Nicole schreibt...

London October 2015

Nothing like a bit of travel drama to keep you on your toes and prevent you from getting all too complacent about travelling... or so the Gods of Travel must have decreed on Thursday when I went on my merry way to dear old London. In this case trouble started at Welkenraedt station with a TV screen in the tiny ticket office/waiting room announcing train supprimé behind my Intercity to Brussels. While that particular French word was unknown to me, I had a hunch and my heart sank. Asking the lone guy in the ticket office if that train was running or not, he said - to my surprise - yes, so I went to the platform where indeed some people were waiting. After a brief respite my heart sank again when an ancient local train trundled into the station. I asked a lady passenger if this train was indeed going to Liège/Brussels and she said yes, so I boarded, but remained dubious. My French had failed me due to nerves, but I got talking to a German-speaking lady who disembarked at Verviers, the next station down the line. I had a minor freak-out when I saw on a platform monitor that the train was bound for Louvain/Leuven and NOT Brussels, but she told me to stay on the train. Two nice young chaps were following the exchange and noticed my panicky state, so I told them that I had no clue what exactly was going on and nobody spoke English. Luckily this chap did and finally I got the full story: The intercity had broken down, and the ratty old local train was the only replacement rolling stock they had hanging around the East-Belgian sticks. It would go to Louvain, where people could board the proper intercity to Brussels. He even showed me the listings on his smartphone (since I couldn't use mine thanks to freaking roaming charges) and that the intercity would arrive in Bruxelles-Midi at 12.21, giving me half an hour still to make my Eurostar connection. It half-amuses and half-angers me how quickly you can start feeling lost beyond the border when languages fail and information is hard to come by, especially these days when everyone is so reliant on smartphones and the internet. The fact that roaming charges still exist really shows what a crappy mess the EU is, serving only the big corporations, but that's a topic for another time and outlet. It was also nice in a way to realize that it's still possible to rely on the kindness of strangers and have people help you in a tight spot, like my young Belgian knight on the train and another kind lady who got off in Louvain with me and pointed me to the intercity to Brussels.
So, I made it onto the Eurostar with only a few minutes to spare (and without my beloved lunch baguette from Panos) and to dear old London, which greeted me with glorious sunshine. Once I had reached my familiar digs in Covent Garden, I first flopped into the bath tub to recover from the crazy journey, then treated myself to yummy Indian dinner at Dishoom before heading on to the Adelphi Theatre. My first show was Kinky Boots - one of the many British movies that have been recycled for the musical stage in recent years, though this one boasted a soundtrack by Cyndi Lauper and opened on Broadway first. While I rarely listen to cast recordings these days, I did enjoy Kinky Boots from day one, so I was glad to finally add visual images to the music I already knew well. The movie and musical tell the story of young Charlie Price, who inherits his Dad's failing shoe factory in Northampton and turns it around with the help of drag queen Lola, who suggests making kinky boots with sturdy heels that can hold a man's weight.
It was all great fun indeed, though if I have two minor quibbles it's a) the godawful cheap wig and ugly make up for Matt Henry (Lola) in the first act that's more stuffy village teacher than glamourous drag queen and b) Killian Donnelly (Charlie). The man might be the flavour du jour in the West End, having bagged three leading parts in a row in The Commitments, Memphis and now Kinky Boots, but I found him pretty much bereft of any leading man charisma. Although I'll say for him that he did sing the shit out of "Soul of a Man" in the second act. But mostly it was Matt Henry's show, with him and the "Angels" providing all of the great dance numbers, plus a fabulous scene-stealing turn by Amy Lennox as the factory girl with a "History of Wrong Guys". I wish I had been less tired after the long day, but I certainly enjoyed myself and think I'll go and see this again some time down the line with another Charlie.
Friday began as so many London days do these days in a dayseat queue - this time for "Farinelli and the King" with Mark Rylance. The odd bit was, that I did own a £60 ticket for the performance that evening but since it had been selling crazy well when bookings opened, it was a crap seat in Row N, whereas I could easily get a dayseat in the very front stalls for only £10. So I thought in a perfect world I could re-sell my full price ticket and "earn" £50 by dayseating, while the worst-case scenario was spending an additional £10 but sitting much closer to the stage at least. So there I was at 8.15 am with just one guy in the queue ahead of me and bagged a seat in Row A (second row).
I had initially toyed with the idea to daytrip to Winchester on Friday, but changed my mind after seeing the train prices. Instead I returned to Holland Park since I had once been there by accident (I have no idea now when and how) and vaguely remembered a beautiful Japanese garden, so I wanted to take a closer look at that and since I was in the area anyway, take a look at Portobello Road Market, famous for antiques and bric-a-brac. The lovely weather made it a delightful outing with a stroll along the stalls (though I think it's much better on Saturdays, when Portobello Road is actually closed for traffic) and a lunch break in Holland Park, where I did indeed find the beautiful Kyoto Garden again:

