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| Pilgrim's Progress |
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
My knee is feeling a bit better, though of course I've been walking so funny for the past couple of days that now my other leg hurts. Just some muscle tightness however--I did some stretching and I'm sure it'll loosen up as I walk today. So, I am attempting a London Walk, per the recommendations of many people. I've also come in rather under-budget (well, not rather, but a little bit) so I suspect another trip to Sci Fi Collectors may be in order. Also a real dinner and not take-away! Imagine that! Though to be honest all the take-away is really just a glorious guilty pleasure.
I haven't talked that much about food (well, I keep mentioning it but for me that's not "that much") but I have to say: Great Britain, please marry me and cook all my meals. What a difference a couple of decades make! London currently seems in the grip of an East Asian/Noodle House frenzy and I've actually had a bit of a hard time finding a proper curry house. Yeah, Indian restaurants abound, but they abound in Pittsburgh too. But all the ones I've found have been expensive!
But two things that I think have always been a big deal here (at least down here in the Home Counties) that I wish would take hold back in the states is the grab-and-go thing, and the health food thing. I've noticed that "health food!" is actually used as a marketing phrase here, which would never ever fly in the States. We hear "health food" and we think bland and gross. And I love all of the take-away and grab-and-go places. They all tend to roll up after lunch, though. But I'd love to have Pret a Manger back in the States. Or any of the many, many, many sushi/noodle/East Asian lunch bars.
Also, pub grub seems to on the whole have improved greatly. I've had some fantastic meals in pubs. Cheese and Apple tart on a bed of spinach with cranberry chutney? Yes please! I know London isn't representative of all of Britain in the food department, and that Cambridge is full of posh people who eat posh food, but there was a time when even posh food was nowhere near this good or this varied.
I haven't talked that much about food (well, I keep mentioning it but for me that's not "that much") but I have to say: Great Britain, please marry me and cook all my meals. What a difference a couple of decades make! London currently seems in the grip of an East Asian/Noodle House frenzy and I've actually had a bit of a hard time finding a proper curry house. Yeah, Indian restaurants abound, but they abound in Pittsburgh too. But all the ones I've found have been expensive!
But two things that I think have always been a big deal here (at least down here in the Home Counties) that I wish would take hold back in the states is the grab-and-go thing, and the health food thing. I've noticed that "health food!" is actually used as a marketing phrase here, which would never ever fly in the States. We hear "health food" and we think bland and gross. And I love all of the take-away and grab-and-go places. They all tend to roll up after lunch, though. But I'd love to have Pret a Manger back in the States. Or any of the many, many, many sushi/noodle/East Asian lunch bars.
Also, pub grub seems to on the whole have improved greatly. I've had some fantastic meals in pubs. Cheese and Apple tart on a bed of spinach with cranberry chutney? Yes please! I know London isn't representative of all of Britain in the food department, and that Cambridge is full of posh people who eat posh food, but there was a time when even posh food was nowhere near this good or this varied.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
First of all, is there a more perfect food combination than cider and chips? If there is, don't tell me about it because I might spontaneously combust at the thought that there is something better. Pint of Strongbow from the off-licence: £1, glorious glorious chips: £1.60. My dinner: sorted. Actually, this is dinner part 2, as I had some really yummy tofu with green onions and ginger on the train back from Cambridge. But my knee was crying out for alcohol and my stomach for starch. So, chips and cider it is.
So, my transcription of this evening's dead-tree pub musings:
January 13--Cambridge
Up until about 4:30 the weather today was lovely; brisk but sunny. I've stopped now for a Strongbow but nothing on the pub menu really floated my boat, so I'll just grab some takeaway for the train on my way to the station. I definitely seem to be at the pub equivalent of a road house, but I wanted to be near the train station, which is about a mile out of town. There's an Alan Moore lookalike across the room and video slot machines a few feet away (and you know we always think of the UK as such a nanny state, but if you want to drink or gamble you can apparently go right ahead, any time, anywhere).
I don't know why my big question for the day was, "has anything changed?" Cambridge hasn't changed in hundreds of years so why should it have changed appreciably in the past couple decades? Only two things that I noticed: Lion Yard is now a massive, posh, three-floor shopping arcade, and there are now good restaurants. Though both Pizza Hut and Old Orleans are in the exact same locations. I remember when that lone Pizza Hut was your only hope for a decent pizza in Cambridge. How times have changed.
I'm also no longer 12 years old and the daughter of a resident Clare Hall fellow, so I'm now much more of a ninny about walking through the colleges. Trinity (I think) was charging admission! Did they always do that? And I totally missed the public footbridge over the Cam so went the long way round down by Magdalene College.Then walked all the way down past the mill pond and back up the other side to Little St. Marys Lane and the churchyard.
Little St. Marys' literature says there's been a recent improvement effort for the churchyard, but it still looks as overgrown as it ever did before. I wonder what it says about me that in all of Cambridge, with its huge manicured lawns and geometric courtyards, it's Little St. Marys churchyard that is my favourite spot.
Stepped in to some used book stores to try and find one of the little editions of Hamlet (those little Shakespeare editions from the turn of the century are a dime a dozen), but everyone was just plum out of that one. They had everything but. Almost got another Troilus and Cressida, but instead got an edition of Songs of Innocence for Dave.
Had tea across Kings Parade from the college, waiting for Evensong at 5:30. Sight fiasco getting there on time. I thought I was early when I rolled up to the gate that they keep open for tourists visiting the chapel and it was closed. There was signage saying that Evensong was at 5:30 and that the doors would open 15 minutes prior, and I was indeed a bit too early for that. So I went back over to Lion Yard, ducked in to Boots just for a quick warm-up only to find several shelves of 50% off Doctor Who schwag, and picked up a fob watch for £7 (can't beat that with a stick) and then legged it back over to Kings, only to find that blasted gate still shut! This time it was definitely not that I was too early, so I scooted around to the front of the college, where there was a sign saying the college was closed to visitors. I ignored this sign. I sort of disguised myself among a small group of other people and went in. Turns out they were going to the chapel as well and I hid amongst them as we arrived round the other door, which was open-ish, and received a very disapproving glare from the don acting as usher.
Because I was late (poor signage, Kings College!) I had to sit behind the screen for the service. A bit of a bummer because at Kings, the screen is really much more of a wall , and of course Kings houses a painting by Rubens at the alter and the service was being done by candlelight, and I could kind of see all that through the opening in the screen, but still it was from afar.
The music however was sublime and transporting (Kings College Boys Choir--way better than the Westminster Abbey choir I must confess). Almost the entire service was sung and the acoustics in there are just amazing. It was glorious and put me in mind of Hamlet actually: What a piece of work is man. Listening to the voices and looking up at the vaulted ceiling (which at Kings is an intricate filigree), my thoughts were naturally not of god (not being thus inclined) but of the works of man. I think it definitely means you're a humanist when you go to Evensong and wind up exalting in humanity. Probably not the desired effect.
And as always the photo album has been updated, click on the thumbnail. There will be video tomorrow.
PS Dad I never did email the Sedleys. I am very bad. I had meant to do it the day that I left town but then there was all that last-minute flight change business, and then it occurred to me that I didn't really know what day I'd be going because I was basing it on the weather (and you know how random that is here) and then everything just got completely mad and my knee started acting up and I didn't know if I'd make it at all.
So, my transcription of this evening's dead-tree pub musings:
January 13--Cambridge
Up until about 4:30 the weather today was lovely; brisk but sunny. I've stopped now for a Strongbow but nothing on the pub menu really floated my boat, so I'll just grab some takeaway for the train on my way to the station. I definitely seem to be at the pub equivalent of a road house, but I wanted to be near the train station, which is about a mile out of town. There's an Alan Moore lookalike across the room and video slot machines a few feet away (and you know we always think of the UK as such a nanny state, but if you want to drink or gamble you can apparently go right ahead, any time, anywhere).
