London Theatre Trip Day 1

Sorry this took a while to post, I know it's Wednesday and I said I'd try to post on Monday...my excuse is that I've been sick since Sunday, so lay down the torches and pitchforks.

Anyway, last Friday, my sister and I woke up at the unflattering hour of 5:30 AM. We met up with the other 36 people (including four teachers) at the Bahnhof, where we caught a train to Zürich Flughafen. Us seniors were outnumbered, there were only eight of us (supposed to be nine, but one had a fever and didn't go), as opposed to a squillion juniors (I have math next period, don't ask me to do any extra).

Being glamorous and Swiss and all the rest of it, we flew EasyJet (such splendor), thankfully into Gatwick, not Heathrow. Heathrow would have been a dog's breakfast what with the Paralympics going on. We took the Gatwick Express (ooh sounds fancy) to London Victoria, and then the super-clean Underground. It was entertaining seeing all the judgemental looks we were getting from Londoners as nearly forty people with luggage commandeered their public transport system. I swear, the staff monitoring the ticket gates must get so sick of holding gates open for tourists. Poor souls.

Once we all managed to get off at the right tube stop, it was a short walk to our extremely high-end hotel (if you want to Google it, it's the King's Hotel). I won't go into the gory details, but the advantage of staying in cheap accommodation meant we got to do more stuff while keeping the cost of the trip down. So once we'd rid ourselves of our luggage, off we were to the British Library.

Let me tell you, as we walked through the front gate, many of us bookworms (myself included) were full on fangirling over what might be inside. Needless to say, we all raced inside, first destination on the map being the Holy Grail original handwritten manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It was like my entire childhood in a glass case. It was amazing. JK's handwriting is as shocking as mine, which made it difficult to read what had been crossed out, but anyway. And there were lots of doodles of hearts in the margins. Super cool. I think about a dozen of us just stood there for about ten minutes just fawning over it. You could almost feel the legacy radiating off it.

We ate afternoon tea in the Library café right next to this wall of books. So much knowlege in one place!

Also in the British Library: The Magna Carta, manuscripts from all over the world, plus some from some awesome authors such as Dickens, Chaucer, Tolkein, and more. There were also a lot of reading rooms which were more like your everyday library, but those required a pass, and we didn't have a pass, so I couldn't go drool over all the medical textbooks. Next time, perhaps.

Another cool thing at the library: a little shack out the front where you can take a picture with a genuine London 2012 Olympic torch, completely free of charge! Can you imagine, something Olympics-realted that's free? I had to pinch myself. So of course, we all pretended we were torchbearers for thirty seconds. It was a highlight for me, being a sports nut and all.

Next stop after the library was dinner, and then the Haymarket Theatre Royal to see the superb comedy, One Man Two Guvnors. Now, if you're in London and you have a few hours spare, I highly recommend going to see this. I haven't laughed that much in a long time. A big part of the performance was the skiffle band The Craze, who were very charismatic and wonderful performers.

As for the play itself, it's set in 1963 in Brighton, and it's more or less about this guy, Francis Henshall (Owain Arthur), who is separately employed under two different people who have no idea that their employee has a second job.  Francis' motivation here is to earn more money because he hasn't eaten for 16 hours and can't afford some chips and a pint. So to keep his two jobs, he attempts to prevent his two employers from meeting each other, but in the end, it turns out they already know each other (quite well in fact) and will eventually see each other anyway.

Owain Arthur (Francis Henshall) and Jodie Prenger (Dolly) in One Man Two Guvnors. Image source: http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/industry-insight/article/getting-started-in-acting

A major theme in the performance is the continuous breakdown of the fourth wall (for those who don't know what that is, Google it). The characters frequently speak in asides to the audience, and there are several instances where Francis interacts directly with the audience, even calling up "audience" members on stage to aid in the performance. Hysterically funny. The showing that we watched involved an unscripted part where Francis asked the audience if anyone had a sandwich, and some random guy yelled back that he had a hommus sandwich. Being Brighton in '63, they didn't have hommus, so this was very befuddling to poor Francis who is easily confused anyway. The actor lost composure for a while and had a laugh, improvised a bit, and then told the guy who'd replied that they weren't real questions and he wasn't supposed to have answered. Whoops.

By the time the play finished, it was about 10pm, so it was a tube ride home and bedtime for little people.

Day 2 coming up soon!

NOTE: No pictures in this post are mine. They would be mine, but I have ah, misplaced my camera (more about that later in a request I got today for a post about the recent Wengen trip). Credit goes to the lovely and talented individuals who took the photos (I'd credit them by name, but they're entitled to their privacy, unless I sourced them online, in which case, the source is credited).