Not that I’m ungrateful. That’s the hardest part, because we really are doing a lot of incredible things. First world problems, right here.
I’ve also found that D. Nix’s schedule for our outings is about as concrete as mine, which means that things change a lot on a whim; I’m going to try to stop saying things like “tomorrow we’re going to INSERT PLACE IN LONDON,” since it more often than not ends up being wrong.
Today, we did not go on the tour of Samuel Johnson’s house. We didn’t even go to the British Museum. After class, we went to London and walked towards St. Paul’s and the Thames, stopping at the National Portrait Gallery just outside of Trafalgar Square. It was the first such portrait gallery in the world when it opened more than a century ago, and today it hosts paintings and photographs of influential Brits, from William the Conqueror to Mick Jagger.
The contemporary shots were some of the first ones that we saw, and so at first I didn’t really get the point. Couldn’t you just Google Image these people and see the same thing? Maybe I just don’t get photography. Once I moved upstairs though, I saw these vast rooms of paintings that started with the Tudors and went right through English history. There were a few originals that I even recognized from, well, Google Images. Like this shot of Shakespeare, which apparently, of all the images of the Bard, is the one that was most likely painted from life:
During this foray into the portrait gallery, I remembered how much I found the story of the Monarchy, especially around era of the War of the Roses and Henry VIII, really interesting, and how little I actually knew about it (I could only rhyme off half of Henry’s wives). I picked up a cool book called Kings & Queens that might whet the appetite I forgot I had.
Plus, 15th century English politics is basically Game of Thrones. One of the main houses was even called the Lancasters.
History had douches too - though none this big
Headed back to the National Theatre – just a hop, skip, and a jump away across the Thames – for Mike Leigh in Conversation. The setup was different from what I expected, since there were probably a few hundred people in the auditorium – not exactly intimate Q&A. Mike Leigh responded much like a lot of people do in interviews; that is, giving semi-vague, semi-intelligent responses, with a lot of contemplative umm’s and ahh’s for good measure. It was only an hour, so there weren’t exactly any epiphanies, but it was still worthwhile since he focused a decent bit on Grief, which we saw last week.
Had planned to come back to Harlow then, but there ended up being seats left for press night at The Veil in Lyttelton Theatre, one of the venues within the National Theatre. We dashed from Mike Leigh (good thing we were sitting in the back) down a couple flights of stairs to get our seats for this show before the lights went out.
When I watched Dinner for Schmucks on the plane trip to London, I had the option to stop watching, which I did. I couldn’t really walk out of the theatre on this one. In the intermission I got a tea and tried to get in a better mood, but I couldn’t bring it back with me in the theatre, so I tried to chug it and burned my tongue. Damn it all you first world problems.
The play was set up as a creepy, 19th century ghost story in Ireland. The set was cool, the lighting set the mood, and the costumes were right out of Dracula. The story itself – well, crap doesn’t really get at the core of crappiness. I was majorly disappointed, maybe because I saw the Gothic setup and thought it was going to be great.
One of the actors forgot his lines at one point and had to give the dreaded “Line!” cue to a guy in the back, reading the script. I know it’s an early run of the show, but it definitely needs some work. I think, in all fairness, the script might have been better than the performance, and that there were some subtleties that didn’t come out in the acting. It could have been scary – might have even been terrifying – if I cared one little bit about the characters, or believed in the hauntings that were supposedly taking place.
As it was though, the best part was when there was a loud bang from offstage, and everyone jumped; at least then I had some emotional response to what I was seeing.
It wasn’t even good enough to give me nightmares tonight. We were talking about Are You Afraid of the Dark? on the train to London this morning, and that was more terrifying (and, well, all around better) than The Veil. At this point, though, that’s an unlooked-for blessing; it’s been a long day, and tomorrow is going to be just as long (I’m not going to say what we’re doing, since it’s just going to be wrong anyway), and I needs me some sleep.
Cheers,
rb
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