John Linton As I previously mentioned, Annette and I went to see the new Peter Nunn version of The Tempest last night. It was at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket which is a 10 minute walk from our hotel which was very convenient. Annette is not a big fan of theatre generally, and Shakespeare in particular, and I am very demanding and have scarcely seen one play every five or so years because of that impatience and the general appalling low standard of Sydney theatrical productions - in fact we have walked out of most plays we have seen in Australia in living memory well before the first interval. If the tickets hadn't been bought by our children as a father's day gift and were so expensive (they were very good seats) we would never have gone.
So we arrived at the theatre early and Annette was horrified to 'see' that the play lasted four hours (she was mis-reading the program notes referring to the four hour time span of the play's action time frame) and only slightly less alarmed when she confirmed the actual length as being three hours with a theatre employee. So we found our seats and almost precisely on time (without the usual curtain going up/house lights going out) Ralf Fiennes walked on to the stage and 90 minutes later it was interval. It was an amazingly engrossing 'production' from the opening ship wreck through the 'flying' sprite scenes and the dramatic and humorous interactions of a thoroughly skilled and committed cast. The second act was equally enthralling and we walked home discussing what we had seen and, for the first time since we have been away, were too 'awake' to go to bed until well after midnight. A wonderful night.
This morning we went to the National Gallery and saw the usual 'old favourites' (unless there are incredible co-incidences of 'programming' it seems to me that the same paintings are there every time I have been since I was first taken some six decades ago (Constable's Hay Wain and Turner's Fighting Temeraire Going To Her Final Rest etc) but it it still an overwhelming display - 100s and 100s of six centuries of the 'cream' of European painting. We spent the rest of the morning finding our way to Hamley's (still the best toy shop in the world after 250 years) and browsing over the six floors with the excuse of looking for presents but really, at least in my case, having yet another trip down memory lane when visiting Hamleys in mid December, more often than not it was snowing, and hot chestnut sellers had real charcoal braziers out side on Regent Street providing fresh roasted nuts in small paper cones.
We will have dinner with Catherine and her boy friend this evening and then do some final chores tomorrow before getting an evening flight to Singapore. It has been a god trip to London this time - perhaps nostalgia affects you more as you get older and you find more to enjoy than when rushing around 'seeing the sights' that you have seen many times and provide no new thrills they did when they were 'fresher'.
I might go back to The Armoury tomorrow morning and buy myself a model figure I always longed for as a small boy.
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