I don't know why my big question for the day was, "has anything changed?" Cambridge hasn't changed in hundreds of years so why should it have changed appreciably in the past couple decades? Only two things that I noticed: Lion Yard is now a massive, posh, three-floor shopping arcade, and there are now good restaurants. Though both Pizza Hut and Old Orleans are in the exact same locations. I remember when that lone Pizza Hut was your only hope for a decent pizza in Cambridge. How times have changed.
I'm also no longer 12 years old and the daughter of a resident Clare Hall fellow, so I'm now much more of a ninny about walking through the colleges. Trinity (I think) was charging admission! Did they always do that? And I totally missed the public footbridge over the Cam so went the long way round down by Magdalene College.Then walked all the way down past the mill pond and back up the other side to Little St. Marys Lane and the churchyard.
Little St. Marys' literature says there's been a recent improvement effort for the churchyard, but it still looks as overgrown as it ever did before. I wonder what it says about me that in all of Cambridge, with its huge manicured lawns and geometric courtyards, it's Little St. Marys churchyard that is my favourite spot.
Stepped in to some used book stores to try and find one of the little editions of Hamlet (those little Shakespeare editions from the turn of the century are a dime a dozen), but everyone was just plum out of that one. They had everything but. Almost got another Troilus and Cressida, but instead got an edition of Songs of Innocence for Dave.
Had tea across Kings Parade from the college, waiting for Evensong at 5:30. Sight fiasco getting there on time. I thought I was early when I rolled up to the gate that they keep open for tourists visiting the chapel and it was closed. There was signage saying that Evensong was at 5:30 and that the doors would open 15 minutes prior, and I was indeed a bit too early for that. So I went back over to Lion Yard, ducked in to Boots just for a quick warm-up only to find several shelves of 50% off Doctor Who schwag, and picked up a fob watch for £7 (can't beat that with a stick) and then legged it back over to Kings, only to find that blasted gate still shut! This time it was definitely not that I was too early, so I scooted around to the front of the college, where there was a sign saying the college was closed to visitors. I ignored this sign. I sort of disguised myself among a small group of other people and went in. Turns out they were going to the chapel as well and I hid amongst them as we arrived round the other door, which was open-ish, and received a very disapproving glare from the don acting as usher.
Because I was late (poor signage, Kings College!) I had to sit behind the screen for the service. A bit of a bummer because at Kings, the screen is really much more of a wall , and of course Kings houses a painting by Rubens at the alter and the service was being done by candlelight, and I could kind of see all that through the opening in the screen, but still it was from afar.
The music however was sublime and transporting (Kings College Boys Choir--way better than the Westminster Abbey choir I must confess). Almost the entire service was sung and the acoustics in there are just amazing. It was glorious and put me in mind of Hamlet actually: What a piece of work is man. Listening to the voices and looking up at the vaulted ceiling (which at Kings is an intricate filigree), my thoughts were naturally not of god (not being thus inclined) but of the works of man. I think it definitely means you're a humanist when you go to Evensong and wind up exalting in humanity. Probably not the desired effect.
And as always the photo album has been updated, click on the thumbnail. There will be video tomorrow.
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| Pilgrim's Progress |
PS Dad I never did email the Sedleys. I am very bad. I had meant to do it the day that I left town but then there was all that last-minute flight change business, and then it occurred to me that I didn't really know what day I'd be going because I was basing it on the weather (and you know how random that is here) and then everything just got completely mad and my knee started acting up and I didn't know if I'd make it at all.
A bit of an aimless day today. I'm glad I'm getting out of the city tomorrow and perhaps will do Hampton Court on Wednesday to get out again. My right knee is giving me a tremendous amount of trouble all of a sudden, so I've stopped to have a pint of cider to give that a rest (and will grab some take-away on the way).
British Museum first, but mostly I just wasn't feeling it. Museums are kind of the same anywhere you go. I mainly just saw the things you can't see anywhere else--the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Parthenon marbles (strangely unexciting), a really amazing collection of Japanese woodblock prints (which some of you may know I have a bit of a fetish for), including Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, and a fascinating exhibition on natural philosophy in the Enlightenment.
The only problem with that last one was that there is just so bloody much stuff, it's just overwhelming. A lot of the collections are like that, in fact. You want Abyssinian bas relief? Here, have like 8 galleries full of it! After a while it's just numbing.
True to my promise to myself to get the hell away from the West End today, I headed to Spitalfields and Whitechapel. My main goal was a house museum that does candle light tours on Monday nights, but you have to reserve in advance and when I found a phone box to ring them, they were already booked. It took me ages to find it in the first place (the blurb about it in my guide about their hours and arrangements was incredibly confusing, so I decided to just show up in person and look at their own signage). I did see Hawksmoor's Christ Church in Spitalfields, though. It doesn't look nearly as creepy in person as it does in the pictures I've seen. Though now that I've looked at my own picture of it--it does look really really spooky when photographed!
My maps all kind of end right before Whitechapel for some reason, so I had to kind of wing it. Did a whirlwind walk up and down the Whitechapel High Street/Mile End Road. Really not that thrilling but interesting for the South Asian cultural domination of the area. Tower Hamlets is mainly newish housing estates and not a whole lot leftover from earlier eras (though not like I really knew where to look).
But I do sort of feel that I've now done the East End. Had a proper cream tea at a little coffee shop off Spitalfields Market, which was exactly what I wanted in a tea--none of this schmancy trillion little sandwiches (which I mostly hate anyway) and cakes and this and that and the other. Just a pot of Earl Grey, two scones and some cream and jam. I looked at the cafe at the British Museum before I left there and their tea service was like £18 or something ridiculous like that.
I'm now at a pub called The Water Poet in Folgate Street. An 18th century affair if their signage is to be believed. No Strongbow on tap (all that was left in the keg was foam, alas), but I've got a bottle of Magners and had a chat with the bloke behind the bar about this new weird British thing about putting ice in your cider. He and I both disapprove strenuously and I believe he called the practice "s--t" and said the only reason people do it is because the adverts tell them to. Apparently it's an Irish thing. *shrug*
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And the picasa album has been updated, click on the thumbnail to go there:
British Museum first, but mostly I just wasn't feeling it. Museums are kind of the same anywhere you go. I mainly just saw the things you can't see anywhere else--the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo helmet, the Parthenon marbles (strangely unexciting), a really amazing collection of Japanese woodblock prints (which some of you may know I have a bit of a fetish for), including Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, and a fascinating exhibition on natural philosophy in the Enlightenment.
The only problem with that last one was that there is just so bloody much stuff, it's just overwhelming. A lot of the collections are like that, in fact. You want Abyssinian bas relief? Here, have like 8 galleries full of it! After a while it's just numbing.
True to my promise to myself to get the hell away from the West End today, I headed to Spitalfields and Whitechapel. My main goal was a house museum that does candle light tours on Monday nights, but you have to reserve in advance and when I found a phone box to ring them, they were already booked. It took me ages to find it in the first place (the blurb about it in my guide about their hours and arrangements was incredibly confusing, so I decided to just show up in person and look at their own signage). I did see Hawksmoor's Christ Church in Spitalfields, though. It doesn't look nearly as creepy in person as it does in the pictures I've seen. Though now that I've looked at my own picture of it--it does look really really spooky when photographed!
My maps all kind of end right before Whitechapel for some reason, so I had to kind of wing it. Did a whirlwind walk up and down the Whitechapel High Street/Mile End Road. Really not that thrilling but interesting for the South Asian cultural domination of the area. Tower Hamlets is mainly newish housing estates and not a whole lot leftover from earlier eras (though not like I really knew where to look).
But I do sort of feel that I've now done the East End. Had a proper cream tea at a little coffee shop off Spitalfields Market, which was exactly what I wanted in a tea--none of this schmancy trillion little sandwiches (which I mostly hate anyway) and cakes and this and that and the other. Just a pot of Earl Grey, two scones and some cream and jam. I looked at the cafe at the British Museum before I left there and their tea service was like £18 or something ridiculous like that.
