Let me start by saying 12 hours stopovers are not my friend. I was so tired I kept falling asleep at a table, waking up, feeling terrible, repeat. Can’t recommend it at all. Very grateful though that they had showers at the lounge so I didn’t feel like a completely humidified mess before the final leg.
It was nice to get on the plane knowing (or at least hoping) I’d be able to get some proper sleep. I feel sorry for the staff, there was a good degree of “Sir…Sir….Sir! What would you like for supper” because I swear I was asleep 30 seconds after getting in my seat. But it all worked out, I managed to get through dinner without falling asleep in it, but after that, I was pressing that magic “turn my seat into a bed” button and I was pretty much out like a light.
This would have to be the shortest 9 hour flight I’ve ever taken, because apart from one loo top in the middle of the night, the next thing I knew was “Sir… Sir… what would you like for breakfast?”. So I was extremely grateful for the bed, the sleep, and the fact that time passed by so quickly.
Breakfast itself was amazing, a vege poke bowl which was fresh and delicious, not the usual kind of thing I’d have for breakfast but I’m so glad I chose it. Once again Vietnam Airlines have done an excellent job with the food, and with their customer service.
Hanoi Airport (Noi Ban)Delicious breakfastHello Sydney!Flying into Sydney
So, it’s been an amazing 5-and-a-bit weeks, time for a bit of a recap to see what I can remember.
Frankfurt was nice to see, with its beautiful old (though maybe not that old) town square, its main Main river, and enough different types of the freshest bread products to make your head spin.
Amsterdam was a joy to return to, the windmills were amazing and the Keukenhoff gardens dazzling.
Liverpool, Eurovision, completely unforgettable to realise a long-held dream of seeing it live and first-hand. That, and Liverpool proved itself to be a beautiful city with so many kind and friendly locals.
Dublin was as good a place as any to stay in a hotel and recover from Covid, but glad we did get to see the bit along the river Liffey, and the tour up to Northern Island for the Titanic museum.
Birmingham, well, near Birmingham was a lovely spot to stay with our friends there, so good to catch up after a long time.
York is just steeped in history and the beauty of its built environment really is something. The airbnb we stayed in, first built in the 1500s (though I guess it wasn’t an airbnb then) was also a treat.
Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, crammed with solid buildings giving it both an air of history, but also of permanence into the future. The trip out to the highlands showed just how much natural beauty there is to soak up in Scotland, and seeing the big red Forth Railway Bridge was a joy. (I know, weird thing to be joyful about, but whatever)
London, land of west-end shows,of history, of modernity, of tube stations, I’m not sure if it’s ever possible to stay there long enough but I’d like to keep trying til I know for sure.
Overall, we’ve had an amazing time, with the most incredible fortune when it comes to weather, and, Covid-aside, no days where everything just turned to crap or plans were ruined. Couldn’t have gone much better.
We arrived home to a lovely clean house, the German backpackers who were house-sitting have done a great job. And then of course there’s the cat. According to the house-sitters she has finally really bonded with them in the last two weeks, but it’s time to shake that all up again. I wasn’t sure she’d remember us, but the minute she walked in she was very talkative and put up with a lot more pats than she usually would, purring and purring, so phew, we weren’t completely forgotten 🙂
You’ll have to just believe me that she is happy 🙂
As for unpacking — happy to report that everything we’d bought arrived in one piece (some of it slightly squashed but nothing really damaged). Now it’s time to all that mundane post-holiday stuff – check the mail, do a ton of washing, and marvel about what an excellent 40 or so days it has been. I guess that’s about it for the time being, thanks for coming along on the journey with us.
Well, this is it, all the fun and games are almost over, it’s time to start the long journey home.
I half wondered if the (literal) siren song of the hotel alarm system would see us off just one more time, but no it stayed quiet so a proper amount of sleep was had, thank goodness.
The next part was playing the big game of Tetris to fit everything back into the suitcase – we hadn’t really bought anything until London, but knowing that was the last time we’d have the handle the luggage, we did pick up a few things here and there, primarily theatre programmes, about a dozen of them. Thanks to an extra bag each, everything managed to fit. There’s always the question of what souvenirs will arrive in one piece, and what will arrive in pieces.
We checked out of the hotel around 10AM, and left the luggage there while we went out breakfast. This was had at the real-quite-lovely Fait Maison, a shopfront covered in flowers, an interior covered in flowers, table covered in…well you get the idea. It all looks very fancy indeed so we thought for our final London breakfast of the trip, let’s give it a go. I enjoyed a croissant with scrambled egg and “crushed” (not smashed, thank you very much) avocado. Perry opted for “crushed” avocado on sourdough with nuts and honey and cheese. Perhaps it came as no surprise that the food, and even the plates, were as pretty as the remainder of the restaurant.
It then came time for one last very small adventure to kill some time. It was low on my list of things to do because it’s a bit of a non-event to look at. But still, off we traipsed (Circle Line to Bayswater), to 23 Leinster Gardens. Leinster Gardens is a beautiful street of uninterrupted terrace stretching for a fair way. To cut a long story short, 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens look just that little bit odd… no front door handle or letterbox, and the windows are all painted rather than glazed. This is because when the tube lines were first built around here, they needed regular gaps to the surface to let the steam and smoke out, and the line ran directly under 23 and 24 Leinster gardens. So directly behind that fake front door and fake windows, is a big drop down to the tube line below – but the facades remain to ensure the street is keeping up appearances. It must have been great fun for the neighbouring houses getting a great expulsion of smoke and steam and soot at regular intervals. I guess nowadays it’s just the noise they’d have to put up with. So yes, not really much to look at, but at least now I can say I’ve seen it.
Satellite view does a good job of showing the facade and the hole for the tracks below
From there we were about half way between Bayswater and Paddington, we we walked up to Paddington station, and headed back to Gloucester Road station, and on to the hotel. Then it was a matter of getting the bags, getting an Uber, and getting ourselves over to Heathrow Airport. Now, there are plenty of public transport options that can get you to Heathrow, but when they involved handling 3 bags each and flights of stairs, it was more than worth it to spring for the Uber.
At the airport, well there’s not much interesting to talk about for anyone that’s ever been to an airport before. One surprise was the pounds free just top drop off passengers – I am surprised to see an airport that could rort people more than Sydney, does but I’m sure Sydney will beat it soon 🙂 Checked in, went through security, I didn’t get touched by security guards but Perry got the full treatment. But before long we were through there and on to the ‘Blush’ lounge. I can’t complain, we had a comfy seat to relax in for a few hours – the lounge itself is very small and doesn’t have an awful lot in the way of food and drink, but we knew we’d be well fed on the plane so it was fine to just sit and wait for a while before boarding. The plane was a 787 Dreamliner, same type we had from Ho Chi Minh to Frankfurt on the way over. It’s the same deal, same attentive and friendly service, delicious food (which I forgot to take photos of except for breakfast), the cabin is maybe starting to look a little bit tired but it was still more than comfy enough. I kept falling asleep well before takeoff so I guess it must have been comfortable 🙂 Also got a good last look at London on the way out.
