One of the reasons why I started to prefer the Eurostar to assorted airlines was the facility of the train ride without all the hassle of the airports: The long walks, the queues and the waiting. So picture my dismay when I arrived at St.Pancras to find a new set of customs/passport control where the several hundred Eurostar passengers had to queue up (despite the passport check at the terminal in Brussels!). What next, obnoxious security checks as well? Please don't ruin the Eurostar experience by paranoia, dear Britons.
Having made it into town to a new abode, the newly refurbished Strand Palace across the street from the Savoy (and really rather nice), it was time for the usual shopping tour. More dismay awaited as the one item I wanted (the DVD Box Set of the recent "Hollow Crown" Shakespeare adaptations) was not to be found anywhere. And then they wonder why people prefer internet shopping these days. The tour yielded four new books though until it was time to head out to suburbia, in this case the Apollo Hammersmith where the US/UK Tour of "American Idiot" was stopping for a week. Some of you may remember that I had already been able to see the show in New York, but after a rather endless day that included a long delay of my flight to New York, solid traffic jams to get into Manhattan and finally a sprint across several blocks to make it to the show before curtain time (not to mention the jetlag). So it was rather nice to finally see it without jetlag, rush or other hassle and with a cast I liked almost better than the Broadway Cast (well, except Stark Sands, who was just heartbreaking as Tunny).
American Idiot, based on the Green Day album, has lost nothing of its raw power even four years after the Bush government ended - but then the topic of disoriented youth seeking for their place in the world is nothing new and will still be around in a hundred years to come. I definitely liked Alex Nee (Johnny) better than the understudy I had seen in New York, a really heartbreakingly vulnerable pretty boy who gets to sing those two wonderful Green Day anthems "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Wake me up when September ends". I also preferred Trent Saunders, the new St.Jimmy, to Tony Vincent who had looked far too much like Lisbeth Salander for me to take him seriously. Saunders though had a really fantastic stage presence and bucketloads of charisma that made me buy him as the ever-tempting drug dealer/Johnny's alter ego. Thomas Hettrick and Casey O'Farrell were decent as Johnny's friends Tunny and Will, but it was the ladies who shone, especially Kenney Caughell as Heather, Will's pregnant girlfriend who can't get him to grow up and finally leaves him, and Alyssa DiPalma as Whatshername. And a special mention must go to Jared Young's physique. Woot.
American Idiot is definitely one of those shows I could see again and again because it's so full of great moments and songs that don't lose anything by seeing them a couple of times. The only thing that annoyed me here was that they decided to include an interval (to sell more drinks?), which lessened the impact of the "song after song" staging somewhat and it was a bit hard to get straight back into it when act two began. Still I had a great time and was really glad to see this show again after that crazy evening in New York. And dammit, I wish someone had the guts to bring this tour to continental Europe as well - I'd be the first in line to buy a ticket.
Friday should have been spent at Windsor but with the weather being grisly and an interesting exhibition of Hollywood Costumes at the V&A for which we could get a 2 for 1 deal with our Eurostar tickets, we decided to head to Kensington instead. And I could take a look at the gorgeous "Disney princesses" christmas decorations at Harrods as well. Below are Mulan and Jasmine:
The exhibition was rather great too with so many of the world's most famous Hollywood outfits on display from Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp rags to Scarlett O'Hara's gowns, Marilyn's iconic white dress and Liz Taylor's Cleopatra outfits. And of course bunches of modern clothes from the full Indiana Jones outfit to Jack Sparrow and the Dude's bathrobe. From there I tried once again to find the DVD of the recent BBC Shakespeare adaptations, but after the store guy at HMV asked me to spell Shakespeare for him to look it up in the computer, I decided to have a lay down at the hotel and weep for England.
Whenever I travel with my Mom I want to offer her something fancy (especially when she foots the bill), so for our pre-theatre meal I had booked a table at Rules, famous for being very old and Ye Olde English Country Toffs kind of establishment that puts venison and pheasant on the menu. And good fun it was, very Downtonesque, and after years of knowing grouse only from the cover of whiskey bottles, I finally knew its taste now.