I'm now at a pub called The Water Poet in Folgate Street. An 18th century affair if their signage is to be believed. No Strongbow on tap (all that was left in the keg was foam, alas), but I've got a bottle of Magners and had a chat with the bloke behind the bar about this new weird British thing about putting ice in your cider. He and I both disapprove strenuously and I believe he called the practice "s--t" and said the only reason people do it is because the adverts tell them to. Apparently it's an Irish thing. *shrug*
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And the picasa album has been updated, click on the thumbnail to go there:
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| Pilgrim's Progress |
Sunday, January 11, 2009
A special post just for my parents.
It's dad's birthday, so I'll humour him.
So, why was I running in my stocking feet through London last night? It's really not that exciting of an answer: I was running very very late. It was one of those situations where there was a cascade of poor decisions on my part, not really helped by the tube train we were on inexplicably stopping for several minutes a couple times on our way in. But mostly it was totally my stupid fault for not keeping a better eye on the time.
Because there had been some counterfeiting of the tickets for the production, the theatre had instituted a policy whereby the person who bought the tickets had to on the day-of exchange them for newly printed ones. I had given my ticket to the person who bought it for me back in September, and she was to meet me outside the theatre at 6:45. Curtain was scheduled for 7:15. At 7:10 I was just getting off the train, several blocks away. Pure panic. So, I took my shoes off and ran. I just about burst a lung I think, and ever since then I've had an earache and a developing cough.
When I got to the theatre, of course my friend had already gone in lest she miss curtain and the usher at the door suggested I inquire at the box office, which seemed sensible. But then the people at the box office totally jerked me around. I would have gotten seated before curtain if they hadn't been totally incompetent (and way too quick to assume that I was just a raving lunatic rather than actually really looking for wherever they'd stuck my ticket). Due to me just completely freaking out and not knowing what to do, I just kind of stood there for a while and gaped at them and asked them several more times to look, and lo and behold, right as the curtain was going up, they found it. So, I did miss the first scene as they couldn't seat me until the scene change, but the ushers were very nice about it, and the first scene is really just exposition.
So, that's the story.
Food-wise I've been spending so much time in the West End that I've been eating a lot of pub grub. Good pub grub though, washed down with cider on draft. Yesterday I did actually have fish and chips, sitting in front of a fire in a lovely pub. We went back to that same pub today for dinner because we were just too tired to go looking for anything else, and I had a great cheese and apple tart with chips. And of course the cider. I think I'll be leaving the West End alone for the rest of my trip, but there was all that theatre stuff and my friend's hotel was right down there on the Strand, so I just found myself there a lot at meal times.
Today I've got some video from the Tower of London from yesterday afternoon, and some pictures from the Tower plus more from the Royal Observatory today.
So, why was I running in my stocking feet through London last night? It's really not that exciting of an answer: I was running very very late. It was one of those situations where there was a cascade of poor decisions on my part, not really helped by the tube train we were on inexplicably stopping for several minutes a couple times on our way in. But mostly it was totally my stupid fault for not keeping a better eye on the time.
Because there had been some counterfeiting of the tickets for the production, the theatre had instituted a policy whereby the person who bought the tickets had to on the day-of exchange them for newly printed ones. I had given my ticket to the person who bought it for me back in September, and she was to meet me outside the theatre at 6:45. Curtain was scheduled for 7:15. At 7:10 I was just getting off the train, several blocks away. Pure panic. So, I took my shoes off and ran. I just about burst a lung I think, and ever since then I've had an earache and a developing cough.
When I got to the theatre, of course my friend had already gone in lest she miss curtain and the usher at the door suggested I inquire at the box office, which seemed sensible. But then the people at the box office totally jerked me around. I would have gotten seated before curtain if they hadn't been totally incompetent (and way too quick to assume that I was just a raving lunatic rather than actually really looking for wherever they'd stuck my ticket). Due to me just completely freaking out and not knowing what to do, I just kind of stood there for a while and gaped at them and asked them several more times to look, and lo and behold, right as the curtain was going up, they found it. So, I did miss the first scene as they couldn't seat me until the scene change, but the ushers were very nice about it, and the first scene is really just exposition.
So, that's the story.
Food-wise I've been spending so much time in the West End that I've been eating a lot of pub grub. Good pub grub though, washed down with cider on draft. Yesterday I did actually have fish and chips, sitting in front of a fire in a lovely pub. We went back to that same pub today for dinner because we were just too tired to go looking for anything else, and I had a great cheese and apple tart with chips. And of course the cider. I think I'll be leaving the West End alone for the rest of my trip, but there was all that theatre stuff and my friend's hotel was right down there on the Strand, so I just found myself there a lot at meal times.
Today I've got some video from the Tower of London from yesterday afternoon, and some pictures from the Tower plus more from the Royal Observatory today.
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| Pilgrim's Progress |
Hamlet Review For Real (now with 50% less squeeing)
So, I've had 6 hours of blissful sleep and am feeling slightly more able to form coherent sentences (slightly).
Firstly, poor Jude Law. He's going to be starring in the Donmar Warehouse's production of Hamlet in a few months, and I am sure that it, and he, will be very good. Perhaps even excellent. The Donmar is a Very Important Theatre Company and Jude Law has the stage chops. However, honestly, he's going to inevitably be compared to Tennant and that is a really unenviable position to be in.
That's because I'm now convinced that David Tennant is a certified genius. And I say that as a fan of Shakespeare more than a fan of him (though I like to think I am a fan of him because he is so unswervingly excellent at whatever he does).
I do believe this may go down as this generation's definitive Hamlet. Not becuase it was so extremely good, but because of the style of it. Every generation takes Shakespeare in a new direction--that's why when we go back and watch, say Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar, it looks and sounds funny to us. Acting styles have shifted and changed since then, even though at that time, it was Brando who was doing the new thing. And in general the progress with Shakespeare has been towards more naturalism and less Declaiming and Proclaiming. Which is perhaps a bit odd becuase the text does sort of cry out for that style at first gloss so you'd think the Declaiming and Proclaiming would be the best way to approach it.
That is, until you see someone who has so conquored the text and made it his own that he speaks the words legitimately as if they were all popping in to his head right at that very second. And then it makes everyone else on the stage look like they are the ones who are doing it wrong, and that this is the way these lines were meant to be performed. This way and no other.
If there was one flaw in the production, that was it: While everyone else was very very good, there was a whiff of that somewhat more "traditional" manner of performance that was brought all the more in to sharp relief by the wholly new spin on it given by Tennant. I could kind of tell that the whole company was trying for that same style, but some were just not able to achieve it. Unfortunately, Patrick Stewart was one of them. I was not overly impressed by his performance. It would have been a standout performance in any other production I think, but he was not able to match a couple of the other performances. Aside from Tennant, Oliver Ford Davies was magnificient as a surprisingly sympathetic Polonius, and Ed Bennett (David's understudy who had been playing Hamlet for three prior weeks) was really very good as Laertes. I think his time as Hamlet perhaps deepened his performance once he got back to Laertes.
But Hamlet is on stage so much, and he's got so much to say, everyone else is sort of inevitably a supporting actor for that role and they kind of fade in to the background.
So, a few points of squee:
First of all, elocution squee. Everyone did very well at not being mush-mouths and Tennant has always had really excellent elocution (his audio book work is like buttah), which is especially amazing considering he was much of the time throwing those lines out there FAST. Really fast. But you could understand every single word he said, clearly. His RP accent wasn't nearly as distracting as I thought it would be, and not as plummy as you sometimes hear actors who are putting on RP for a role do. It actually bordered a bit on the Estuary accent he does for Doctor Who. Not quite, but almost.