After a break at the hotel, I returned to the Duke of York's theatre to "return" my full price ticket, hoping the box office guy wouldn't recognize me from the morning. He said, he couldn't promise to sell my return, but he'd try. As it turned out, he did (I went to take a look at the interval and saw that the seat was occupied) and I later found an email confirming the refund. So... nicely done, even if I say so myself.
Farinelli and the King originated at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, a re-creation of a Shakespearean indoor theatre with wooden benches and candlelight that had now been recreated in turn at the Duke of York's Theatre, when the play transfered. So people sat ON stage on the sides and in front of the normal stalls were three wooden benches that looked pretty much like pews in a church and were constantly in light underneath the chandeliers (I'm still stunned that Health & Safety let them get away with all the genuine candles in a theatre). While the wooden bench wasn't comfortable, it sure was a great atmosphere, especially as performers kept coming down from the stage to stand in front of it between the benches and once or twice even spoke to us directly.
The story of Carlo Broschi, aka Farinelli, is now best-known through the 1994 movie, telling the story of the young man who rose to become the most celebrated castrato singer of 18th century. At only 32 years and the height of his fame, Farinelli retired from the international opera stage to stay at the court of Philippe V. of Spain, who was suffering from debiliating depressions and found that Farinelli's singing helped him. It's this period and relationship between Farinelli, the king and the queen that the play deals with, the part of Farinelli being split between an actor (Sam Crane) and internationally renowned countertenor Iestyn Davies for the arias. I'd sum up the play by Claire van Kampen as "okay" (certainly for £10!) but there were some surprisingly funny bits and of course the music was gorgeous, especially the final big aria "Lascia Ch'io Pianga" (from Handel's Rinaldo). And of course it's always a treat to see Mark Rylance live on stage with wonderful supporting performances by Sam Crane and Melody Grove as Queen Isabella.
I didn't really have anything to do on Saturday morning and didn't want to risk spending money in the shops, so after a breakfast on Shaftesbury Avenue, watching workmen sawing at Enjolras' huge crotch on the Queens Theatre's marquee (no, really!), I trudged off to the Barbican Centre in the City on foot. I had been there many years ago, seeing a then-unknown David Tennant in "The Rivals" but I had forgotten what a huge concrete hell the Barbican is. Yet here the hype of the year was going down with Benedict Cumberbatch doing "Hamlet" at the RSC. I had availed myself of tickets for the captioned performance, since I find the captions infinitely help with Shakespeare and since my original companion couldn't make it, found a lovely young lady from Wales to join me for this outing. We met for lunch first before tackling Hamlet, which began at 1.30pm already (and the first act clocking in at 1 hr 50 mins). I had heard moans about directorial brainfarts that reeked of German Regietheater, but although some of Thea Sharrock's ideas were a bit naff (the toy castle!), it didn't even begin to ressemble the kind of nonsense that's rife on German stages. In fact I found the stage sets absolutely impressive, making great use of the Barbican's large stage and the modern costumes never detracted from the play or the actors. Mr Cumberbatch sure offered a great performance as a fairly energetic Dane and proved to me that he isn't just "hype" because of Sherlock, but a genuine classical drama performer who worked hard for his success over the years and certainly deserved a go at Shakespeare's most famous male hero. With him was a fine cast that included Anastasia Hille as Gertrude and Ciaran Hinds as Claudius, last seen being stabbed to death in "Rome", then fried to a crisp in "Game of Thrones" and now meeting yet another sticky end.
While I did enjoy the play overall, I did notice that the captions didn't really solve all my problems, simply because it was too wordy. The words just kept coming without a chance to absorb and digest, especially (but not only) in the monologues. I mean, I could follow the plot and all that, but I wished more than once that I could have hit a pause button to fully absorb the speeches. Yet overall a really nice afternoon was had and after saying goodbye to my new friend, I returned to the hotel for a break before heading into the West End once more for my last show. This should have been "Bend it like Beckham", yet - another - British movie that got recycled for the stage, but I felt lukewarm about it to begin with and then the tiny Arts Theatre's production of American Idiot announced its extension, so I decided on that instead. I loved American Idiot on Broadway and caught it again when the same version went on a tour in the UK and stopped in London, so I was curious to see how it could be done in a small space. And frankly, after a long afternoon of Shakespeare, I really just wanted to chill with a short loud rock musical.
Not my best idea, admittedly. I think the main problem here was the casting: They had cast two names - Aaron Sidwell from Eastenders as Johnny and Amelia Lily from The X-Factor as Whatshername - and apparently tailored the show to make it more about them and less about the trio of friends and their different tales. So Tunny and Will were pushed into the background while the focus remained on Johnny and his descent into drug addiction, turning the show into Trainspotting - the Musical. I also couldn't really warm to Sidwell, no matter how fit he looked in his underpants. For me the main selling point of American Idiot had always been the aching vulnerability and loneliness of these young people, searching their place in a fucked up world and I found none of that here. Ironically, Amelia Lily did great with what little she had to do and it would be nice to see her in a show with a better role for her. Still, while it couldn't live up to my memories of the original, it was nice to see the small theatre filled with so many young people who probably wouldn't darken the doors of a regular West End theatre. And while part of me regretted that I didn't go and see the new "Beckham" after all, I don't really mind having seen this different version of a favorite musical either.
And so a lovely trip ended, the journey home being entirely hitch-free as if to make up for the chaos on Thursday. And now it's not such a long wait after all with the next trip on the cards for January as usual.