1. After the Lord Mayor's parade, I headed to Leicester Square to get my tickets to One Man Two Guvnors, showing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, just off Leicester Square. Getting the ticket was really easy...I had everything printed out, but they didn't even look at it.
2. After getting my ticket, I had about an hour to kill before seating, so I walked to Trafalgar Square for a quick drive by painting viewing at the National Gallery:
3. Next, I hit the play. It had a lot more musical elements than I thought it would, even though it's not technically classified as a musical. The premise is British slapstick humor. One man gets hired as an assistant to a man and simultaneously is hired by another girl, who are connected to each other but don't know and can't know they've hired the same man. So the assistant attempts to keep them apart and in the dark about the dual employment. It has a lot of Abbott/Costello type qualities to it....changing the meaning of words to literal interpretations, falling down stairs a lot, catch phrases. I enjoy that kind of thing, so it was perfect for me. They also played quite a bit with the audience, which was really funny and unpredictable. Some of the audience members they picked were pretty funny themselves. The theatre was gorgeous, reminded me of Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. Just felt historic...the floor boards creaked, everything was decorated in rich reds and gold. Great venue for the show. The only issue was that the British accent was really strong and there were some points where I wasn't quite sure what was said or the joke was specific to something in London that I didn't quite get. But the physical comedy totally made up for it.
4. After the play, I walked to Buckingham. It gets dark very early in N. Europe. It's hard to imagine, but I live on relatively the same latitude as Calgary, Canada. London is pretty close to that latitude as well, so by the time I got out of the matinee, it was night, which was before 5. Very strange. Anyways, I walked to Buckingham to see more along the way because it wasn't raining or super cold. Buckingham at night was worth it:
5. After Buckingham, I wandered to Victoria Palace Theatre to pick up my ticket for Billy Elliot. It was really easy again. Victoria Palace Theatre is near Victoria Station. I realized at that point that the last time I ate was the English breakfast in the morning. I found a place close to the theatre for a quick bite because I didn't have much time. It happened to be a decent Indian place. London is great for food from around the Commonwealth. It was good, cheap and quick.
6. I've seen Billy Elliot on the traveling tour through Houston, so I knew the premise. The reason I booked it was because it was a great show in Houston and I figured it could only get better in London. The premise is the mining strikes in 1984/85 in Scotland, where a legacy mining family struggles to deal with the strike and two completely different sons, one of whom lives for the mining work and the other much younger son who just wants to dance ballet. Not really an option for a coal miner's son in Scotland. The kid who plays Billy is incredible. What strikes me most is that at the beginning of the play, Billy is shown learning to dance, which means the actual actor has to play down is true ability and look awkward. I think that's probably the hardest part for the kid who plays Billy. He's so talented it has to be hard to look bad on the stage. At the end, you get a real appreciation for how great he is. Anyways, one interesting moment came in the 1st half...there's a scene where the chorus puts on these awkward life size ladies' dresses costumes with a netting at the face to see where they are going. The dresses tap dance and it's a big number. However, one of the dresses came out on stage and promptly fell over, which apparently wasn't part of the show and the stage manager came out on the stage in the middle of the number to stop the show. He announced that they needed to reset and it would take some time. Curtain closed, lights came up. It took about 5 minutes until the house manager came out and announced that the actor had a minor accident but was fine and the play would start again. They restarted the number and it moved on. I've never seen anything like it. I thought the "show must go on" meant no matter what you don't stop, but apparently means you can stop, reset and then the show goes on. Anyways, it was strange, but they handled it very professionally. The theatre was nice, much more like Hobby Center in Houston, but much more ornate. The show was packed.
Sneaky photo of me in the theatre.
7. After the show, I headed back to the hotel to get caught up on sleep and plan for Sunday.
Sunday to follow.....
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