This week has been a mish mash of things so it is difficult to decide what to write about. I saw four plays this week, found some great views of the London skyline, and attended an amateur football match.
This past Sunday my flat-mates and I went on a riverboat tour of Greenwich. We sailed down the Thames River on a beautifully sunny day and got some nice photos of the sights along the way. We arrived in Greenwich to complete our walking tour and received a similar old-timey welcome to that of Bath’s. The architecture was beautiful! We walked around the Royal Naval College and visited the Painted Hall. The college felt like a real British college. There were grassy sitting areas that the beautifully built buildings towered over, and it was right on the edge of the river so it had a great view.
This past Sunday my flat-mates and I went on a riverboat tour of Greenwich. We sailed down the Thames River on a beautifully sunny day and got some nice photos of the sights along the way. We arrived in Greenwich to complete our walking tour and received a similar old-timey welcome to that of Bath’s. The architecture was beautiful! We walked around the Royal Naval College and visited the Painted Hall. The college felt like a real British college. There were grassy sitting areas that the beautifully built buildings towered over, and it was right on the edge of the river so it had a great view.
Continuing with beautiful views, I visited Primrose Hill, a very posh neighborhood where a lot of celebrities supposedly live, and the Sky Garden. Both had lovely views, as seen below.
Theatre Performances
This week was also the week of performances! The first show I saw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, at the Gielgud Theatre and it was fantastic! I’ve wanted to see this show for a while because it won many Tonys this past year and looked very creative. The show is about a young boy with Aspergers and his relationship with his father and distant mother. It is told from his perspective so it had many charming little commentaries on everyday activities that the boy couldn’t understand. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, however, the huge group of school kids in the audience proved a rather large annoyance when they laughed at all the inappropriate times and wouldn’t stop whispering! Just goes to show, the audiences are the same no matter what country!
I also saw The Woman in Black this week at The Fortune Theatre. On. My. Gosh. Yes this is the same story that was made into a film with Daniel Radcliffe a few years ago and yes, it is a scary story. The most unsettling thing about it was that all the scary effects were taking place right in front of your eyes with no help from computer animation. It was very well done. I would maybe even go again, now that I know what is going to happen. The whole show is a play rehearsal within a play. There are only two actors (apart from the mysterious Woman in Black) and one of the actors plays one character, while the other actor plays all the other parts. The story goes that the older actor asks for help from the younger actor to tell his story of his experience with the Woman in Black and they decide to re-tell it through a performance of the events, wherein the younger man plays the part of the older man when he had the supernatural experience. You with me? Anyway, it was very good and had a lot of plot twists. The actors were even able to make us, the audience members, scare each other. There was a moment when the young actor sleeps over in the creepy, haunted house (because that seems like a good decision), and as he is sleeping, it was silent onstage and the whole audience started thinking that something was going to happen. We were all looking behind us and muttering to our neighbors and we became really jumpy. This went on for a solid two minutes and the actors did absolutely nothing. We scared ourselves. It was a brilliant trick.
I saw another show at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (yay!) called Measure for Measure. It was done in traditional Shakespearian outfits and was very funny. The actors played within the audience and were very interactive. I even got the authentic experience of standing throughout the entire show like the Groundlings would have done back in the day.
The last performance I went to is really not of much importance compared to the others. I saw Heartbreak Hotel at The Jetty in Greenwich. It was an immersive theatre piece where the audience walked from room to room of a hotel and viewed the scenes. All the scenes were about heartbreak but the show itself ended on a fairly happy note. I got a free glass of Prosecco out of it, so I guess it was a success!
I also saw The Woman in Black this week at The Fortune Theatre. On. My. Gosh. Yes this is the same story that was made into a film with Daniel Radcliffe a few years ago and yes, it is a scary story. The most unsettling thing about it was that all the scary effects were taking place right in front of your eyes with no help from computer animation. It was very well done. I would maybe even go again, now that I know what is going to happen. The whole show is a play rehearsal within a play. There are only two actors (apart from the mysterious Woman in Black) and one of the actors plays one character, while the other actor plays all the other parts. The story goes that the older actor asks for help from the younger actor to tell his story of his experience with the Woman in Black and they decide to re-tell it through a performance of the events, wherein the younger man plays the part of the older man when he had the supernatural experience. You with me? Anyway, it was very good and had a lot of plot twists. The actors were even able to make us, the audience members, scare each other. There was a moment when the young actor sleeps over in the creepy, haunted house (because that seems like a good decision), and as he is sleeping, it was silent onstage and the whole audience started thinking that something was going to happen. We were all looking behind us and muttering to our neighbors and we became really jumpy. This went on for a solid two minutes and the actors did absolutely nothing. We scared ourselves. It was a brilliant trick.
