Last night, back with Up in the Cheap Seats for Allegra, starring Maureen Lipman, at the Harold Pinter - got a cheap ticket with Seatplan, and completely forgot I'd earned a voucher I could've used! I managed a seat at the edge of the Dress Circle, which is at ground level. Booked to eat beforehand at Bella Italia again, yay!
Well glory be - I actually made it just in time for the bus. So I was early to the restaurant, where the manager was surprised to see me so soon again, twice in one week! As I told him, he'd be seeing me a third time.. The new guy was there again, and had been told my name now - and wow, the manager showed me the order that had gone through to the kitchen for my food, which had VIP printed on it. :-) Supposed to take extra care over it in that case, so I was told. Well, it was all gorgeous, as usual.. and, coming for the second time within the deadline, I got 25% off my food bill! Nice one.. sadly, I didn't have time for dessert this time.
Made my way over to the theatre, got a drink, and took my seat:
..and then remembered I was supposed to meet the group! Oops - out to the lobby again. Now, I thought we were to meet upstairs, where most of them were sitting, but the stairs were roped off.. and as I was trying to get the details up, I spotted two of them by the box office. Others arrived as we chatted, and it turned out that the upper levels were, indeed, closed off, and they'd been upgraded, most now on my level. Well, my ticket cost no more, anyway.I thought I'd enjoy this, and I did. It's the story of an elderly lady with a love of singing, who chooses to share it with everyone she meets! Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates it, and ultimately she gets reported to the police..
I think it's a sweet story - I can just see myself going the same way. The tunes are all familiar - and tend to be accompanied by projections on the rear of the stage. Indeed, one song - Take Me Down to the Ball Game - has the lyrics displayed so the audience can sing along! Unfortunately, they can't be seen from the Stalls - as we heard from those of our group who were in the Stalls. Anyway, not much else to say about the show - but we did enjoy it. Recommended, if you're into old tunes - runs to Saturday.
It ran too late to blog, and again I was too busy today. Tonight, I was to be back with CT for a concert, Symphonic Masterworks, by the 1st London City Philharmonic at St. Marylebone Church. But then Movie Roadhouse London advertised a trip to see Ish in the BFI - a film about racial profiling as it affects a couple of children, it's co-written by Enda Walsh, and the trailer looked good, so I decided to do that, and eat in The Archduke beforehand. So, second Meetup in a row, and the organiser, Giulia, was one of the group last night.
Had to get up early so I could eat early enough to meet them beforehand. Honestly, I dunno whether I'm going to go to The Archduke any more - the standard of the food has really gone down, and it isn't cheap. Anyway, I didn't have time for dessert, but had a glass of dessert wine before I schlepped over to the cinema, where I quickly found Giulia with another of the group, and as we chatted, more arrived. The screen has moved from its previous location, the entrance now adjacent to the cafe. An onscreen notice instructs patrons that the door we entered by will be shut once the film starts, and we are not to exit that way, but via the rear exits. Which everybody ignored.
The film is subtitled - thank goodness, because although it's mostly in English, my God, I couldn't have understood the accent. Set in Luton, it might as well have been set in another country - what with the thick accents and the slang. The older people speak more clearly. (Ish, by the way, is short for Ishmail.)
We meet him at the beginning, hanging out with a good friend, who turns out to be Palestinian. Unfortunately, on their way home one day, they're stopped by the police - crucially, Ish does a runner, and from then on his friend shuns him. This gradually causes a separation between them, and Ish turns away from him and his friends, and more towards his family. Which might be no bad thing..
It's shot in black and white - apparently because the director thought that to shoot in colour would emphasise the economic privation of the area, and he didn't want to distract from the story. The dramatic score underlines the momentous effect the film's incidents are having on Ish, who's much younger than the others - really still a kid. And as the film focuses so particularly on him, you do get a feeling for what he's experiencing. Ultimately, most of us agreed afterwards that it was a very good coming-of-age story, and a neat way to portray the differences in this Muslim community.
To the bar afterwards, where some of us got a drink, and we all had a chat about things film-related. And isn't it funny how things always slew around to horror.. Lovely to be with the group again, and it was a good evening.
Tomorrow, decided on film again - second in a row, now - and what was coming up was The Sacrifice, a film about a family who've just discovered there's to be a nuclear war. Closest evening showing is in the Curzon Soho. But looking at a more complete listing, I saw the Prince Charles is showing Contes d' Été (A Summer's Tale), a wee story of a young lad juggling several simultaneous relationships. Looks decent, and was mostly sold out again, so I've booked. Eating at Bella Italia afterwards, because it's an early film - which means I'll have the three meals required to qualify for half-price dinners right up to the end of October, yay!
And woohoo, Friday sees the kickoff of London Museum A-Z's Dracula trips! The book goes to Whitby this weekend - and so do we! Now, we were having dreadful trouble trying to figure out how to get there, with complicated travel routes - until I was at one of Laurence Summers' walks, we were having lunch afterwards, and talking travel, and I mentioned this trip to Whitby. "Whitby!", exclaims the woman sitting opposite me, "I love Whitby!" She's always there, it seems.. to which, of course, my response was - "How?!"
So, she always gets the fast train to York and an Uber from there - says it's the quickest, and cheapest, among any of the alternatives. So.. we're all getting the fast train to York! on Friday. I booked with Uber, which got me the best deal - and points - and I had credit with them. Most of us are heading in the morning - I'm taking the day off - and then some are heading straight to Whitby by Uber, some by connecting trains or bus, and some of us are staying in York for lunch and a wander around - it's a beautiful city. (And we're a flexible group.) We're then carpooling Ubers to Whitby - one of the other organisers, Shelley, told me about Uber's feature to share the cost of a ride, so we might use that - and have booked The Fat Badger in Whitby for dinner that night. Food has now been prebooked. We all booked our own accommodation - I'm in The Captain's Lodge, and it seems a few more of the group are next door.
Saturday looks jam-packed - not least because there's a regatta in town! A number of us have booked to go to the famous abbey that day, where there are two showings of a Dracula play.. and Shelley has put together a Bram Stoker walk. We're eating in The Moon and Sixpence that night. Meantime, there are a few Goth fans in the group, who are likely to hit the apparently numerous Goth shops in the town - as told to me by someone on another of those walks!
Now, I was on yet another walk when the guide said to me that the Dracula Experience in Whitby is great fun.. Well, I'll try and squeeze it in on Sunday, although I'm guessing we'll be having lunch, and then we're heading back home in the late afternoon - watch this space. Altogether though, expecting a great trip!
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