500 year old spoilers: I was so drawn in by the production that even though of course we all know what happens, and I've just re-read the play again this week, I found myself actually mouthing, "No don't do it!" and "I can't believe he just said that!" at various points. The whole tone of the production was very much as a modern psychological thriller and the interval happened just as Hamlet raises the dagger over the praying Claudius and says "And now I'll do't!" Yep, it's a cliffhanger!
Mad Hamlet: So of course that's always the big question with Hamlet. Was he really mad, or just faking it? And at what point does he start to go mad for real, if at all? To my eye, what was going on in this production was actually a little from column A and a little from column B. He puts on his madness to a great extent, but his entire plan to do that is in and of itself quite mad. And he starts to completely crack right from when he first sees the ghost, not later.
Audience participateion: Not really, but Hamlet's soliloquies were more than just him talking to himself. FIrst of all, as you can probably surmise from what I've said previously, the soliloquies were all (even the INCREDIBLY famous lines) said as if they were being said for the first time ever in that moment. But more than that, Tennant had the entire audience involved in them. When he asks, "Am I a coward?" it's a legitimate question to all of us, and he pauses there and looks out, daring us to answer. And you want to, he's in such pain, you want to comfort him, you want desperately to answer his questions. And at various other points, he does break the fourth wall slightly for comic effect, especially when talking to the Players and referring to audiences. It's like he knows we're there, but no one else in the play does. It's our little secret with him. Shhh, don't tell.
Humour: All the reviewers had been talking about how funny this Hamlet is, and it really really is. Or I guess at this point, was. It serves to make the tragedy stand out in even sharper relief and quite frankly it makes you adore Hamlet. Productions where Hamlet is just this moaning, emo, dour, dull sod--who cares when he screws up constantly and then dies? Not me. You just kind of go , "Good riddance." Making Hamlet be incredibly witty and sharp draws you to him. You want to take him home and give him some cocoa and tell him it'll all be fine. There was really a general lack of moustache-twirling all around, and all the characters, you could see where they were coming from, why they did the things they did thinking they were doing the right thing. That's why it hurts so much when it all goes horribly wrong.
Okay, I have to get running. We're off to the Greenwich Observatory today and it's a bit of a schlep out there. I'm sure all day I'll be going, "Oh! And! And! And!" I'll be sure to write it all down to report later to you good folks.
Firstly, poor Jude Law. He's going to be starring in the Donmar Warehouse's production of Hamlet in a few months, and I am sure that it, and he, will be very good. Perhaps even excellent. The Donmar is a Very Important Theatre Company and Jude Law has the stage chops. However, honestly, he's going to inevitably be compared to Tennant and that is a really unenviable position to be in.
That's because I'm now convinced that David Tennant is a certified genius. And I say that as a fan of Shakespeare more than a fan of him (though I like to think I am a fan of him because he is so unswervingly excellent at whatever he does).
I do believe this may go down as this generation's definitive Hamlet. Not becuase it was so extremely good, but because of the style of it. Every generation takes Shakespeare in a new direction--that's why when we go back and watch, say Marlon Brando in Julius Caesar, it looks and sounds funny to us. Acting styles have shifted and changed since then, even though at that time, it was Brando who was doing the new thing. And in general the progress with Shakespeare has been towards more naturalism and less Declaiming and Proclaiming. Which is perhaps a bit odd becuase the text does sort of cry out for that style at first gloss so you'd think the Declaiming and Proclaiming would be the best way to approach it.
That is, until you see someone who has so conquored the text and made it his own that he speaks the words legitimately as if they were all popping in to his head right at that very second. And then it makes everyone else on the stage look like they are the ones who are doing it wrong, and that this is the way these lines were meant to be performed. This way and no other.
If there was one flaw in the production, that was it: While everyone else was very very good, there was a whiff of that somewhat more "traditional" manner of performance that was brought all the more in to sharp relief by the wholly new spin on it given by Tennant. I could kind of tell that the whole company was trying for that same style, but some were just not able to achieve it. Unfortunately, Patrick Stewart was one of them. I was not overly impressed by his performance. It would have been a standout performance in any other production I think, but he was not able to match a couple of the other performances. Aside from Tennant, Oliver Ford Davies was magnificient as a surprisingly sympathetic Polonius, and Ed Bennett (David's understudy who had been playing Hamlet for three prior weeks) was really very good as Laertes. I think his time as Hamlet perhaps deepened his performance once he got back to Laertes.
But Hamlet is on stage so much, and he's got so much to say, everyone else is sort of inevitably a supporting actor for that role and they kind of fade in to the background.
So, a few points of squee:
First of all, elocution squee. Everyone did very well at not being mush-mouths and Tennant has always had really excellent elocution (his audio book work is like buttah), which is especially amazing considering he was much of the time throwing those lines out there FAST. Really fast. But you could understand every single word he said, clearly. His RP accent wasn't nearly as distracting as I thought it would be, and not as plummy as you sometimes hear actors who are putting on RP for a role do. It actually bordered a bit on the Estuary accent he does for Doctor Who. Not quite, but almost.
500 year old spoilers: I was so drawn in by the production that even though of course we all know what happens, and I've just re-read the play again this week, I found myself actually mouthing, "No don't do it!" and "I can't believe he just said that!" at various points. The whole tone of the production was very much as a modern psychological thriller and the interval happened just as Hamlet raises the dagger over the praying Claudius and says "And now I'll do't!" Yep, it's a cliffhanger!
Mad Hamlet: So of course that's always the big question with Hamlet. Was he really mad, or just faking it? And at what point does he start to go mad for real, if at all? To my eye, what was going on in this production was actually a little from column A and a little from column B. He puts on his madness to a great extent, but his entire plan to do that is in and of itself quite mad. And he starts to completely crack right from when he first sees the ghost, not later.
Audience participateion: Not really, but Hamlet's soliloquies were more than just him talking to himself. FIrst of all, as you can probably surmise from what I've said previously, the soliloquies were all (even the INCREDIBLY famous lines) said as if they were being said for the first time ever in that moment. But more than that, Tennant had the entire audience involved in them. When he asks, "Am I a coward?" it's a legitimate question to all of us, and he pauses there and looks out, daring us to answer. And you want to, he's in such pain, you want to comfort him, you want desperately to answer his questions. And at various other points, he does break the fourth wall slightly for comic effect, especially when talking to the Players and referring to audiences. It's like he knows we're there, but no one else in the play does. It's our little secret with him. Shhh, don't tell.
Humour: All the reviewers had been talking about how funny this Hamlet is, and it really really is. Or I guess at this point, was. It serves to make the tragedy stand out in even sharper relief and quite frankly it makes you adore Hamlet. Productions where Hamlet is just this moaning, emo, dour, dull sod--who cares when he screws up constantly and then dies? Not me. You just kind of go , "Good riddance." Making Hamlet be incredibly witty and sharp draws you to him. You want to take him home and give him some cocoa and tell him it'll all be fine. There was really a general lack of moustache-twirling all around, and all the characters, you could see where they were coming from, why they did the things they did thinking they were doing the right thing. That's why it hurts so much when it all goes horribly wrong.
Okay, I have to get running. We're off to the Greenwich Observatory today and it's a bit of a schlep out there. I'm sure all day I'll be going, "Oh! And! And! And!" I'll be sure to write it all down to report later to you good folks.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Hamlet! The Main Event!
It's 3:30 in the morning here and I just got in from a bit of an after party but...
HAMLET-SEEING HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED (though there was a series of SNAFUs leading up to it that culminated in me running in my stocking feet 5 blocks to the theatre from the tube station and then arguing with the people at the box office who had lost the ticket that was being held for me there and insisting they had nothing for me, but that's neither here nor there at this point because it all worked out in the end and I only missed the first scene--which I watched on the monitor anyway). ANYWAY.
You guys. YOU GUYS.
No I mean really.
I just....gah. I mean....gah. Brilliant. Genius. Definitive.