I saw another show at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (yay!) called Measure for Measure. It was done in traditional Shakespearian outfits and was very funny. The actors played within the audience and were very interactive. I even got the authentic experience of standing throughout the entire show like the Groundlings would have done back in the day.
The last performance I went to is really not of much importance compared to the others. I saw Heartbreak Hotel at The Jetty in Greenwich. It was an immersive theatre piece where the audience walked from room to room of a hotel and viewed the scenes. All the scenes were about heartbreak but the show itself ended on a fairly happy note. I got a free glass of Prosecco out of it, so I guess it was a success!
This week I also, uncharacteristically, went to a football game. HA! It was an amateur game of Chelsea v. Reading and it ended up being tied 3 to 3. It was actually quite fun. We were so close to to the field that the ball could have hit us smack in the face. The best part of the game however, was when we the British gentlemen next to us started chatting with us. They had clearly been having a little to drink because they thought one of our friends, Nick, was Nick Jonas (from the Jonas Brothers…remember them?). The guy next to us even asked Nick to sign his arm, which he did. As Nick Jonas. We told him where we were from, one of us being from Pennsylvania, and he thought we said Transylvania, so that is what he kept calling us all night. Also, I’m realizing now that no one from Europe seems to knows where Minnesota. Bummer. I didn’t realize that that would be a common occurrence but it does make sense.
Hopefully I haven’t bored you too much with my theatre fawning in this post. I am really enjoying seeing shows and I am lucky that I get to see so many for my classes. I’ll try not to blab on about them too much in future posts, but they were definitely the highlights of my week this time. Next week…SCOTLAND!!
This week’s top British Oddities are…
1. A line (like in a grocery store) is called a Queue
2. It is NOT appropriate to give a standing ovation at the end of a performance. Rather, you keep clapping so that the actors come out for a second bow.
3. You have to pay for a program at performances and is generally at least £4
4. It is NOT appropriate to keep a ball that has flown into the stands at any sport. You must immediately throw it back or it is considered rude.
5. Stove top is called the Hob
6. It is very uncommon to find black pepper on the table at a restaurant or pub. Instead you have white pepper. ???
7. Mayo is often called Salad Cream
8. On Sundays, big stores close earlier (about 5:00) while smaller stores stay open later. They have to legally close based on square footage of their store so they can give smaller businesses a chance to get business in the evenings.
9. A Detour is called a Division
10. Many Londoners carry around little rolling luggage for everyday use. Specifically business men and women.
More photos added in gallery! New sections include Greenwich riverboat tour, Sky Garden, Harry Potter sites, and theatre. New photos added to Camden and Pubs as well.
Thank you!
This week’s top British Oddities are…
1. A line (like in a grocery store) is called a Queue
2. It is NOT appropriate to give a standing ovation at the end of a performance. Rather, you keep clapping so that the actors come out for a second bow.
3. You have to pay for a program at performances and is generally at least £4
4. It is NOT appropriate to keep a ball that has flown into the stands at any sport. You must immediately throw it back or it is considered rude.
5. Stove top is called the Hob
6. It is very uncommon to find black pepper on the table at a restaurant or pub. Instead you have white pepper. ???
7. Mayo is often called Salad Cream
8. On Sundays, big stores close earlier (about 5:00) while smaller stores stay open later. They have to legally close based on square footage of their store so they can give smaller businesses a chance to get business in the evenings.
9. A Detour is called a Division
10. Many Londoners carry around little rolling luggage for everyday use. Specifically business men and women.
More photos added in gallery! New sections include Greenwich riverboat tour, Sky Garden, Harry Potter sites, and theatre. New photos added to Camden and Pubs as well.
Thank you!