Pretty comfy
The first leg of almost 12 hours passed unremarkably. I watched some of Aquaman on the plane’s system (it’s quite silly, but also, eye candy), stretched out for a bit of a sleep which was nice, but trying to stay mindful of the Sydney time zone I’ll soon be finding myself in.
After getting off the plane we worked our way up to the lounge which was to be our home for the next 12 or so hours. Unfortunately, it was 33 degrees outside and felt like 32 inside, and so humid it wasn’t amusing. The lounge was fairly empty so we plonked ourselves in the path of a portable air conditioner. Over time it got cooler, or we got more acclimatised (maybe a bit of both), and my biggest challenge became trying to stay awake, which I failed multiple times, over and over. Our flight kinda coincides with Sydney overnight, so if I hang out til then, get lots of lovely sleep, then we should be all set when we’re back home. There’s a selection of food and drink, fortunately lots of cold drinks, so that has been nice. They even have showers which will be nice to freshen up just before our final leg to Sydney. At the moment there’s about 5 hours left, so we;re getting there slowly but surely.
I’ve had a zombie-brain most of the day so it’s taken me forever to update this blog, but this is probably a logical point to leave it, then one kind of wrap-up once we’re back home. See you then!
To start the day we went back to the amazing Lebanese restaurant Comptoir Libanais. This was more for the amazing food than it was for the 30% discount card they gave us the other day – but the discount didn’t hurt. All the food was amazing once again. I had smoked salmon with scrambled egg, Perry had a (turkey) bacon sandwich and some incredible looking granola.
After that we were straight on to the train (District line to Whitechapel, Overground to Shoreditch High Street) to visit (no surprise here) Shoreditch. Why? Because it has a cat cafe, and cats are the best, and therefore, visiting cats is also the best :). Fun fact (for nerds) – when changing at Whitechapel, the London Overground platforms are under the ground, and if you look up through a gap, you can see the Undergound platforms running above ground. Makes perfect sense…
Shoreditch, or at least the small part we saw of it, seems to walk along a treacherously narrow path between ‘super cool urban aesthetic’ and ‘shithole’. To be fair, I think we reached Shoreditch before it woke up for the day, it must be a pretty different when it’s buzzing with people and all the shops are alive.
We did however see what is probably the best-named coffee shop ever:
It was lovely to see the cats, and like most cat cafes you get the vibe that most of the cats are kind of sick of the humans, but some of them were happy to come over for a pat. One in particular could be awarded for its persistence and dedication in trying to get to the scone that I had while I was there. No swiping, no complaining, just a constant pushing, or jumping from above or below, to get to the table to get to the scone and nothing but nothing could discourage young Zara until she got what she wanted. I ate as quick as I could, and was relieved to hand the empty plate back to one of the staff so I could finally chill and not worry about Zara eating things she really shouldn’t. But by god she tried – and I guess more often than not she probably gets what she wants. It was a lovely experience. Here are, of course, some cat pictures.
We left Shoreditch for the first show of today. I’d read some rave reviews, well, headlines, so it all sounded pretty encouraging. So, time to head over again to Leicester Square, to Wyndham’s Theatre.
It is the unwritten rule of going to the theatre, that the people sitting in the middle of any given row, will always be last to arrive, ensuring everyone has to stand up and let them awkwardly squeeze past. I swear it happens near every time. Today’s matinee of Oklahoma! was no exception. Held at the surprisingly little Wyndham’s theatre. It was a surprise almost immediately upon walking in to see a bright, breezy pine-panelled stage, with bright pine tables and pale pine folding chairs. Not what at what I’d be expecting based on the movie. The most effective piece of scene setting was done by racks of rifles on each side of the stage (120 in total), and also on the fronts of the theatre boxes. So many guns, it leaves no doubt about the country in which this particular show is set.
Thanks Perry for the photo
It started in an interesting way, with the whole cast wandering on stage, and just hanging around until it was their turn to say their lines. The house lights stayed just as bright as the stage, perhaps a way to show us audience folk that we’re a part of the conversation unfolding. The waiting cast member thing felt a bit absurdist if that’s the word, suddenly coming to life when it’s their turn to speak and then turning back into shop dummies in the background until it was their turn again. There was very little if any setting of location, the characters could have been anywhere (well, anywhere in Oklahoma) as we watched their lives unfold.
The music was pared down, to a very small and talented string-based band with about 7 members, sitting directly in front of the audience. The cast were all excellent, including Arthur Darvill ( he was in Dr Who for a few years) as Curley. Great singers, all. And the guy playing Jud was genuinely haunting, giving us an extremely realistic portrayal of a deeply troubled soul.
While the audience mostly stayed bathed in light, at some times, to emphasise points I really couldn’t put my finger on, the audience lights would be off and the stage would turn dark green, or dark orange, but as for why, it was never really clear why it was going on.
Things then very much took a turn for the just-plain-weird when it’s time for our Curley to visit Jud. (They’re both after the same girl. Hello, tragic love story). They grab a microphone each and then without warning the entire theatre is plunged into absolute pitch blackness while they have their conversation. Not so much as a pilot light or an exit sign, you really could not see a single thing. Maybe that’s to make us feel as uncomfortable as their conversation was, or to be a little too literal in portraying the darkness of Jud’s soul, I just don’t know. And then, let’s make it weirder. When they start up the next song,a minimum of light is added and there’s someone with a video camera, with an extreme closeup on Judd’s face which is projected on to the whole back of the stage. It’s a bit too avant-garde for me, I’m not really understanding the point of it. Eventually we get back to our everything-is-lit normality. Sometimes the cast sing freely, other times they grab microphones, because, um, reasons? Again, try as I might, I’m just not quite picking up what they’re putting down, so to speak. Slightly confused, it was then time for intermission. And ice-cream. Yay!
Act Two started with what can I say, something that that took Weird in from the cold, fed it, cared for it, encouraged it to grow and educated it until it graduated from the University of Batshit Crazy. An extended, waaaaaay over-extended dream sequence from a dancer who is extremely athletic, extremely capable, no doubt an incredible dancer… however this was just way too much for way too long . The whole theatre (not just the completely bare stage) filled with smoke as she pranced around in circles like a pony for a minute, slapping herself as she went , followed by many, many more minutes of silliness/modern dance (see caveat below), accompanied by a super loud distorted guitar soundtrack. (The band hadn’t come back from intermission. Can you blame them). To me, it was more of a “teens trying to be edgy teens” move than a super-modern dream sequence. It just kept going on. And on. And on. Who knows, perhaps it was an homage to all the unrelated ballet dance breaks that seeemd to turn up in a lot of 1950s musicals (Singin’ in the Rain, I’m looking at you)…but if that’s what it was, even on that level it didn’t work for me.