The crazy part was that the RSC is a top flight company with amazing actors all and the only one that David Tennant did not blow completely off the stage was Oliver Ford Davies. It was like they were all Excellent but he was up in the stratosphere somewhere. I have never seen Shakespeare performed like that, and I've seen a fair bit of Shakespeare. To call it a revelation would be an understatement. People need to study that performance for years to come.
So, closing night, three curtain calls, everyone in the cast crying, and if they hadn't turned the houselights back up after the third curtain call I think the audience would have just gone on.
I'll tell a much better story tomorrow, I promise.
HAMLET-SEEING HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED (though there was a series of SNAFUs leading up to it that culminated in me running in my stocking feet 5 blocks to the theatre from the tube station and then arguing with the people at the box office who had lost the ticket that was being held for me there and insisting they had nothing for me, but that's neither here nor there at this point because it all worked out in the end and I only missed the first scene--which I watched on the monitor anyway). ANYWAY.
You guys. YOU GUYS.
No I mean really.
I just....gah. I mean....gah. Brilliant. Genius. Definitive.
The crazy part was that the RSC is a top flight company with amazing actors all and the only one that David Tennant did not blow completely off the stage was Oliver Ford Davies. It was like they were all Excellent but he was up in the stratosphere somewhere. I have never seen Shakespeare performed like that, and I've seen a fair bit of Shakespeare. To call it a revelation would be an understatement. People need to study that performance for years to come.
So, closing night, three curtain calls, everyone in the cast crying, and if they hadn't turned the houselights back up after the third curtain call I think the audience would have just gone on.
I'll tell a much better story tomorrow, I promise.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Sorry for the delay in this post, armchair travellers. I schlepped my laptop around with me all day thinking I'd update from some Starbucks or something somewhere, but every single place I went today thinking, "Surely there will be free wireless here" either had no wireless at all or, more frequently, had wireless they'd be happy to let you use, for like 5 quid for an hour. No thanks.
So, this is going to be a fairly huge post, as I've been writing it in a word document even though I've been unable to post it. Let's get in the wayback machine and go back to yesterday (insert squiggly lines of reminiscence):
Friday 8 January
Okay, first day. It’s about 8PM and I am utterly knackered, but in a good way. My hotel roommate gets here in a couple hours and then hopefully I’ll be able to charge my machine and post.
I hopped the tube down to Trafalgar Square, where I did not find a single pigeon, but several very chilly looking seagulls. Everyone here is moaning about the unseasonably cold weather. Meanwhile, my weather widget says it’s 4c here, while in Pittsburgh currently, it’s -4c. I’ll take the 4c, thanks.
Grabbed some take away (it’s always cheaper if you take food out rather than eat in here) from Pret a Manger, which reminded me of when I was 12 and had the epiphany at a railway station here that cheese and tomatoes on baguette is very good and then I walked. And walked and walked and walked and walked. I had lunch at the little park next to the Houses of Parliament, then walked a circuit across Lambeth Bridge, down the Albert Embankment to the Jubilee foot bridge and then round and about in the vicinity of the Embankment tube station (getting slightly lost) but was able to hoof it back to Westminster Cathedral in time for 5pm Evensong, which was really lovely, and I highly recommend it and may go back for it again.
What did bug me though about that was that apparently I, the born and raised atheist, am one of the few people who actually knows how to behave in a house of worship. When you go to Evensong at Westminster, you’re participating, not just a spectator, and there are instructions for what to do that are very easy to understand. People, take your coats off, it is not that cold in there! Take your bloody hats and gloves off! Sit up straight, have a little respect. Cheezy creezy.
On my way in to Evensong I somehow found myself in the actual Westminster college (the private school) grounds. It was dusk, very foggy, and holy cow was that atmospheric! I was just looking around like, “No one would ever believe me if I told them what I was looking at right now.”
[I should note now that as I type this I’m sitting in a Starbucks on St. Pauls Churchyard. I had planned on ponying up the £11 admission to climb all the way up to the top of the dome because it is a lovely clear day here, but when I went in there was a sign saying that it’s closed up there and I don’t have enough time to otherwise get £11 worth of sightseeing out of the cathedral—I’ve got a lunch date in an hour]
Some random observations about London thus far:
• Jaywalking here is completely off the hook. It’s odd, Britons (yes, Londoners even you—go to New York or LA and you’ll see what I mean) are so in to “safety first” and doing things a certain way for the good of the group but everyone jaywalks with complete impunity here. I can understand why—the lights are really really long and don’t necessarily make a lot of sense so people just get impatient and if they don’t see any cars coming they go or it. I was just surprised.
• London seems to have a completely outrageous number of stairs. I would not fancy being disabled here.
• I picked up a paper copy of the Telegraph that had the glowing review of Hamlet in it, but also the Guardian and the Financial Times had equally complementary write-ups. What a shame that they couldn’t be written until the last week of the run, but hooray for me getting to see it! By all accounts it is one of the great Hamlets of the age and I expect Tennant will be listed next to Rylance and Branagh before too long. And I can say I was there.
• Last night I discovered an adorable Japanese take-away a block from the hotel, run by actual Japanese people, which is a bit surprising. Soba noodle soup with a slice of bean curd skin in it. It was delicious and just what I needed after my long day (days?) yesterday.
• Dad, I trod over Charles Lyell at Westminster Cathedral on my way out from Evensong last night, just for you.
• In huge contrast to Pittsburgh in the winter, it is so humid here right now, my hair is in curls!
• You know how American stars often do commercials in other countries so they can make extra dough with losing street cred? I just saw Iggy Pop shilling for an insurance company. I have no reason to lie about this.
Friday 9 January
Slept in until 9:30 this morning and it was glorious. I think I have jet lag well and truly licked. Take that, jet lag! All I needed to do was stay up for 36 hours straight! No problem!
As I hinted above, I’ve got lunch with Jen and Caro and Caz at 12:30 so we can treat Caz in thanks for her queuing to get us Hamlet tickets back in September. Having gotten up late-ish and then farted around on the computer for a few minutes, that didn’t leave much time to do something for real before lunch so I just decided to start walking and wing it. I thought I’d walk to the Farringdon tube stop and then come down to the Museum of London or St. Pauls Cathedral, but I somehow managed to walk right by the station and next thing I knew I was all the way down in the City around Fleet Street. I’ve got a little bit of video diary (which I’ll post later) from a church I found there (St. Brides). Walked up to St. Pauls as I said above and now I’m in Starbucks.
I stopped at a little bodega on the way to get some OJ, which I’m happy to report is labelled as either containing “juicy bit” or “no bits”. I’ll take mine with no bits, ta. I had to have my daily Emergen-C dose, don’t you know (normally I have it in grapefruit juice, but I have yet to see such a thing in this country so OJ will have to do) because I’m going to just be a complete pseudoscientist and attribute my extremely long streak of excellent health this year to drinking that every morning.
Another random observation, and this is extremely important and utterly dismaying: THERE IS NO CREAM FOR MY TEA AT THE STARBUCKS. I can have whole milk or skim milk. *grumpy*
I’m either rubbish as a tourist or completely awesome because really what I like doing most is just walking around. I haven’t actually been “in” anywhere really, except for Evensong at Westminster. I think I like the outsides of things more than the insides. I like architecture but I think I also just like seeing how things fit together. When you’re inside, you lose the context of the rest of the city, and really you could be anywhere. When you’re on the outside, you can’t forget where you are.
London so far is the only city I’ve ever been to that challenges my Pittsburgh-honed sense of direction and ability to deal with streets that make no sense. I’ve done pretty well though and don’t have to consult my stealth map too much (the one in my London Moleskine, which just looks like a black blank notebook).