From classic English cuisine it was on to modern bland musical theatre next door at the Adelphi Theatre - the stage version of "The Bodyguard". Where early jukebox musicals (like Mamma Mia) had woven a fresh tale around old songs and movie-to-stage-adaptations added new songs, Bodyguard is one of those supremely lazy ones that takes an existing movie and squishes some existing songs (by Whitney Houston in this case, naturally) into the plot. Which also meant that Heather Headley as Whitney, er, Rachel Marron, got to sing most songs with a few set aside for her hapless sister (Debbie Kurup) while the men didn't get to sing at all. A good choice for dour bodyguard Frank Farmer (Lloyd Owen, who looked a lot better than Costner in my book) but why cast people like Ray Shell (once upon a time the very first Rusty in Starlight Express) if he doesn't even get to sing?
It's decent solid entertainment overall, though its only moments of brilliance occur when Heather gets to belt out Whitney's greatest songs - and sadly many of my favorites had been left out while others were so shortened, I couldn't really enjoy them. So the show only really took off for me in the last 15-20 minutes with Heather-Whitney singing "One moment in time" followed by "I will always love you" and the encore "I wanna dance with somebody" - Glorious moments of theatricality followed by great fun. I enjoyed seeing Heather Headley on stage and don't regret seeing the show, but it's not one to rush back to and will definitely rise and fall with whoever gets to play Whitney.
Saturday began with a genuine tourist must-do, a trip on the London Eye which I had done ages ago when the thing first opened, and which my Mom now wanted to do. Luckily the weather was brilliant, so we had a perfect view over London:
Afterwards it was time to meet friends and hang out at the Christmas market on South Bank first, then in the West End, where the matinee for the day was the muchly hyped comedy "One man, two guv'nors" which had originated at the National Theatre, then moved to the Adelphi and now to the Haymarket, winning leading man James Corden every conceivable award along the way. The show is a take on Goldoni's classic Commedia dell'Arte "Servant of two masters", transplanted to 60's Brighton with bungling goon Francis Henshall (now played by Owain Arthur) juggling jobs for two bosses and creating chaos along the way. Knowing that the fabled audience interaction was fake and the participants plants, it wasn't all THAT funny or perhaps it's just me - everyone else was roaring with laughter during those parts, while I seemed to be the only one chuckling at witty one-liners. Overall it was definitely good fun in a pedestrian way which I can see doing the rounds of local theatres for many years to come. The cast was pretty dang good too and it was a nice surprise to see Gemma Whelan, dour Asha Greyjoy from Game of Thrones, as lead girl Rachel, who pretends to be her dead twin brother Roscoe.
More twins awaited after a pit stop at a nice Indian restaurant in Soho - Shakespeare's classic comedy "Twelfth Night" done the way it would have been done during his period: All big gowns and ruffs - and the female parts being played by men. It worked surprisingly well most of the time with Paul Chahidi as the scheming servant Maria making me forget his gender straightaway, while I could never once see "Viola" Johnny Flynn as anything but a guy in a questionable wig. Although when stood next to Samuel Barnett as his identical twin Sebastian, they did work well together. Mark Rylance proved once more that he's one of the best actors of his generation with his formidable and hilariously funny Duchess Olivia who's at the center of the mayhem. Wonderfully supported by Stephen Fry as Malvolio, making me want to rush back home and watch Blackadder all over again because I had almost forgotten how funny this guy can be. At +3 hours the show dragged a bit in parts, especially the (not so) funny subplot of the eternally drunk Sir Toby Belch, but the last half hour (act) was the best thing I've seen on a stage in ages and, let me just say it, much funnier than "One man, two guv'nors" altogether. I find it quite amazing that after 400 years, good old Shakespeare can still provide an evening of simply fabulous entertainment.
All in all another great trip to London although I find it almost saddening now that the only new big musical I saw was also by far the worst of the four shows I saw. When it came to amazing entertainment, creaky old Twelfth Night won hands down.
