Stockholm Sweden, Antwerp Belgium, Seongnam Korea, Gothenburg Sweden, Hamburg Germany, Stuttgart Germany, Fukuoka Japan and USA National Tour.

• The London production is now in it's ninth year having celebrated it's 8th birthday on 6th April 2007

• On 3rd June 2004 "Mamma Mia! transferred from the Prince Edward Theatre to the Prince Of Wales Theatre following a £7 million restoration to continue it's record breaking run.

• "Mamma Mia!" had the highest ever weekly gross taken in the history of the prince Of Wales Theatre for the week ending 16th April 2006 and also the highest ever performance take at the theatre, at the evening performance on Friday 5th May 2006 (which has subsequently been repeated at three further performances)

• On 18th August 2007 "Mamma Mia!" became the longest ever running show at the Prince Of Wales Theatre and celebrated it's 3,500th performance in London on 23rd August 2007.

• Since it's premiere, "Mamma Mia!" has grossed over £155 million in the UK box office and has been seen by over 4.5 million people in London.

• On Broadway,USA Mamma Mia! is now in it's sixth year having celebrated it's 5th birthday on 18th October 2006.

• The production opened to an advance sale of over $27 million and has to date grossed over $328 million.

• "Mamma Mia!" set a new house record at Broadway's Cadillac Winter Garden Theatre (home to CATS for 18 years) within a week of opening and has continued to break it's own record during Christmas/New Year week 2006/2007 with a gross of $1.478 million.

• Since opening, the show has been one of Broadway's top five highest grossing shows, routinely taking over $1 million a week at the Box Office.

• Las Vegas, USA, "Mamma Mia!" opened in the 'entertainment capital of the world' on 13th February 2003 and set a new house record within a week of opening at the Mandalay Bay Theatre.

• The production is routinely grossing over $700,000 a week.

• With over 1,810 performances played to date "Mamma Mia!" has already been seen by 1,970,000 people in Las Vegas.

• The Russian Language production of "Mamma Mia!" opened on 14th October 2006 at the MDM Theatre in Moscow.

• It marks the first time that ABBA songs have been sung in Russian.

• Over 350,000 tickets have already been sold breaking box office records.

• Over 40,000 people attend "Mamma Mia!" in Moscow every month.

• "Mamma Mia!" is the city's best selling musical ever and the first ever show to play seven shows a week and extend into a second year. It's first birthday party was recently celebrated at the theatre with major Russian celebrities in attendance.

• The Swedish Language production originally opened Saturday 12th February 2005 at the Cirkus Theatre in Stockholm and played it's last performance on 7th January 2007. Over 847,000 tickets were sold and the production had been selling out since it's opening.

• It went on to open at Scandinavium in Gothenburg on 9th May 2007 where it played a limited sold out season until 17th June 2007.

• The Japanese Language production originally opened at the Dentsu Shiki Theatre 'Umi' in Tokyo on 1st December 2002 and played to 100% capacity at every performance. The Tokyo engagement finished on 28th November 2004 with over 810,000 people having seen the show.

• In Australia and Asia "Mamma Mia!" had it's Australian premieres on 9th June 2001 During the following 4 years the production played to over 2.2 million people in 8 cities across 4 countries. Record breaking seasons were enjoyed in the Australian cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. "Mamma Mia!" then played to sell out crowds in Auckland, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. It also enjoyed return seasons in Brisbane and it's home city of Melbourne and closed after 1527 performances as the show celebrated it's 4th Anniversary

• The Canadian production of "Mamma Mia!" opened in Toronto on 23rd May 2000, just over a year after the London premiere and it was "Mamma Mia!" first international opening. Originally booked for a 26 week limited engagement, the Toronto production ran longer than the local productions of "The Lion King", "The Producers" and "Hairspray" and was the longest show in the 96 year history of the Royal Alexandra Theatre. After a five year run, the production grossed over $170 million Canadian dollars at the box office and was seen by more than 3 million people.

• International Tour. The hugely successful English Language International Tour premiered in Dublin in September 2004 and has now been seen by over 2 million people. In it's first year the tour visited Dublin, Edinburgh, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Tallinn, Lisbon, Brussels and Paris.

• The second  year opened in Cologne on 1st September 2005 and toured Germany (Oberhausen, Munich, Erfurt, Leipzig, Frankfurt and Berlin), Austria (Vienna), and Switzerland (Zurich), where it became "Mamma Mia!'s" highest weekly grossing show, taking  US $ 2.3 million.

• The tour played to a 95% capacity during it's four week season at the Odyssey Arena, Belfast and sold over 160,000 tickets for it's return visit to the Edinburgh Playhouse, before rounding off the year with a return visit to South Africa (Cape Town and Pretoria)

• The third year commenced with a season at the Manchester Palace Theatre on 7th November 2006 where it sold over 98% capacity. The tour is visiting 14 countries over 47 weeks, including return visits of six weeks to Dublin, Ireland and two weeks to Zurich, Switzerland. Other territories on the tour include: Doha, Dubai, Copenhagen, Riga, Helsinki, Tel Aviv, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Bratislava, Prague and Budapest.

• The first venue of the fourth year of touring is the Bristol Hippodrome which launched their season, selling over £1 million worth of tickets in the first fortnight. Other cities currently launched for the fourth year include Glasgow (with the support of Glasgow City Council), Athens, Horsens (Denmark) and a return visit to the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.