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Published: June 21st 2011
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ah yes - more song lyric references....
Yesterday, for me, started out at the London Dungeons. It was a bit of a cross between a gruesome history lesson and a slightly more sophisticated haunted house than you will find in Houston around Halloween. It started out with a walk through a twisted corridor of mirrors that was effectively disorienting. We got lectures on the London fire and the plague, along with the usual things jumping out at you with loud noises rubbish. There were brief demonstrations in primitive autopsies, and various torture devices (including a device that was used to castrate male prisoners). The most uncomfortable moment for me was when an animatronic prisoner popped forward from his cell door and "spit" at me. There were other "spitting" mechanisms in the place, but this one reminded me of a fairly disgusting scene in "The Silence of the Lambs." Me, being the recipient of said "spit," was not very pleased with it.
After going through a mock courtroom we were all put onto a boat, supposedly to go through "Traitor's Gate" at the Tower of London. This was merely a boat ride in the darkness, which was a little
tense since I was sure a waterfall was coming at some point. The waterfall in question turned out to be a sharp, but short decent going backwards in the boat, with water splashing up from behind us. There was a 5-D (which doesn't make a lot of sense to me) "ride" where we shot at "ghosts" that haunt 50 Berkeley Square, supposedly London's most haunted building. Then there was a very lame "Sweeney Todd" room which consisted of a recording of the barber preparing to take a "little off the top" and then an attempted square when all of our seats were jerked backwards...I was not impressed.
The last portion was the Jack the Ripper exhibit - the most morbid part being a recreation of the room where Mary Kelly (his supposed last victim) was killed. There was a recording of the actual coroner's notes being read as we stood in front of a darkened recreation of the crime scene based on photographs and the coroner's notes. It ended with a flash of light illuminating the crime scene which did get a few screams from the group.
After the Dungeon I trotted around Notting Hill for a bit
and got some "proper" fish and chips. Notting Hill was interesting for it's little antique shops and other street merchants. My favorite part was when I just happened on a building which was noted as being a former residence of author George Orwell (Yay Animal Farm!). I wish I could've gotten a good picture of the entire house, however there was a big tree blocking most of the building.
It took me a little while to figure my way back home, but once there I prepared for my second night at Shakespeare's Globe to see "Much Ado About Nothing." This time, as opposed to last week, I was going to experience a night at the Globe as a groundling. I must say, I got the full experience - including a good forty minutes of steady rain during the first act. Eve Best, the actress who played Beatrice (and played Wallis Simpson in "The King's Speech"), gave the groundlings a very sympathetic smile as she made her first entrance. Despite the rain, and the pains which developed in my feet, legs and back after about the first hour and a half, the performance was wonderful. The Globe truly brings Shakespeare's
comedies to life. I always used to bash the comedies a lot (the whole thing about how he wrote the same play 19 times), but seeing them in this type of setting does give me a new appreciation for them. The two actors playing Benedick and Beatrice had considerable chemistry and were very funny, but the show was pretty much stolen by an actor named Paul Hunter as Dogberry (this was the role played by Michael Keaton in the Kenneth Branagh film version). Every scene he was in concluded with a round of applause from the audience upon his exit.
Today I allowed myself to sleep in and woke up to the sound of the hotel's fire alarm. EVERYTHING IS FINE. Someone just accidentally hit the button. I went to the Shakespeare pub for a "full English breakfast" (complete with baked beans?). Afterwards I took the tube a few stops over to go to Westminster Abbey. I loved poet's corner as I got to step of the graves of Handel and Dickens both at the same time and ended up over the ashes of Sir Laurence Olivier. I also visited the small crypt of "Canterbury Tales" author Geoffrey Chaucer
(the first poet interred at Westminster Abbey). The main historic find that I visited were the graves of historical Kings such as Henry V, Richard II (not the third, his body was supposedly thrown into a river in Leicester) and Henry VII (the character of Richmond in Shakespeare's play Richard III). And it was inside of the tomb of Elizabeth I that I found where the remains of The Princes of the Tower had been interred. This for me completed a good portion of my journey as I followed the princes from their imprisonment in the Tower, the stairwell where they were found, and now in their final resting place.
I left the abbey after enjoying a cappuccino by the gardens and went to visit some anti-war protesters who were camped out by the Houses of Parliament. I met Mark and Ben and we talked for a good amount of time about what they were doing. There are a group of maybe 30 or 40 who live on the sidewalk next to a small park that sits between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. One man, as I learned, has been living there for five years. They used
to have their tents in the park, which had been designated as a place for public conversation and debate - however, according to Mark, some "thugs" came into the park at about 1 in the morning some months ago and evicted them from the park to the sidewalk. The park, since then, has been off limits to the public. Mark told me about some of the other places he's been to, including in the States, and I told him about Texas and my visit to Stratford-upon-Avon. They were very nice and even allowed me to take their picture before I left.
After a short break back at the hotel I went out for some real English Tea. It was all wonderful, but even wearing some of my nicer clothes, I felt very out of place with so much fanciness (I was listening to Nine Inch Nails with my headset as I walked up to the place).
And now I'm off to get dressed. Being one of my nights where I'm not at the theatre, I am taking advantage of the evening to go on a Jack the Ripper walk in Whitechapel (a place that my friend Mark told
me is still a pretty seedy and scary place to be). No worries, I will be with a group and a guide.
Tomorrow - Soho, British Library, Cavendish Square, and finally Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic in
Richard III! Cheers!
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