Then, as the dancing continued, a cowboy boot dropped from the ceiling, thudding violently on to the stage. And another, and another, and another. I wish they’d dropped a little bit of context for us instead. Maybe it was quite literally ‘waiting for the other shoe to drop’ but there were way too many shoes and it just ended up looking silly, even if it was trying to infer that the decision our girl has to make is not an easy one. I guess, I’m one of those unsophisticated theatre goers who wouldn’t understand culture if I was hit over the head with it (or perhaps with a falling boot), but for me, this marked the point where the magic spell of the theatre was broken, the trust was gone, and from that point on I just wanted the show to reach whatever wretched conclusion it was going to put us through, as soon as possible, so I didn’t have to watch any more of it.
Later, there was another full-blackout sequence, maybe this is to again prove the darkness of Jud’s soul or his dark thoughts or to make us as uncomfortable as the other character was feeling…but it smelt more like a lack of imagination, an overused trick. By the end (spoiler alert) our two main characters, just married, find themselves and their lovey white wedding clothes covered in blood and looking horrified while everyone else sings the really-quite-jolly Oklahoma theme turne around them, pretty much dancing around a corpse. Yes, as an audience we were even robbed of being allowed the enjoy the final song, but I’d already mentally checked out of the theatre so to speak, so I guess I wasn’t surprised that this bit would be all ‘oooh, so edgy’ and different, too. Or as my initial rough notes said “All that and a shit ending, we weren’t even allowed to enjoy the song”.
If you take the word Oklahoma, rearrange the letters, take some away and add some more, you get “OK so what on earth was it trying to do ?” And for this one, I don’t really have a good answer. It’s a NOklahoma from me.
I have to add a few caveats to all of the above – I’m an old white guy who doesn’t understand modern dance, I’ve got to be aware of my own unconscious biases, and I have to reiterate that the performers themselves were brilliant. I just can’t help but think the way it was realised as a whole was less than the sum of its parts. It’s just my opinion, and maybe I’m wrong.
Ok, let’s move on. We moved back to the hotel to pick up jackets we hadn’t needed thanks to the lovely warm London weather (not a phrase you hear everyday, but something we were incredibly fortunate to experience, every single day we were here). Then we popped back on the Piccadilly Line to Holborn, on the way to our final show of this incredible holiday : Mrs Doubtfire.
We grabbed a quick dinner at The Doner Guy and I have to say, best kebabs in London – at least out of the ones that we’ve had. Delicious. Highly recommended. Quick friendly service, all in all, a great feed.
Off to the theatre, sit down, wait for the people in the middle of the rows arriving at the last minute, all the usual stuff, and the show began. The beginning was really smart, playing into an extension of the standard “please switch off your mobile phone” announcements that most patrons never seem to heed. It was our protagonist making the announcement, showing his versatility, trying different voices, leading to him getting sacked thus setting the scene for our show.
Thank goodness, this was not Mrs Bin Fire, it turned out to be a good (if not ‘Ooh, so edgy!’) show. A show like this completely hinges upon the ability of its star to carry the story, and Gabriel Vick delivered in spades, perfectly playing the loving-yep-imperfect Dad. When you think about it, setting up a sophisticated ruse and lying to your wife just you can subvert the law and gain access to your children when a court has ruled otherwise – that’s really quite a problematic situation. But, it leads to comedy, so all is forgiven right?
It was going so well, then 20 minutes in there were a few almighty bangs and crashes from the side of the stage, a scene ended a bit strangely with an awkward silence. The the stage manager popped up on the side of the stage. “I’m sorry, we’ve experienced a small problem and will need to pause the show for a few minutes. Thank you”. I guess that’s the peril of live theatre, at any minute everything can come unstuck. I’m dying to know what it was, but with no inside knowledge I guess it’ll remain a mystery. But as soon as the next scene started, a big piece of scenery rolled on, so I guess either it fell off its sled or something else got in the way and it couldn’t move where it needed to. Or one of a thousand other things that probably happen in the theatre, what would I know, I’m just the audience – but part of a very grateful audience once the show continued, problem free, from that point onward.
The highlight was the ‘make me a woman’ scene that can be seen on YouTube, it was cleverly and funnily done. The rest of the show maybe never quite reached that height, but the performances were great, the child actors could hold a tune, and despite the expected sugar-coated happy ending, it didn’t lapse completely into an over-sweetened confection. Well, maybe a tiny bit. But it’s the kind of show where you had a fair idea of what you in for, and it delivered in spades.
I guess it was a fitting end, for our final show on this trip. We walked out of our final theatre show, caught our final Piccadilly Tube train out of Covent Garden, and headed back for the last night in our London hotel. Time to start thinking about the unstoppable encroachment of reality back into our lives. But that can wait for tomorrow.
I know I say “no rest for the wicked” a lot, but, no rest for the wicked! Up at 8 for an early-ish appointment this morning.
Our destination? Battersea Power Station. The amusing (to me) thing is, when it comes to public transport, you get to Battersea Power Station by taking a train to Battersea Power Station Station. Yep for reals!
Even if you don’t know the building well, you’ve probably seen it before. For a time it provided about one fifth of all of London’s power during its peak years, featured in a Pink Floyd album cover, one or more James Bond movies and goodness knows how many TV shows. Closed in 1983, there were proposals for what to do with the site floating around for the best part of forty years, as the place itself slowly but surely started falling apart. No doubt tons of developers were just waiting for it to fall down so they could build tons and tons of flats. (That’s not just a Sydney thing, right?)
Eventually, a plan was reached that enough people agreed with and we have the very-refurbished Battersea Power Station (plus the new Battersea Power Station Station), now designed to generate a prodigious amount of cash, rather than power.
We were there to visit Lift 109 – a Lift (uh-huh) that travels to 109 metres (oh now I get it) above ground for a look at London from one of the big smokestacks. It was inevitably a bit tourist-trappy, silly tourist green-screen photo included (of course we went for it, we’re tourists after all!). There was a bunch of stuff to stand and watch before taking a small lift, so we could climb a set of stairs to, uh, get to the big lift. It’s as inexplicable as it sounds. But the proper lift, the big one, is pretty cool. It goes up one of the (reconstructed) smokestacks and then pops out of the top. Perry took a much better video than I did:
Once the lift is 109 metres above ground, it hovers there for around 8 minutes while we all run around frantically taking photos, then it pops back down again and you exit through the gift shop. The view was great – it’s a brief but interesting experience – the lift doesn’t open to the outside so sorry about the reflections from the glass.
Then it was time to exit through the goft shop and get really annoyed at the crappy ‘get your silly tourist photo’ experience from the digital kiosk. If I hadn’t already prepaid when booking I would have given up. As a final insult, when the picture came out of the machine it flung it on to the floor rather than present it in such a way that you might be able to grab it in time. It was super frustrating and really doesn’t put one in a mood for buying anything else in the shop, it was kinda the opposite of the Brian May appearance last night – this time it was the final part of the experience that kinda left a sour taste.
We walked off my acute case of Aggrieved Tourist Syndrome by wandering the halls of this ginormous place, full of luxury shops but empty of customers. The whole place felt a bit dead which was a little surprising. Still, made it easier to get photos that weren’t chock full of people.
A very cool looking bar in the complex, but all the bad reviews put me right off.So the developers did kinda get their way when it comes to tons of flats, these are basically right out the front (or is it back?) door of the power station.