All right, I think it’s time to suit back up and march down to Aldwych for lunch. Maybe Jen’s hotel will have internet
[Later]
Lunch was at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese with a bunch of fangirls. I made a poor menu selection (despite the name of the pub, the cheese plate leaves a lot to be desired), but I ate a lot of Caz's chips, which were glorious, and I also had a pint of cider, which was also glorious and left me buzzed and frequently in urgent need of a toilet for several hours afterwards. The pub itself is rather indicative of a problem I keep having here: to me anything that even looks Ye Olde (let alone acutally having Ye Olde in the name!) screams "TOURIST TRAP! STAY AWAY!" The problem is, here things really are often legitimatly Ye Olde, and I can't tell the differernce between the two. Everyone else's food looked (and from what I had, tasted) quite good, so it was just a poor choice on my part and not indicative of anything wrong or tourist-trappy about the pub. Anyway, it's an old haunt of both Dr. Johnson and Dickens and we had a very good time having a bit of a group squee.
I left everyone else at that point to go to the Museum of London before it closed, so back down to St. Pauls with me (and once again I walked the whole way--by 5 in the evening I hadn't set foot on the tube once today). The Museum is quite nice, and I went on a guided tour of their mid 17th century collection (encompassing the end of the Elizabethan era, the English civil war, and the Restoration). I must say, our tour guide? Adorkable. I wanted to pinch his cheeks.
My next mission was to find Forbidden Planet, which the geeks here will already know about, but which is a large speciality shop for, well, geeks. I wanted to see what Doctor Who merchandise they had, though I do plan on going to the Stamp Centre tomorrow (Jen and I popped round there before dinner after it was closed and peeped in the windows). I got hopelessly lost in that quest, however. Not in a bad way, just....lost. Coming up from the Underground just turns me around and my normal good sense of direction disappears. However in the case my lostness took me on a brilliant walk through Soho, Chinatown, and dumped me out at Picadilly Circus. It was all quite fascinating.
I did finally locate Forbidden Planet and, while I didn't get any Who merchandise there, I did get a signed copy of The Writers Tale. See? Everyone told me to get it from Amazon and that if I got it over here I'd not want to schlep it back to the states, but you don't get signed copies of it off Amazon, now do you?
I went back to Jen's hotel right in the thick of the West End (about a block from the Novello Theatre) and met her for some dinner. Of course I'd seen oodles of wonderful looking Thai, Chinese and Japanese restaurants as I'd been walking around the area earlier, but once I actually wanted to eat something, they all disappeared. Amazing how that happens. We wound up having Indian which was outrageously overpriced, but I was hungry and it was there.
The walk back to the hotel from Farringdon seemed interminable and it is now at this time of night legitimately cold (-2c by my widget) but something in me just refuses to take a cab. Though I suspect we'll have to tomorrow, as after Hamlet we're going to a party and will be out late.
Also have plans to do Tower of London tomorrow morning/afternoon with Jen. Which means I have to get to bed very soon. So, here are your multimedia presentations for the day:
And the Picasa album is updated:
So, this is going to be a fairly huge post, as I've been writing it in a word document even though I've been unable to post it. Let's get in the wayback machine and go back to yesterday (insert squiggly lines of reminiscence):
Friday 8 January
Okay, first day. It’s about 8PM and I am utterly knackered, but in a good way. My hotel roommate gets here in a couple hours and then hopefully I’ll be able to charge my machine and post.
I hopped the tube down to Trafalgar Square, where I did not find a single pigeon, but several very chilly looking seagulls. Everyone here is moaning about the unseasonably cold weather. Meanwhile, my weather widget says it’s 4c here, while in Pittsburgh currently, it’s -4c. I’ll take the 4c, thanks.
Grabbed some take away (it’s always cheaper if you take food out rather than eat in here) from Pret a Manger, which reminded me of when I was 12 and had the epiphany at a railway station here that cheese and tomatoes on baguette is very good and then I walked. And walked and walked and walked and walked. I had lunch at the little park next to the Houses of Parliament, then walked a circuit across Lambeth Bridge, down the Albert Embankment to the Jubilee foot bridge and then round and about in the vicinity of the Embankment tube station (getting slightly lost) but was able to hoof it back to Westminster Cathedral in time for 5pm Evensong, which was really lovely, and I highly recommend it and may go back for it again.
What did bug me though about that was that apparently I, the born and raised atheist, am one of the few people who actually knows how to behave in a house of worship. When you go to Evensong at Westminster, you’re participating, not just a spectator, and there are instructions for what to do that are very easy to understand. People, take your coats off, it is not that cold in there! Take your bloody hats and gloves off! Sit up straight, have a little respect. Cheezy creezy.
On my way in to Evensong I somehow found myself in the actual Westminster college (the private school) grounds. It was dusk, very foggy, and holy cow was that atmospheric! I was just looking around like, “No one would ever believe me if I told them what I was looking at right now.”
[I should note now that as I type this I’m sitting in a Starbucks on St. Pauls Churchyard. I had planned on ponying up the £11 admission to climb all the way up to the top of the dome because it is a lovely clear day here, but when I went in there was a sign saying that it’s closed up there and I don’t have enough time to otherwise get £11 worth of sightseeing out of the cathedral—I’ve got a lunch date in an hour]
Some random observations about London thus far:
• Jaywalking here is completely off the hook. It’s odd, Britons (yes, Londoners even you—go to New York or LA and you’ll see what I mean) are so in to “safety first” and doing things a certain way for the good of the group but everyone jaywalks with complete impunity here. I can understand why—the lights are really really long and don’t necessarily make a lot of sense so people just get impatient and if they don’t see any cars coming they go or it. I was just surprised.
• London seems to have a completely outrageous number of stairs. I would not fancy being disabled here.
• I picked up a paper copy of the Telegraph that had the glowing review of Hamlet in it, but also the Guardian and the Financial Times had equally complementary write-ups. What a shame that they couldn’t be written until the last week of the run, but hooray for me getting to see it! By all accounts it is one of the great Hamlets of the age and I expect Tennant will be listed next to Rylance and Branagh before too long. And I can say I was there.
• Last night I discovered an adorable Japanese take-away a block from the hotel, run by actual Japanese people, which is a bit surprising. Soba noodle soup with a slice of bean curd skin in it. It was delicious and just what I needed after my long day (days?) yesterday.
• Dad, I trod over Charles Lyell at Westminster Cathedral on my way out from Evensong last night, just for you.
• In huge contrast to Pittsburgh in the winter, it is so humid here right now, my hair is in curls!
• You know how American stars often do commercials in other countries so they can make extra dough with losing street cred? I just saw Iggy Pop shilling for an insurance company. I have no reason to lie about this.
Friday 9 January
Slept in until 9:30 this morning and it was glorious. I think I have jet lag well and truly licked. Take that, jet lag! All I needed to do was stay up for 36 hours straight! No problem!
As I hinted above, I’ve got lunch with Jen and Caro and Caz at 12:30 so we can treat Caz in thanks for her queuing to get us Hamlet tickets back in September. Having gotten up late-ish and then farted around on the computer for a few minutes, that didn’t leave much time to do something for real before lunch so I just decided to start walking and wing it. I thought I’d walk to the Farringdon tube stop and then come down to the Museum of London or St. Pauls Cathedral, but I somehow managed to walk right by the station and next thing I knew I was all the way down in the City around Fleet Street. I’ve got a little bit of video diary (which I’ll post later) from a church I found there (St. Brides). Walked up to St. Pauls as I said above and now I’m in Starbucks.
I stopped at a little bodega on the way to get some OJ, which I’m happy to report is labelled as either containing “juicy bit” or “no bits”. I’ll take mine with no bits, ta. I had to have my daily Emergen-C dose, don’t you know (normally I have it in grapefruit juice, but I have yet to see such a thing in this country so OJ will have to do) because I’m going to just be a complete pseudoscientist and attribute my extremely long streak of excellent health this year to drinking that every morning.
Another random observation, and this is extremely important and utterly dismaying: THERE IS NO CREAM FOR MY TEA AT THE STARBUCKS. I can have whole milk or skim milk. *grumpy*
I’m either rubbish as a tourist or completely awesome because really what I like doing most is just walking around. I haven’t actually been “in” anywhere really, except for Evensong at Westminster. I think I like the outsides of things more than the insides. I like architecture but I think I also just like seeing how things fit together. When you’re inside, you lose the context of the rest of the city, and really you could be anywhere. When you’re on the outside, you can’t forget where you are.
