Botticellis, rock stars, and things that go wrong

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Geo: 51.5002, -0.126236

Slightly less successful sleep last night, but still not too bad. I don't feel groggy when I wake up, so I guess I'm doing all right.

My destination this morning was the Courtauld Gallery, a smallish but amazing art museum. First, there's a small room of Medieval art (i.e., religious paintings), including a nice painting by a Flemish artist of the Madonna and child, where Jesus actually looks like a sweet little baby. But it's the upper floors that really impress. There are Bruegels and Botticellis galore, Rubenses and Gainsboroughs, Reynoldses and Renoirs (one of his female models was known as "fish face"😉, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Monets. Van Gogh's self-portrait with his bandaged ear is there, as is Manet's "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere." That poor girl behind the bar looks so depressed. There are even a couple of Seurats, and it's fantastic how close you can get to the paintings to see all the points of color. Wonderfully, there weren't all that many people in the place, so it wasn't difficult to see anything. A delicious smell from the cafe came wafting up the stairs, but I was done with my tour by 11:45 and they didn't start serving till noon.

I wandered around the Somerset House complex (of which the gallery is a part) and out onto the river-facing terrace, which felt like a secret, and then on to Covent Garden. Hadn't been there in ages (possibly not since Mom and I went), and it was bigger than I remembered and about ten times busier. I had lunch at Le Pain Quotidien, an organic cafe, at a communal table. I had a delicious Devon ham and cheddar tart and the orangest glass of lemonade I've ever seen. All of the staff seemed to have different accents: I think my waiter was Italian. I also heard what sounded like French and Russian.

My afternoon was spent on a London Walk. This one was for Little Venice and was led by Shaughan, who led my Legal London tour several years ago. He's very personable and has a wonderful voice. He sang us a few music hall songs (19th-century karaoke, he called it), told us some stories, and name dropped like crazy. The Little Venice neighborhood was jokingly dubbed such by Lord Byron because of the Regents Canal and the Grand Union Canal. After WWII, property developers and estate agents used the name in their marketing materials to make the area north of Paddington Station sound more appealing.

Architecturally, we mainly saw terraced houses built in the early to late 1800s and up through the Edwardian era. It's a wealthy area, so there are also quite a lot of detached villas and very pricey cars to adorn the parking spaces in front. I can't even remember all of the celebrities and other famous people that Shaughan mentioned who live or lived in the area. Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, Marc Bolan, Billy Idol and Sid Vicious, Bjork, the producer Bill Kenright (sp?), who launched the careers of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, the late comedian John Inman, Roger Bannister, Alexander Fleming, Alan Turing …. Richard Branson's Virgin empire got its start on one of the barges moored in the canal. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd once sold a house there for several million pounds and then straightaway donated the entire amount to a homeless charity. Bits of "A Fish Called Wanda" were filmed in the area because it's so picturesque. John Donne preached for the first time in the little church on Paddington Green. It's a pretty amazing neighborhood.

One of the roads we went down had originally been called something else and was notorious as a good place to find a brothel. Some of the residents objected and wanted the name of the road changed, so it was named Randolph Road after a bishop. The brothels didn't go away, of course, and eventually men were told that for a good time, they should go to Randy Road, which is where the slang term "randy" comes from.

Another house had been owned by Michael Flatley; it sold for 4 million pounds 17 years ago. Imagine what it would go for now! It's very large and has something like seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a sauna and I don't remember what all else. Shaughan estimated that it would likely sell for around 26 million pounds today.

We also saw a small green shack that is one of a very few surviving cabmen's shelters. Back in horse-and-buggy times, there was nowhere for the hacks to go to keep warm, so they would frequent the pubs. London was full of drunken cabmen! So Lord Shaftesbury set up these shelters all over London as a way to keep the cabmen sober and safe from the elements. No cards after midnight, no drinking, and cabmen must wear trousers at all times!

Alan Turing's birthplace is now a hotel. Shaughan once attended a party there for some codebreakers; his mother knew them somehow. Shaughan said they all seemed very nice but that after 30 seconds he was completely lost. All that mathematical talk went right over his head.

After the walk I picked up a ham and gruyere baguette and some chips at the EAT at Paddington Station and relaxed in my room for a while. "Black Adder" (second series) accompanied my picnic dinner.

By 7:00 I was seated in the Dress Circle at the Duchess Theatre to see "The Play That Goes Wrong." Oh. My. God. It was freakin' hilarious! Even before the lights went up the audience was laughing. The concept is that a small community theatre company is putting on a play called "The Murder at Haversham Manor" (cue dramatic music). Before the play starts (and before the play starts, if you see what I mean), members of the stage crew are out in the audience asking if anyone has seen a dog, finding a potential audience member to play said dog, looking for a Duran Duran box set, and generally creating havoc. There's business going on on stage with a door that won't stay shut, and other bits involving a missing mantelpiece and some floorboards.

Finally, the lights go down, and the director comes out to say that he's so pleased to see so many people in attendance and that he's also pleased that the company has finally found a play that fits - exactly - the number of members they have. In the recent past, they've done Chekhov's "Two Sisters" and the musical "Cat." He leaves and the lights come up on a dead body on a sofa. Only the actor playing the dead body has tripped in the dark and is caught like a deer in the headlights. And, as the title says, everything goes wrong from there. Bits of the set keeping falling off, props get mixed up, one actor can't stop smiling at the audience, and other actors get knocked unconscious. By the end, the entire set has collapsed and the actors are exhausted and completely demoralized. The audience was roaring the entire time, and I had tears leaking from my eyes. I really hope it makes its way to the U.S. and goes on tour.

I leave for Scotland in the morning, and hopefully the rest of this trip will be known as The Trip That Goes Completely Right.

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Photos

Somerset House
The Courtauld Gallery is straight through the arch and on the left

View from Somerset House's terrace
You can just see Parliament through the trees

Somerset House's terrace
The memorial on the left is to troops that died in WWI

Lovely white terraced houses
c. 1830s

The grey superstructure in the center
is where Richard Branson started his empire

Comments

[Mary]

What a day! I want to see that play.

[Aunt Marianne]

What a day you had. I'd be exhausted.

[Mary]

Love this photo. Interesting, what, boats? Taxis? Not gondolas at any rate.

[Mary]

Oh yes, you called them barges.

[Mary]

I would totally live here.

[Dutch & Katie]

On to Scotland! Oh I wish I could tour some distilleries there especially the one that have tastings at the end of the tour.

[Szyperski]

HAHAHA--love that the cabmen need a rule that they have to wear trousers! And another play to be on the lookout for--the Brits are good at those crazy farces!