One thing that seemed very appropriate for a (former) electric power station, is Polestar, an electric car company. I have a very good friend who owns one of these cars, so these photos are for you 🙂
After a refreshing drink it was time for the next bit of today’s adventure, visiting the Portobello Road markets. (More nerdy facts – despite the tube existing for 160 years, south-of-the-river is still quite tube-deprived, so it’s a bit of a roundabout journey, taking almost an hour.). But as a bonus (for me at least) we found a surprisingly non-busy corridor, and also we needed to change trains at the hardly-changed-since-1863 platforms at Baker Street.
Gee why do they call it ‘the tube’?Baker Street 1863 – I found this on pinterest
So after the Northern line, Bakerloo line, and Circle line we made it to Ladbroke Grove without getting lost. Also, it’s pronounced Lad-Brooke, not Broke, so that’s a thing to note should you be visiting.
After a bit of a walk through the deserted “Pod-obello Road” (a bunch of demountable little shops that never seem to have found their shopkeepers or their customers), we were at the Portobello Road Market proper.
I don’t know if it has some days that are more ‘on’ than others. But if so, this would have been one of the ‘off’ days. It wasn’t exactly teeming with life, but there were enough stalls and shops to have a bit of look around, and a place seeking cinnamon/caramel pretzels, so Get In Mah Belly with that lot. Also, I know nothing about football but what a cool mural!
This sign was sitting there happily nestled in a hedge/fence on a street corner. I didn’t, but for some reason, despite being a bit grim it’s just brilliant. Love it.
When we ran out of stalls and shops we found a nice pub to have lunch, I had a somewhat dry chicken schnitzel (here’s a question – it tasted very heavily of chicken, like the chickeniest chicken who ever chooked. Does that mean it was close to being off, or just a proper organically raise bird?). Perry had delicious fish and chips.
From there it was a short walk to Notting Hill Gate tube and back to hotel. I took a short detour via Earl’s Court, (a) because I knew what was out the front of the station and (b) because Nerrrrd!
Back at the hotel Perry was snoozing, and I had a chance to do some catching up on writing the blog so I’m not up til 1am again. I’ll need a holiday! 🙂
Soon it was time to head off to Wicked, at the Apollo Victoria theatre. This theatre is awesome – because it’s only 15 minutes away :). We had time to duck in to the trendy (is it still actually trendy though) Shake Shack because we saw they had vanilla custard soft serve. Time to put in my whiny tourist hat because in what world does it take nearly 15 minutes to make two cups of soft serve? Still, gotta laugh, the place was a wonderful exercise in glorious incompetence – all speed and zero haste, and a major bottleneck getting food from the ‘ready’ shelf over to the customer (less than a metre away). Mercifully the frozen custard soft serve itself was absolutely delicious, just glad we had tons of time to spare because at that place, Shake may well have been short for Shakespeare because it certainly was a comedy of errors. In its honour, next time I serve somebody ice cream I will act surprised when they ask for a spoon.
The theatre was nearby, still the same place where we saw Wicked when we were here in 2015. I think Wicked is the only show we;be seen multiple times where it hasn’t really changed at all – still just as good as the first time we saw it together back in Broadway in 2013. It was great to see this time that the cast was much more diverse, and as always the actors playing Glinda and Elphaba had phen-om-en-al voices and played their parts very well. Elphaba was looking downright scary toward the end of it, as witches are wont to do. Defying Gravity is always a highlight, and again it didn’t disappoint. There was one idiot who thought it was OK to be checking their phone for a good 10 minutes in act one, alas they were close enough to be distracting but too far away to hiss at. Happily someone else did me a favour eventually, whatever they said must have been good because the phone didn’t make an appearance in Act 2 at all so we all got to enjoy the show.
Since we were last here they’ve built a tube station entrance to Victoria station almost directly across the road from the theatre, so we were off our seats and back to Gloucester Road in maybe even less than 15 minutes. Brilliant.
Sadly we’re nearly done with London, tomorrow is our last full day. And boy are we going to make it full!
Yay, a proper sleep-in with no fire alarms, got nearly 9 hours of wonderful sleep!
This meant that breakfast was more like brunch, but man did we pick a good brunch spot! “Compton Libanais” – a Lebanese restaurant, serving delicious delicious good. I opted for “The Beiruty” – falafel tzatziki and hummus, oh my! And coffee that rated at least an 8 on the iScott Coffee Scale. When you see Flat White on the menu you can be pretty sure you’re in for a good time.
The only downside to the start of the day was I mustn’t have plugged my phone in properly so it didn’t charge. Only 29%? Quelle horreur! With a bit of judicious phone use and a recharge here and there I’ll survive the most of terrible of First World Problems.
Post-breakfast we wandered past some nice buildings to the south-west end of Kensington Gardens, to see what we could see before out 1:30pm appointment at the Royal Albert Hall. Being a park, there were lots of trees, lots of pathways, one awful racist guy on a bike, and since it had a pond, heaps of ducks and swans and other birds. The pleasant very much outweighed the unpleasant. As we were almost out of the park, things got even better. Squirrels!
We were at the Royal Albert Hall for a tour, it was nice to be back. We learnt a whole bunch of history, most of which I don’t remember but settle back, get comfortable, here’s the (possibly inaccurate) history lesson. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, came from a town in Germany where art museums and education was free, so he wasn’t too pleased when he saw the average person’s lot in life in London. The result of this was what’s now known as “Albertopolis” – the Natural History Museum, the Victoria & ALbert museum, Royal College of Art, ROyal College of Music, and more – all free institutions to allow the average Londoner to educate and better themselves. This was also to include the Royal Albert Hall, which he had cleverly self-funded by holding a huge International Trade Exhibition. Trouble is, he died before it was even started.
Here’s the controversy – Queen Victoria had all the money, and instead of building the Royal Albert Hall, spent the whole lot on building a monument to Prince Albert instead. The same Prince Albert who apparently absolutely hated the thought of being memorialised in statue form – but I guess Queen Victoria didn’t get the memo and there he is, in solid bronze, covered in real gold.
So how did it get built? To cut a long story short, some very important person whose name I can’t’ remember ( I should have been taking notes!) sold seats in the to-be-constructed hall, on a 999 year lease, for a suitably extravagant sum. Who says kickstarter or gofundme were the start of crowdfunding? Of all the seats purchased, 5 percents are still with the families who initially purchased them their name. The rest have been sold off over the years. Should you be interested in buying one now, there is unsurprisingly a considerable waiting list. You have to apply though Harrods who act as the agent for the hall. Last time one of the boxes of 10 seats was sold, in 2018, it changed hands for about 3.5 million pounds. This also entitles you to become a member of the governing body of the hall – you have a right to some free shows, but a responsibility to contribute to the running of the hall as a going concern.
