We had intended to picnic in the nearby Turbine Hall, but found it closed for the dismantling of the scaffold garden noticed at reference 1 and elsewhere, so, the only outside bench to be seen being in range of a rather noisy busker, we had to settle for picnic inside the Globe itself. No-one seemed to mind.
Into the playhouse, which was more or less full for this matinée performance, a first for me but not for BH, the play having been her second string at A level bard. A serviceable performance, but one which left me thinking that playhouses have moved on a bit since the days of James I. They might not be quite as pretty, but on the other hand you no longer have to sit in uncomfortable seats and look down on the action through chandeliers - all very authentic with real candles, but a bit hard on the older eye. I think for the future we will stick to proper theatres with proscenium arches and proper raking seats.
The dancing and music were rather good, with the dancing not overdone as it sometimes is in their other place. An interesting dance, both formal and involving intimate touching with hands, interesting as an alternative to the full body contact which was de rigueur in my dancing days. A missed opportunity in that the dance of the satyrs only ran to three satyrs while the instructions in the text called for twelve; most unlike the Globe to fail to rise to such a bait.
Hermione and Paulina were good. Autolycus was rather overdone to my taste.
But having got acquainted with the play I shall go again should occasion arise in a proper theatre.
Back to the nearby Albion for tea, quite an expensive place but also quite good. They had the best white bread I have had in a restaurant for a long time. Then mushrooms on toast, also good. Then a chicken and ham pie, which turned up in pork pie format, a tribute to the appetites of the city workers who presumably occupy the place during the week. Served with something described as new potatoes but which were not very new by the time we got them and something described as spring greens which was actually crinkly cabbage. Good cabbage, but not what it said on the tin. Nice bottle of Riesling, washed down with a very decent brandy. Service good. See reference 4 for the last occasion.
Outside to inspect the garden contrived between some of the new blocks of flats thereabouts; a handsome composition in green, including patches of the 'mind your own business', of which I am rather fond and of which BH is not. Reference 2 gives something of the idea while google images at 'mind your own business plant' does rather better.
The moon was behaving itself over Westminster, being crescent, to the left of the set sun, waxing (as the name would suggest. I don't like to talk about waning crescent moons) and with horns pointing left. Spot on schedule. And, as it happens, it continued to behave itself a couple of evenings later, being in the right place and with the right configuration seen out of the study window, back in Epsom. See, for example, reference 3.
PS: programme oddity in that it was near, but slightly bigger than A5, hence the clipping and bending of the illustration above - my scanner likes A4 or open A5. I had thought, clearly quite wrongly, that the chaps in the European Commission were more insistent on standards in these matters. But I won't tell the brexit people; they have quite enough to chew on as it is.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/art-old-and-new-1.html.
Reference 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/868.shtml.
Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/muddle-continues.html.
Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/copper-box-time.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment