Wednesday 20 August 2008

Another day in olde London towne

This morning started with a tube ride to Victoria Station where we emerged to walk past the mews to the Buckingham Palace tours. These tours are something relatively new, offering a glimpse of the opulence and history of the interior public areas of the palace. No pictures are allowed inside, so the best I can offer is of the back of the palace from the garden.


From the palace we headed back toward Victoria Station where we grabbed a very tasty sandwich in Cardinal Place at a shop simply called EAT.



From here we went over to locate the Apollo Victoria Theatre to make sure we could find it to see 'Wicked' tonight. So often we have found that when you're trying to locate a landmark in a strange city you turn a corner a WHAM! - there's the Eiffel Tower -- WHOA! - there's Stonehenge -- WOW! - isn't that St. Paul's. Well, same deal with the Apollo Victoria Theatre - around the corner from Victoria Station and BOOM! - there's the theatre.



Confident that we could find our way to the theatre this evening we contemplated what to do for the next 6 hours. We started with a trip to Harrods - what a store!! Everything from fresh vegetables to a Bosendorfer piano for £51,000. Our only purchase was a Krispy Kreme donut and a coffee. From Harrods we took the tube to the Victoria and Albert Museum. If you want to know what's at the V&A, read Rick Steves. There's really no thread or plan to these exhibits - just a vast collection of stuff that British monarchs thought ought to be in a museum.


We then headed back to the Victoria Station area and had dinner at 'The Shakespeare', a pub noted for its fish & chips (which were excellent, btw). After a leisurely dinner (another way of describing slow service), we headed to 'Wicked'. It was awesome and that's not a word I use lightly. Being familiar with (having performed) some of the music and intimately familiar with 'The Wizard of Oz', it was spell-binding.


Two little asides here regarding theatre: 1) I realize they want to sell you a souvenir programme but every patron should receive a free programme which lists the cast, production crew, orchestra, etc. 2) When did it become OK to come into a theatre at any point in a show and get up and leave and come and go like it's a rock concert? Whatever happened to 'latecomers will be seated at a suitable break in the show'? I felt especially sorry for the person who got up just as 'Defying Gravity' began at the end of Act I. I hope she was please to be first in line at the bar, because she missed one of the most spectacular events in London theatre this year. However, that said, we thoroughly enjoyed the show although when we stayed and applauded the orchestra at the end people around us looked at us like we were from another planet. Here's a little teaser, taken during a legal moment:

4 comments:

Serdic said...

Hmm... I do believe I saw that scene recently. Still, if you tried that in Ottawa, the NAC ushers would call in their Brute Squad, complete with drunken Spaniard.

Almost from that same angle, so the Singer says. Glad you enjoyed the show as well.

The Singer said...

Glad you enjoyed the show (I knew you would!). I'm already anxious to see it again ... maybe in London I'll complete the trifecta and then all of us will be able to claim we saw it at the Apollo Victoria!

Noise said...

Enough of this Wicked thing - was that piano actually $92,000 or £92,000? (that's sterling...roughly equivalent to $180,000...)

Bluff Dwellers said...

It was only a cheap piano - 51,000 Pounds.

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