There are also two boxes reserved for Queen Victoria, which of course are now reserved for the use of the King. There was initially a custom entrance made leading up to near the Royal Box, made wide enough for two people to walk side by side with their big Victorian-era skirts, and handrails low enough to be just perfect for Queen Victoria. Due to security concerns the entrance was changed in around the 1950s I think. The Royals now have their own more private staircase entrance. The cool thing was that we got to take a look. There’s also a ‘retirement room’ just across from the Royal box as well. One of the nice things about this room is it has portraits of all the monarchs from Queen Victoria onward. Queen Victoria signed her one around the time the hall was opened in 1871. Then, 100 years later, down to the minute, Queen Elizabeth signed her own portrait as well. When any Royals are using the Royal Box, the standard furniture is removed and replaced by chairs that come from Buckingham Palace, fresh flowers are placed, and a large tapestry is hung. They are, of course, entitled to visit any show they want at any time, apparently the young William and Harry were at Cirque du Soleil almost every night it was playing. Can’t blame ‘em, for the price!
Current staircase to the Royal Entrance. The chandelier, and the chairs, are from Buckingham PalaceVictoria and Elizabeth signed their portraits, 100 years apart, to the minute, to make the opening and the 100th anniversary of the Royal Albert Hall
OK back to the hall. It’s quite tall. The floor isn’t always the floor. Back in the day, quite often the ‘Great Floor’ was installed – which brought the floor up to the level of the first row of boxes. From where we were looking way down to the stage, if the Great Floor was installed, we were told we could ‘pat the performers on their heads’. Must have been quite a thing in the day. These are photos from the ‘box’ we were allowed in to, look how far down the stage is currently.
I don’t know when it happened, but at some stage they build a considerable basement underneath. By not directly touching the building, they avoided all the heritage listing concerns. It was necessary because the hall usually has a different show on every single day, and so for pretty much 24 hours a day the entire place used to be completely surrounded by trucks, earning it the name of “Britain’s worst neighbour”. With the basement, the trucks could get out of the way and posh neighbours could get back to parking their Bentleys and Range Rovers on the street in full view of the neighbours 🙂
Due to the flexibility of the hall particular at ground level (ie all the chairs that there the other night for our Zimmer vs Williams show were all gone today) there is an alarming number of things they can do with it. In 2011, for a performance of Madame Butterfly, they installed water tanks in the basement and created a ‘water garden’ in the whole arena area, which during Act 3 was drained leaving a rock garden – must have been quite an effect.
In the 60s and 70s, certain performances were banned. Rock music, Pop music, and poetry (of all things). The powers that be decided that young people would not adequately value and protect the fixtures and fittings of the hall, so those no-good scruffy young tear-aways were effectively banned from the hall lest they commit their terrible young-person crimes. I can’t help but think the real crime was perpetrated by the governing body. Officer, I’d like to report a snobbery!
Change came about in the 70s when ABBA were hoping to perform. They got around the issue – by ‘offering spaces’ rather than ‘selling tickets’. If your wrote to the Albert Hall and promised them you were a person of good character, then would let. You purchase a space to attend the concert. For a hall that holds around 6 to 8000 people, apparently they received some 3 million letters from dedicated ABBA fans.
Mysteriously, the ban went away shortly after that.
OK what other details. When it first build the entire thing was gas-lit – and quite incredibly the whole place could be lit up in 10 seconds flat, still not sure how but it’s gift impressive for the era. Electric lighting was fitted around 1888.
Suitably educated, we left the Hall and went back to the hotel. Perry went for a nap, I headed back out to unleash my inner Nerdy McTube-Face, which I’ll talk about in a seperate post so (a) you can skip it and (b) so I can hopefully finish this blog entry before 1am without having to write some stuff about trains. (It’s quarter past 12 already)
Tonight we headed out to Leicester Square for the Queen jukebox musical, We Will Rock You. It’s playing at the ridiculously beautiful Coliseum theatre. The show was first launched about 20 years ago, derided by the critics as a flop, but it sold and sold and sold and was extremely popular. It has just been relaunched, it opened on June 2nd so it’s quite new for everyone.
The trouble is, you can really tell. The show got off to pretty uninspiring start, with a troupe of dancers on stage all singing, with oddly hand-based choreography, in front a stage that was just a wall of video screen. Not a stellar introduction to be honest, it felt a little bit cheap and amateurish. The dancers were all hitting their marks and making their moves, it was very tight, but the cheap pink video screen background and uninspiring costumes didn’t make a great impression.
I guess one thing i should point out even before that happened, the first person on stage doing a bit of establishing narration. Is it, hang on, could it be? Why yes, yes it’s Ben Elton himself, author of the show, playing the part of aging hippy ‘Pops’. So that was nice unexpected surprise. Then he sung a bit, that was a surprise, but a bit less nice.
It took around 30 minutes for the show to find it feet and get into its groove, I think. (And mercifully ditch the excess of hand-ography) Though there were a number times throughout the show where lighting cues were missed, microphones weren’t turned on in time, and large doors at the back that make up part of the giant video screen, would bounce off each other instead of close properly. They might be little things, but hey theatre goers are a picky bunch when paying for good seats.
At first the sound was awesome, the drums giving a real thump you could feel in your chest, sounding like it was going to be a great sounds system for a great rock show. Unfortunately, a lot of the time the singers couldn’t be heard over the music – which made things especially challenging when they were singing songs that moved the story forward, but you couldn’t hear what was going on. The singers, the ladies in particular, were phenomenal, when you could hear then properly. The “Dreamer” character – effectively our Freddie Mercury proxy … if only he’d brought his finale energy to the start of the show it would have been killer. Toward the end he totally nailed it. For the rest of show, I could be rude say he failed it just it makes a nice rhyme but that’s not true. It’s just that we never knew he could do a decent job of channeling Freddie Mercury until right at the end.
At interval I had time for the traditional ice-cream, despite waiting for front-of-house staff to finish their personal conversations first before looking at the long line of customers before them, then I returned to me seat. Unlike my seat-neighbour who must have been so impressed he walked out after the first half. Post-interval, the handography was back, but mercifully only for one song before we got back in the show proper.
Also Ben Elton sang a whole song. One where, perhaps regrettably, the vocals were quite clear. I don’t mean to sound so mean, he knows he’s not a singer and sang to his limits, so it wasn’t as bad as I might like to pretend.
The premise of the show was that in the future, real music is banned and people will only listen to music from the global companies that are beamed to everyone’s personal devices. And a few years after the show came out, the iPhone was release, then Apple Music, so it all kinda came true, only not with the restrictions that the story said it would. So in quite a few ways it feels very a show “of its time” even though its time was only 20 years ago – it gives off strong ‘early days of the internet’ vibes. For example, these days, renaming the Earth to “the iPlanet” might have been hip in 2003 but in 2023, it’s super-cringe.
They rattled through so many Queen songs as part of the story (not a tragic love story, we’re on a roll), but they left out the most obvious one. After the show proper had finished and performers had left the stage (and some people were already bolting for the exit), the big video screen said “So, do you want Bohemian Rhapsody?” The crowd went suitably wild, and everybody got the song they wanted. Then …
HOLY CRAP! IT’S BRIAN MAY!
