Play: Richard III

Tonight, back for the first time since St. Patrick's Day with Buddies on a Budget (BoB) in London - we were off to The Globe for Richard III. With a woman in the title role.. could be interesting. Ah, The Globe - must be summer! 

I can walk there, but with it pissing rain all day, I decided not, and took a bus. I booked a table in The Anchor for dinner beforehand. Arrived just in time, and found one of their many bars - it's a maze of a building - at which I asked about my reservation. She advised me that they didn't have booking details at that bar, I should go up to the next one, to which she pointed. So I did - the lady there found my reservation and said she'd show me to my table. Whereupon she led me back down the stairs, past that first bar, down more stairs, across and up some stairs and a landing, then up another flight of stairs, and another, down a short one, and ta-da! There was my table. She advised me to go to yet another bar to place my order - it was closer..

So yes, I appear to have been in the attic. And yes, that's a boat in the rafters to the left - this is, in fact, called "The Boat Lounge" or something. A lovely space, in fact - so it's worth exploring if you are here, it was also a lot quieter than downstairs. It's right beside The Shakespeare Room, which seems to be a conference room:

I ordered chicken Kyiv and a good-value Sauvignon Blanc - the wine I got straight away, of course, the food took all of 10 minutes! Excellent service, and I was finished an hour before I needed to meet the others. So I had another glass, before heading out in the rain again. I tried their peanuts, but didn't fancy them, and hardly ate any.

The group posted a message to say they were inside the Globe, rather than outside, as planned - sensibly. And there I found them, and it transpired that two of us were actually in the seats - under cover. Well, I needed to run to the loo first - so I wasn't in with them, and didn't see where they went. Unfortunately, that meant I didn't meet them for the rest of the night - it was still raining at the interval, and I didn't fancy searching for them in that. Never mind.. I had my usual, a seat in the front row of the Lower Gallery:

Of course, I lost some of the action behind that pillar near me - but that's true of almost any seat here, there are few perfect views. My only quibble about my seat was the people stood in front of our section, who kept chatting through most of the first half, at normal speaking volume, to the extent that we couldn't hear the dialogue on stage! (The actors aren't miced, either.) They were told repeatedly to be quiet, to no avail - happily, they left at the interval: whether for another part of the theatre, or they just went home, I neither know nor care. As long as they weren't bothering us any more.

Well! Richard III as a woman. I'd wondered whether this would shed a new light on the character - not in itself, though. Michelle Terry does do an excellent job, mind - and I'm shocked to read about the backlash against her for playing him, as a non-disabled actor! How ridiculous - and as she rightly points out, she's far from the first non-disabled actor to play him, but none of the others got so much hate! Interestingly, it seems that they made a conscious decision to remove (most of) the references to his disability, to focus on his traits as a murderer, and a sexual predator - which they felt more relevant to today's society..

Almost all the cast are female, in fact. Which is fine, and they do a terrific job. Interestingly, Katie Erich, who plays Anne, is deaf - which probably explains why she breaks into sign language at one point. As to the play itself - perhaps the people nattering in front of me annoyed me a bit, but I felt the first half was a bit patchy, and dragged in parts. However, when it is good, it is very good - Richard III comes across as an absolute psychopath (and did anyone else notice the red cap left at the foot of the throne at one point? Looked to me like one from a Trump rally..). His sister-in-law, Elizabeth, married to Edward IV, is magnificent in opposition to him - and the kids are suitably innocent foils for Richard's evil plans. Perhaps any problems the play has stem from the cutting of it, which might have been rough in parts. Nonetheless, a very interesting production, and worth a look. Runs on selected dates to the 3rd of August.

Tomorrow, for once, I'm staying in - I have a Zoom talk given by the writers of a book called Seven Myths that Changed England. Turns out it's an LSE event.. and blast it, I saw it on cheap ticket sites, but it turns out to be completely free.. actually, I might head to the in-person event instead, I'll see how I feel. It is supposed to rain even more tomorrow.

On Thursday, I'm with London Social and Cultural Meetups, first time in months - we're going to a photo exhibition at Estorick. Then I'm back to Ireland for the next bank holiday. And wouldn't you know it, not a single film showing in the afternoon that I'm interested in seeing - I can't do evenings. Oh well, a quiet one for me then - I could do with it!

On the 28th, another of those cheap ticket talks - this one is by Asne Seierstad, and is at The Conduit, on the subject of Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

On the 29th, back with London Literary Walks at last - my Wednesdays are just so busy! This is a walk about Island Records - U2's old label, so of course I have an interest.. We're meeting in The Elgin.

And on the 30th, back with London Hot 100 - we're at the New Wimbledon Theatre for Jimmy Carr Laughs Funny.