London so far is the only city I’ve ever been to that challenges my Pittsburgh-honed sense of direction and ability to deal with streets that make no sense. I’ve done pretty well though and don’t have to consult my stealth map too much (the one in my London Moleskine, which just looks like a black blank notebook).
All right, I think it’s time to suit back up and march down to Aldwych for lunch. Maybe Jen’s hotel will have internet
[Later]
Lunch was at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese with a bunch of fangirls. I made a poor menu selection (despite the name of the pub, the cheese plate leaves a lot to be desired), but I ate a lot of Caz's chips, which were glorious, and I also had a pint of cider, which was also glorious and left me buzzed and frequently in urgent need of a toilet for several hours afterwards. The pub itself is rather indicative of a problem I keep having here: to me anything that even looks Ye Olde (let alone acutally having Ye Olde in the name!) screams "TOURIST TRAP! STAY AWAY!" The problem is, here things really are often legitimatly Ye Olde, and I can't tell the differernce between the two. Everyone else's food looked (and from what I had, tasted) quite good, so it was just a poor choice on my part and not indicative of anything wrong or tourist-trappy about the pub. Anyway, it's an old haunt of both Dr. Johnson and Dickens and we had a very good time having a bit of a group squee.
I left everyone else at that point to go to the Museum of London before it closed, so back down to St. Pauls with me (and once again I walked the whole way--by 5 in the evening I hadn't set foot on the tube once today). The Museum is quite nice, and I went on a guided tour of their mid 17th century collection (encompassing the end of the Elizabethan era, the English civil war, and the Restoration). I must say, our tour guide? Adorkable. I wanted to pinch his cheeks.
My next mission was to find Forbidden Planet, which the geeks here will already know about, but which is a large speciality shop for, well, geeks. I wanted to see what Doctor Who merchandise they had, though I do plan on going to the Stamp Centre tomorrow (Jen and I popped round there before dinner after it was closed and peeped in the windows). I got hopelessly lost in that quest, however. Not in a bad way, just....lost. Coming up from the Underground just turns me around and my normal good sense of direction disappears. However in the case my lostness took me on a brilliant walk through Soho, Chinatown, and dumped me out at Picadilly Circus. It was all quite fascinating.
I did finally locate Forbidden Planet and, while I didn't get any Who merchandise there, I did get a signed copy of The Writers Tale. See? Everyone told me to get it from Amazon and that if I got it over here I'd not want to schlep it back to the states, but you don't get signed copies of it off Amazon, now do you?
I went back to Jen's hotel right in the thick of the West End (about a block from the Novello Theatre) and met her for some dinner. Of course I'd seen oodles of wonderful looking Thai, Chinese and Japanese restaurants as I'd been walking around the area earlier, but once I actually wanted to eat something, they all disappeared. Amazing how that happens. We wound up having Indian which was outrageously overpriced, but I was hungry and it was there.
The walk back to the hotel from Farringdon seemed interminable and it is now at this time of night legitimately cold (-2c by my widget) but something in me just refuses to take a cab. Though I suspect we'll have to tomorrow, as after Hamlet we're going to a party and will be out late.
Also have plans to do Tower of London tomorrow morning/afternoon with Jen. Which means I have to get to bed very soon. So, here are your multimedia presentations for the day:
And the Picasa album is updated:
 |
| Pilgrim's Progress |
Thursday, January 8, 2009
London in multi-media form.
I'll post an actual narrative of what I did today (and I did a lot!) tomorrow. But for now, have some video and some photos. Note in the video how I flub the names of the bridges. For the record, the bridge I call Waterloo is Lambeth, and the funky looking one I can never remember the name of is the Jubilee pedestrian bridge. The actual Waterloo Bridge is beyond that.
And if you click on this picture, it'll take you to my photo album.
And if you click on this picture, it'll take you to my photo album.
 |
| Pilgrim's Progress |
Phew! Made it!
Firmly ensconced in hotel room now and getting ready to bathe (OMG) and then run out for some additional toiletries. And then it's Operation Avoid Jetlag by doing something so OMGEXCITING that I do not fall asleep until an appropriate time.
I'm still trying to preserve laptop power juice so I'll try and make this brief.
First of all, very impressed with Heathrow. I'm as impressed with Heathrow as I am unimpressed with Dulles.
I had a middle seat on my flight and got pretty much no sleep. So I'm going on about 24 hours with no sleep now and we'll see if I can make it to 36.
I must however report the conversation I had with the border security chap. It was so LOL.
Me and Him: [various talk of passports and logistics and whatnot]
Him: And what hotel are you staying at?
Me: Travelodge in Farringdon
Him: Any reason you picked that one?
Me: Cheap.
Him: Is it close to things that you're doing?
Me: Well, we're seeing Hamlet on Saturday and it's close-ish to that.
Him: Is that why you came over?
Me: Well, that and sightseeing. Well, that. Yes.
Him [smirking]: Any particular actor you're coming to see?
Me: David Tennant!
Him: So you're a Doctor Who fan, are you?
Me: Oh yes.
Him: And Shakespeare?
Me: Oh yes! I was an English major, and, well, my name you see. It all kind of goes together.
Me and Him: [proceed to gossip about Doctor Who and David Tennant's career and the new Eleventh Doctor for like 5 minutes]
Him: And do you watch the spin off shows?
Me: Well, I kind of watch Torchwood, but it's not very good is it?
Him: No, it's not. Well, enjoy your stay in Great Britain!
HA!
The tube ride in to town was long but painless. I am a Scot so I of course refused to pay the 17 pounds for the Heathrow Express when I could use my already prepaid Oyster card for the tube. Finding my hotel was a bit of an ordeal, but only because the roads right outside of Kings Cross are completely mad. I found my way soon enough.
So, now to shower and make myself in to a human being again.
Also, check out this new review of Hamlet from the Telegraph:
"With not a single weak performance in the supporting roles, and a modern-dress staging by Gregory Doran that achieves the hurtling intensity of a thriller, this is now without doubt one of the finest productions of Hamlet I have ever seen, led by an actor of courage and charisma who has made a persuasive claim to true greatness."
I'm still trying to preserve laptop power juice so I'll try and make this brief.
First of all, very impressed with Heathrow. I'm as impressed with Heathrow as I am unimpressed with Dulles.
I had a middle seat on my flight and got pretty much no sleep. So I'm going on about 24 hours with no sleep now and we'll see if I can make it to 36.
I must however report the conversation I had with the border security chap. It was so LOL.
Me and Him: [various talk of passports and logistics and whatnot]
Him: And what hotel are you staying at?
Me: Travelodge in Farringdon
Him: Any reason you picked that one?
Me: Cheap.
Him: Is it close to things that you're doing?
Me: Well, we're seeing Hamlet on Saturday and it's close-ish to that.
Him: Is that why you came over?
Me: Well, that and sightseeing. Well, that. Yes.
Him [smirking]: Any particular actor you're coming to see?
Me: David Tennant!
Him: So you're a Doctor Who fan, are you?
Me: Oh yes.
Him: And Shakespeare?
Me: Oh yes! I was an English major, and, well, my name you see. It all kind of goes together.
Me and Him: [proceed to gossip about Doctor Who and David Tennant's career and the new Eleventh Doctor for like 5 minutes]
Him: And do you watch the spin off shows?
Me: Well, I kind of watch Torchwood, but it's not very good is it?
Him: No, it's not. Well, enjoy your stay in Great Britain!
HA!
The tube ride in to town was long but painless. I am a Scot so I of course refused to pay the 17 pounds for the Heathrow Express when I could use my already prepaid Oyster card for the tube. Finding my hotel was a bit of an ordeal, but only because the roads right outside of Kings Cross are completely mad. I found my way soon enough.