Yes indeed, rising from the floor like the rock god he is, guitar in hand, the real actual proper Brian May, he of the big hair, guitarist of Queen, joined in for the big Bohemian Rhapsody solo, which lets face it was just amazing. The crowd went bonkers (yours truly included) and it really, genuinely, was A Bit Of A Moment. What an amazing surprise, very unexpected, talking about pulling out all the stops to get a show over the line. It definitely finished on a high, almost enough to make us all forget the issues in the two hours the preceded it.
Absolutely everyone had their phones out taking pictures so I turned into one of Those People this time around.
As always, it was then straight on to the tube (Piccadilly line, straight to Gloucester Road) – yet again there was a train waiting for us the moment we got there, and back to the hotel to finish off my homework. Nighty night!
I should be grateful the day didn’t start with a fire alarm until 8am, pretty good! Out of spite, and maybe because all this holidaying is starting to catch up with me, I slept in for another hour. We don’t have anything booked til 2:30, so I guess sometimes when you’re on holiday, you’re allowed to have a bit of a, well, holiday.
As usual, down to Pret for a coffee and a tasty breakfast. It was also time to figure out what to do with the morning. It’s absolutely beautiful weather, but the sleep in has left it a bit late to pop over to regent’s park, so instead we’re on a shopping mission. So why not put on our Sydney thinking hat, and head to the nearest Westfield?
The quickest way was by bus, so that’s another mode of transport to tick off the list. One thing I learned, when a double decker bus “leans” to allow easy access for passengers to get on or off, you really feel it on the top deck. As a bonus, it was a fully electric bus – very quiet, but also super comfortable. An eco-conscious start to the day 🙂
We didn’t stay too long at Westfield – Perry didn’t find something he was looking for, and we had a show to get to. So after finding our way to White City tube we caught the (very very warm!) Central Line , changed at Notting Hill Gate for the District & Circle line back to Gloucester Road. (Why so much detail? Because years from now, nerdy future-me will no doubt want to know 🙂 ). That was only a 5 minute stop to pick up jackets for later tonight, as we had two shows quite close to each other, time-wise.
So, straight back on to the tube, to Embankment, which wasn’t the closest station to the Novello Theatre but apparently offered the fastest way to get there. As we got on the train yet again we could well have been singing “Mamma Mia, here we go again!” Because Mamma Mia was indeed where we were going. Again. We’d seen it in Sydney before but not here. The theatre itself is quite beautiful.
The show is (breaking the trend) not a tragic love story, but rather a somewhat odd premise of a young lady not knowing who her father is so she invites all three possible contenders to her upcoming wedding. I guess in the Mamma Mia universe, DNA tests simply don’t exist. It could have made for a very short show.
From what I remember of Sydney, I’m sure this one’s set was much simpler, most scenery was just the taverna where they live, there wasn’t really anything else of note. Still, it mostly worked well. I guess for a ‘jukebox’ musical like this one you’re not going have deep Macbeth-like levels of character introspection, no Olivier-like performances where an actor almost disappears and all you see is the character itself writ large on the stage. For this show, some (most?) of the performances verged on caricature rather than character – and sorry to single out the “Australian” (definitely not Australian) character with his appalling accent and all his mugging and gurning for the audience – I now really understand what they mean about an actor “chewing the scenery”. But, it’s an ABBA show, could it really be taken very seriously?
It was still very entertaining, the singers could sing, though a number of the songs had this weird kind of loud/soft dynamic from verse to chorus which didn’t make any sense, unless you always love to turn the volume up to 11 when the chorus of your favourite song comes on, then this is the show for you. Little things like that aside, it is valuable to take a moment to remember, here’s a big musical playing all over the world, where all the lead characters are female, and some (gasp) middle aged women at that. It’s refreshing, and it’s important.
Immediately after the show finished we were on to the next. This time, walking over a bridge to Waterloo for the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich, then to the O2 – more commonly known back in the day as The Millennium Dome.
The Jubilee Line is a more fancy train line with doors all along the platform so you can’t fall down on the tracks. It was also super-super crowded but we made it to North Greenwich, after which is a very short walk to the O2, and then a slightly longer walk inside the O2 (it’s huge!) looking for our destination: Mamma Mia The Party.
Yes, two ABBA shows in the one day – indeed two Mamma Mia shows in one day, but both very different. Mamma Mia The Party is a theatre restaurant. I think this is the first one I’ve been to. The room itself was enormous, there were probably 100 tables or more. The show had a storyline about as substantial as the deliciously light Prosecco/elderflower cocktail server on arrival. Boy meets girl, girls dad hates boy, every body breaks up but oh gosh they all get back together again by the end. Plus a side-chick for comic relief. Sorry if that’s too many spoilers. It was though, purposely conducted and extremely effective at shoe-horning as many ABBA songs in as possible – I mean, that’s why we’re all here, right? The performers were fine, you know you’re not going to get someone fresh off Broadway, so it’s OK. Everyone put in a lot of energy, including the waitstaff who were sometimes involved in the numbers and if not, encouraging people to clap and/or sing along. You were also more than welcome to take photos, just no video-ing,
There was also a very helpful bit just in case you’d forgotten the words to Ring Ring.
And a fun part where people were encouraged to wave their serviettes around (the breeze it created was kinda welcome too)
It was all quite light and fluffy (to be expected) – but took a genuinely surprising turn when they summoned up the great witch Hecate, everything went dark, and we had a trapeze artist rise out a fountain dripping wet… I don’t remember an ABBA song like that, still, it sure did bring an unexpected twist to the show so gotta be happy with that.
They didn’t forget the Restaraunt side of Theatre Restaurant by any means. It was a set menu – a deliciously fresh Greek salad to start with, followed by some beautifully cooked beef and lamb with zucchini and onions, and a perfect slice of lemon cake to finish. All the food was great, couldn’t fault it at all. The other winner was ‘White Sangria’ which was bright orange, thanks to all the apricot pulp in it, it was absolutely delicious and I feel absolutely zero shame in the fact that we worked our way through two jugs of the stuff.
The show, which let us in at exactly 6:30, finished on the dot at 10:00pm, and even the show was over the venue continues to host an ABBA disco for an hour or two after that. Apparently. As fun as it was watching everybody’s nanna dance badly after one too many Prosecco’s, it was time to leave and head home. This time the maps app told us change from the Jubilee Line to the District & Circle line at Westminster, and (nerd alert, yet again) Westminster station has the most most amazing huge kind of void where the escalators and things go, it’s so off but so enormous it somehow ends up being kinda beautiful. It might only be a strange nerd thing, but here’s a picture just in case.
The weird but truly enormous guts of Westminster station
More things to do tomorrow as we count down our last few London days…
I’ve noticed there aren’t many photos today – just not enough exciting things that we (or you) haven’t seen before, I guess!
I shouldn’t have said anything about fire alarms. We had the joy of being woken up at 3:30 and again at 5:00. It’s now at the point they’ll need an alternative alarm to actually say yes you should leave – because this one is going off too often to do what it says. And yep, as I’m writing this just before 11PM, there it goes again. The trouble is all the accomodation is paid for so it’s not like we can easily switch hotels or anything.
After the very rude starts to the day I eventually woke up without the fire alarm’s help. We headed off to Pret for breakfast, where I’m happy to say that yes they have Flat White on the menu, nd it almost did the trick of waking me up. After that we also put some washing in to be done, for the last time I guess. Man it’ll be be convenient when a walk to the laundry is 5 steps not 5 minutes.
Our first appointment today wasn’t until 2:30 in the afternoon so we wandered into a more central bit of tourist-town (Oxford Circus) to look at touristy stuff and whatever else we came across. The Piccadilly line (or at least the bit we needed) was out of action but we found our way via the Bakerloo line. So named because it used to go from Baker St to Waterloo. Wandering downt the road from Oxford Circus, we discovered H&M have a ‘Home furnishings’ store, who knew! Nice coffee cups. Didn’t buy ‘em.
We continued wandering down to Leicester Square, where by now it was most definitely time to stop for ice cream. I was really pleasantly surprised that the Ben & Jerry’s in Leicester square, ripe for ripping off tourists, didn’t. It was about half the cost of what I was expecting, which is as nice as it is rare 🙂
With some time yet to go before 2PM we wandered around the markets at Covent Garden, saw some nice things that wouldn’t fit in the suitcase. I recommend pretending you have a suitcase whenever you go shopping, it stops you from buying things all the time when you really stop and think about what you can actually carry home.
Lunch was at that find tradition British institution, well, ok it was Burger King because it was in the right place at the right time. Nice enough burgers as always.
This brought us to 2PM and our first show for the day, down to the Prince of Wales theatre, to see The Book of Mormon. This is the 3rd time we’ve seen it in London, plus I think 2 in New York, 2 in Sydney, 1 in Melbourne…maybe more that I’m forgetting. We’ve seen it a lot – and it had changed almost every time. This time, they’ve taken out on of the racist jokes, which didn’t add much anyway, and they’ve changed a character’s “texting device” from a typewriter (that’s funny) to an iPad (that’s less funny) – but it does fit in with some of the newly inserted jokes about Facebook and its disinformation being the source of many of their troubles. It’s still just as entertaining when we first saw it 10 years ago, still laughed just as much, and for those who know the show, I think every time we’ve seen it the ‘Elder McKinley’ character gets better and better, and today’s had to be the best. Brilliant show as always, glad we were able to snag some tickets just the other day.
Straight after that it was back to the hotel, pick up the laundry (ah, clean clothes, so lovely!) and head straight out again for an evening appointment. For dinner we went to Baba Ganouj, the same place we had breakfast the other day. They really didn’t disappoint – not only were they really fast, the food was delicious, a delicious chicken kebab and an amazing cup of apple mint lemonade – it might sound a bit strange, and look a lot like pond water, but the taste was excellent, sweet and zingy, delicious.
Our evening appointment was us pretending to be all cultured and stuff – heading to the Royal Albert Hall for a night listening to the London Concert Orchestra. OK so it wasn’t all that fancy, the show was called ‘Williams vs Zimmerman’ – the orchestra played bits of the soundtrack from a number of John Willians films (ie Star Wars, ET, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark), and some Hans Zimmer films (Inception, Man of Steel, Da Vinci Code). The conductor was Anthony Inglis, doing his best to be the hip grandad showing that orchestra can be coooool, kids, but possibly convincing none of us very much at all. But he was engaging and endearing enough to have us all on his side.
But let’s tale a minute to talk about the Royal Albert Hall. I knew it was pretty, but man, to be sitting inside it and looking around, it’s a magnificent place – layers of chairs, layers of booths, it’s old-world charm shining through still with its practical modern additions of flashing lights and laser beams and smoke machines (and plastic discs to reflect the sound properly off the roof). It’s just beautiful, but no doubt I’ll talk about more in a few days because we’ll be returning.
The concert was good – I think by the second half I was more tuned in than I was for the first half, where I was more “I’m just in a (very pretty) big room listening to some music”, but after intermission I felt much more engaged and connected to it all. The orchestra played some extremely complex pieces perfectly (well, as far as I could tell, what would I know), they did a great job and it all sounded marvellous. And they saved Start Wars right for the end – an interesting choice, it was the music from the end of the first (ie episode 4) movie, that then plays all the way through the end credits when you’re usually too busy walking out of the cinema to pay attention. It was a great choice as it incorporated so much of the soundtrack into its 5-minute-or-so length. A beautiful way to finish. At the start of the concert, the conductor stated very clearly at the start that “although we called it Williams vs Zimmer, it is not a competition”. Well it’s just my opinion, but, in this non-competition the winner for me was John Williams, hands down.
After that it was just a walk back to the hotel, which made things easy. Now I’m ready to hit publish, and not mention anything about loud beeping noises lest I accidentally summon them in the middle of the night again.
Again a later-morning start to the day, with breakfast nearby at a nice Lebanese place – excellent omelette with the freshest flat bread and delicious orange-and-carrot juice. Yum! We’ll probably return for dinner one night based on the quality of brekky.
We had nothing booked until midday. And while looking at midday, we found that between where we were, and where we needed to be, stood Fortnum & Masons. We has been requested to pick something up from there, so off we went. It wasn’t quite as outrageous nor ostentatious as I thought it might be, and on the lower ground it was very clear to see where David Jones went for a visit when they did their Sydney food hall back in the day. Nice little shop.
Gift secured, there was still plenty of time to kill so we walked slowly up to Seven Dials, our next destination, and had a coffee waiting for the clock to get close to 12:00. And our appointment? Oh boy this was good – it was a cheese train – like a sushi train, but for cheese. “Pick & Cheese” with the Seven Dials Market. A selection of quality cheeses passing the eye constantly, the best idea ever, why isn’t there more of it! We were ushered our seats at the train, given a menu describing which was what, plus a dish of crackers, and left to our own devices. There were about 25 cheeses on the menu, and helpfully each dish was numbered so you could tell what you were getting. Each cheese shared its plate with specially matched accompaniment as well – one of the softer cheeses had a hot chilli jam, one of the more bitey cheeses had a tiny fennel salad, there were even cheese accompanied with Turkish delight, salted caramel fudge, or roasted rosemary potato. All these pairings were very well thought out, and it all made sense once you stuck it in yer gob and ate it 🙂 There were also a few non-cheese dishes – one dish of ham, a dish of salami, something you might need between cheese courses.
A time-lapse of cheese. What more does one need in life.
Each booking gets you a 1hr 15 minute session, but after about half an hour or cheese I was pretty much done, sadly, even though there were a few more I wanted to try. Anyway it was great fun (uh, if you have deep pockets, or should I say, plenty of cheddar) and I’d love to go back again another day.
The nearest tube station back to the hotel was at Covent Garden, which was when I remembered that (a) The London Transport Museum is at Covent Garden, (b) Entry was half the usual price due to doing to Euston Tunnels tour earlier, and (c) I’m a massive nerd who likes this kind of thing. So while Perry headed back to the hotel for a nap, I headed into the transport museum to see what was different since my last visit in 2015. In summary, lots! I won’t bore with lots of history, just with a bunch of photos.