So, now to shower and make myself in to a human being again.
Also, check out this new review of Hamlet from the Telegraph:
"With not a single weak performance in the supporting roles, and a modern-dress staging by Gregory Doran that achieves the hurtling intensity of a thriller, this is now without doubt one of the finest productions of Hamlet I have ever seen, led by an actor of courage and charisma who has made a persuasive claim to true greatness."
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Stupid things that have happened thus far....
Of course, as stupid as they are, I have boarding passes in hand all the way to London and am sitting at my gate in Pittsburgh, so all the important stuff is fine. I left the office ridiculously early because I was afraid there would be some to-do over my ticketing weirdness, so now I've got about 90 minutes before they even start boarding. Anyway....
1. Cheaptickets.com very quietly and without actually notifying me changed my flights around. If I hadn't been such a squee-filled geek today obsessing over my trip, I never would have noticed that my flight to Dulles had been changed to two hours earlier than the one I had before.
2. I left my laptop cable at the office! GAH! I do have a 6 hour layover at Dulles though, which may be enough time for me to flee to a Best Buy and get another. And of course, I have a Mac so the only people that carry the power cables are Apple stores because Apple is just like that. If I had a PC I could have purchased a cable here at the airport. Or I shall just have to suck it up and disconnect myself from the internet (horrors!). My hotel roommate also has a MacBook and we can share cables when I get there.
3. I failed to pack a hairbrush. Have purchased a new one.
4. I chug-a-lugged my tea prior to going through security. After going through security, I dropped my travel mug and broke it.
I haven't flown since the nineties and crimini the Pittsburgh International Airport is dead. Last time I was out here, it was a bustling hub. Now it's this giant empty building. I got through check-in and security in a grand total of 15 minutes.
And now, must preserve precious battery life. I guess I'll have to read Hamlet or something!
1. Cheaptickets.com very quietly and without actually notifying me changed my flights around. If I hadn't been such a squee-filled geek today obsessing over my trip, I never would have noticed that my flight to Dulles had been changed to two hours earlier than the one I had before.
2. I left my laptop cable at the office! GAH! I do have a 6 hour layover at Dulles though, which may be enough time for me to flee to a Best Buy and get another. And of course, I have a Mac so the only people that carry the power cables are Apple stores because Apple is just like that. If I had a PC I could have purchased a cable here at the airport. Or I shall just have to suck it up and disconnect myself from the internet (horrors!). My hotel roommate also has a MacBook and we can share cables when I get there.
3. I failed to pack a hairbrush. Have purchased a new one.
4. I chug-a-lugged my tea prior to going through security. After going through security, I dropped my travel mug and broke it.
I haven't flown since the nineties and crimini the Pittsburgh International Airport is dead. Last time I was out here, it was a bustling hub. Now it's this giant empty building. I got through check-in and security in a grand total of 15 minutes.
And now, must preserve precious battery life. I guess I'll have to read Hamlet or something!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
24 Hours
This time tomorrow and I'll be on a bus to the airport!
So far so good with David Tennant's back--he hasn't had to miss any performances since his return, and everyone seems to be loving him. Frantically making plans with people I need to meet when I get there. I'm going to attempt some mobile phone jiggery-pokery that will allow me to have a local London number while I'm there, but I'm in no way going to rely on that actually happening.
Paris trip looks doubtful. I've been checking the Eurostar website and the cheap tickets seem to be disappearing. I'll still stop by the terminal when I get in on Thursday and inquire in person, however.
And basically I can't concentrate at all on my work and am just sitting here bouncing in my chair. I've got a to-do list a mile long and I can't keep my head in the game long enough to get much accomplished.
Are we there yet?
So far so good with David Tennant's back--he hasn't had to miss any performances since his return, and everyone seems to be loving him. Frantically making plans with people I need to meet when I get there. I'm going to attempt some mobile phone jiggery-pokery that will allow me to have a local London number while I'm there, but I'm in no way going to rely on that actually happening.
Paris trip looks doubtful. I've been checking the Eurostar website and the cheap tickets seem to be disappearing. I'll still stop by the terminal when I get in on Thursday and inquire in person, however.
And basically I can't concentrate at all on my work and am just sitting here bouncing in my chair. I've got a to-do list a mile long and I can't keep my head in the game long enough to get much accomplished.
Are we there yet?
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Wha'? I'm going somewhere?
Welcome one and all. 
As you may have heard (though certainly it wouldn't have been from me!) I am going to London next week. I plan on uploading pictures and video to this blog, so those of you so inclined can play along at home.
So, what prompted this madness? And what am I going to do when I get there?
Well, the answer to question #1 is multifaceted. Who would turn down a trip to London? Not I. But why now, exactly?
That answer is found in my January 10 ticket to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet.
Getting the ticket was a saga in and of itself, considering the West End run of the production sold out in three hours (and the Stratford-upon-Avon run was sold out long before I even conceived of going). This is the biggest stage production going on in London right now, starring Patrick Stewart as Claudius and David Tennant as Hamlet.
And then two days before the West End press night, David Tennant had to pull out of the show and have emergency surgery on his back. The production was only scheduled for 33 performances (there had already been over 60 in Stratford) and it seemed quite likely that he would not be able to return to the stage and I'd be travelling all that way to see his understudy.
As of this evening, however, Tennant is back on stage as Hamlet. We'll see if he can keep that up through the final week of the run--my 10 January ticket is for closing night.
So, aside from that, what else am I doing?
Well, given that I am going sans my husband, that's really up to me! There are so many options I don't know where to begin. So, pending on my personal whims and how my finances hold up and availability of tickets, so far the list of possibilities includes:
And of course luxuriating in the homeland of Doctor Who where people actually will know what I'm talking about, and purchasing very silly Doctor Who merchandise (Dalek bubble bath, anyone?).
So, stay tuned. I'll be fully equipped with laptop, video camera and digital camera while there. I hope to have a few goodies to post every day. :) Enjoy!
As you may have heard (though certainly it wouldn't have been from me!) I am going to London next week. I plan on uploading pictures and video to this blog, so those of you so inclined can play along at home.
So, what prompted this madness? And what am I going to do when I get there?
Well, the answer to question #1 is multifaceted. Who would turn down a trip to London? Not I. But why now, exactly?
That answer is found in my January 10 ticket to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet.
Getting the ticket was a saga in and of itself, considering the West End run of the production sold out in three hours (and the Stratford-upon-Avon run was sold out long before I even conceived of going). This is the biggest stage production going on in London right now, starring Patrick Stewart as Claudius and David Tennant as Hamlet.
And then two days before the West End press night, David Tennant had to pull out of the show and have emergency surgery on his back. The production was only scheduled for 33 performances (there had already been over 60 in Stratford) and it seemed quite likely that he would not be able to return to the stage and I'd be travelling all that way to see his understudy.
As of this evening, however, Tennant is back on stage as Hamlet. We'll see if he can keep that up through the final week of the run--my 10 January ticket is for closing night.
So, aside from that, what else am I doing?
Well, given that I am going sans my husband, that's really up to me! There are so many options I don't know where to begin. So, pending on my personal whims and how my finances hold up and availability of tickets, so far the list of possibilities includes:
- Snagging a cheapo day-of seat for Derek Jacobi in Twelth Night at the Donmar Warehouse
- Visiting the Royal Observatory at Greenwich
- Taking a day trip (!!!) to Gay Paris via Eurostar's current fare sale (59GBP round trip--can't beat that with a stick!)
- Taking a day trip to Cambridge (this is less a "possibility" than a requirement)
- Eating a tremendous amount of curry and drinking a lot of hard cider
And of course luxuriating in the homeland of Doctor Who where people actually will know what I'm talking about, and purchasing very silly Doctor Who merchandise (Dalek bubble bath, anyone?).
So, stay tuned. I'll be fully equipped with laptop, video camera and digital camera while there. I hope to have a few goodies to post every day. :) Enjoy!
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