One the first tube carriagesCan’t imagine why they called it ‘the padded cell’The only fragment of a spiral escalator from about 1906. Advanced idea, even though it looks like it’d kill you 🙂Everything the museum knows about the spiral escalator
After that I popped into the Apple Store, also at Covent garden, before getting back on the Piccadilly line and back to the hotel.
This is the Covent Garden Apple shopThis isn’t (despite also being at Covent Garden)
One final thing I liked about being back at Covent Garden, finally a chance to remember a blurry photo I hastily took on my first visit to London in 2006. It’s nothing spectacular, not even a photo of the exact same location, but just glad I could make it right some 17 years later.
20062023
Tonight, it was time to see Heathers The Musical. Off to Victoria station and a short walk to “The Other Palace” theatre – not too far away from the more well known palace around here. I haven’t seen Heathers the 80s movie so I didn’t know what to expect. I’d you haven’t seen it, think of it as Mean Girls on steroids. If you haven’t seen Mean Girls, watch Mean Girls :). Also, you know your seats are close to the stage when you can reach out and touch it. Wasn’t at all awkward. Nope. Not in the slightest. Ish.
Just for a change in the shows we’ve seen so far, it’s basically, you guessed it, a tragic love story. The performances were brilliant, the singing top notch with a few real standouts, and really clever set design that gave us much more scenery than I thought the modestly sized stage could hold. It was smart, punchy, wickedly funny and chock full of well written music, in that “it’s music for a musical” if that makes any sense. Like, it’s not just songs, it’s fragments, chopping and changing, being revisited, tying together and keeping the story moving.
There’s one aspect where this production has one over Broadway. Every member of production had a perfect American accent. It sure doesn’t work the other way around when it comes to Broadway shows doing English accents! Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then as always there was a train at Victoria ready to whisk us back to the hotel, where I can finish writing up the blog. Then the bloody fire alarm went off again. But only briefly. Here’s hoping for a good night’s sleep and not a visit to the cold streets of London at 3am.
Now we’re out a bit later each night we had a slower start to the day, heading out around 9am for a quick breakfast at Pret followed by a particularly nerdy expedition, out to Upton Hill (in Zone 3, shocking!) just to visit a big Dr Who shop out that way. Why not. It’s nearly an hour on the train, but at least it’s direct from our local station on the District line, no need to change trains. It’s fun watching the train when you’re near the last carriage as they have no doors between carriages.
Once we got there, after a bit of a walk, we found nerdy Dr who heaven. It was cool, but they were very thingy about photos, so no pictures. I only bought a few small things, being ever mindful of having to lug at around. Anyway, I was really glad we took the hour trip each way to see it.
Upton ParkUpton Park and its, um, natural beauty?
We caught the train back, dumped the purchases at the hotel, then back to tube to Leicester Square for our next thing. Found a lovely little Italian lunch spot nearby for a very filling and good value (for London) meal, then on the the theatre.
It’s not fish fingers and jam, it’s baked Brie and, yeah, pretty much jam.
Perry found that Brokeback Mountain had been turned into a play, he was able to get tickets, so it was time to watch our third tragic love story in a row unfold.
It’s the tale of forbidden love between cowboys Ennis and Jack, who, despite the expectations, pressures, and dangers from society, can’t ignore what their hearts are really feeling for each other. Which of course causes a good deal of drama and another unhappy ending. The play was 90 minutes long, with no intermission, presented ‘in the round’ in a relatively small theatre. One constant throughout those 90 minutes was what could best be described as ‘the ghost of Ennis future’, watching his past unfold. I’m still not sure about the effectiveness of this, but hey I don’t write plays, I’m just a customer. He just didn’t seem to add much in terms of exposition or emotional weight as such. It wasn’t a musical, but rather, “a play with songs”, expertly performed to the side of the stage by a band and singer Eddi Reader, her of the “It’s got to be-e-e-e Perfect” song of times gone by. Her now-more-gravelly voice was a perfect match for the southern-inspired songs dotted throughout the performance. Overall it was pretty well done. I guess the whole point of theatre is often not just to entertain but also to make you think – and you really do have to wonder how many people had been, and indeed still are, deeply unhappy because circumstances wouldn’t let them live their lives as their genuine selves. It’s still happening, and that in itself is a bit sad.
We popped back to the hotel then straight back out again – we’re doing our bit to contribute to Transport for London’s profits today for sure. Tonight’s adventure is not a tragic love story, and definitely not something to make you think. It’s ABBA!
Yep we are fortunate enough to be seeing ABBA Voyage, the concert with the “ABBA-tars” dancing around in stage to a live band. It’s all a bunch of super clever computer graphics, but all the moves etc were capture from the stars of ABBA themselves, turned into realistic digital figures, and played back night after night for our enjoyment.
It takes place in a purpose built facility – they had food so we grabbed a bite to eat, a slightly dried out hot dog but what can you expect from your regular music venue.
As for the show itself – it was incredible, though not quite what I expected. I thought it was going to be more of a virtual abba concert, with the “ABBA-tars” playing through their hits like you’d expect from any musical act. When they were doing this, the show was at its strongest. The effect of four people on stage is so convincing, it really does look real 99% of the time. Their live backing band is big, loud, and plays very well. It’s also backed up with an incredible collections of lights, lasers, movable screens, with effects that travel though the whole theatre front to back, to great effect.
When they’d zoom in on any of the bands reconstructed faces though, you could tell they’re not quite real, just some kind of can’t-put-my-finger-on-it thing that makes you think no, it’s not quite a real human being.
Maybe half the songs were played as Abba-on-stage. Others were turned into virtual video clips, two songs went completely off-piste and became an animated story, which felt a bit out of place. For one song the abba-tars stopped completely and handed it over to the backing band to complete the song.
It just have the hardest job picking what songs to put in the concert, but it wasn’t all “just the hits”, there were a few unexpected songs too. I was glad to see “summer night city” finally getting an outing., and I didn’t expect the show to open with “The visitors”. Pretty sure they managed to squeeze in something from every album, including the new one.
And I’m not sure if I should admit it but I kinda new I’d have a little cry, I guess it’s unavoidable when you see a big chunk of your childhood coming at you live (ish) and loud. Happy tears though 🙂 The funniest part of show probably had to be watching thousands of old 50-somethings dancing terribly to songs from the 70s. It was kinda like every wedding you’ve probably ever been to, just on a much larger scale 🙂
Then 90 minutes later it was all done, they finished with The Winner Takes it All, and I guess we all won on the night. A trip back in time, an amazing light and laser show, and a chance to say we’ve kinda seen a favourite band from our earlier years. Lovely. I’d go again.
Getting home wasn’t a drama, the crowd dispersed across the nearby Docklands Light Rail and on to the tube, so it was a pleasant journey back, and gave me time to write up these notes while they were still fresh in my mind.
We’re slowly but surely running out days (you could take that as a deeply philosophical statement, or, just that the holiday is slowly but surely drawing to a close) but oh, we’re not done yet. Onward!
JVL+PJC 