Whitby Day #3, Play: The Right to Disappear, & Musical: A Very Divine Election

Phew! By Sunday, the end was in sight.. not, I hasten to add, that I wanted it to come to an end, it's just we did so much.. I did have to wear earplugs again the night before, more for the noise in what was now a busier guesthouse than before, than for exterior noise. I packed and was on my way out, but the owner, who was having breakfast, had left the kitchen door open - presumably for this exact purpose - and nabbed me on my way out for a chat. So that was the end of meeting the others on time..

We were to meet at the museum, which we hadn't managed to see yet. Heading in that direction, I was delighted to come across the statue of a woman knitting a "gansey", which JW (uber-organiser and chief factotum) had also photographed on Friday - it's particularly interesting to me, as "geansaí", pronounced the same way, is the Irish for "jumper":

I was delighted to see the museum had a cloakroom, which I made a beeline for with my case. The entry fee to the museum gives you a year's pass - not that I'll probably use it. But wow, that's not for lack of content - it's an incredible hodgepodge of all sorts of curiosities! You could come back so many times and not see half.. I'm a sucker for scale models, so started at the model of the town in 1830:

They have a ton of stuff that's obviously been donated by locals, including a lot of jewellery - I actually do own something like this, somewhere:

The place is, apparently, famous for jet:

Wow, a jet chessboard - with mythological figures around the edge:

Aw man, they have dolls' houses.. I love the detail, and this is a terrific one. They'd need to do a tidy though - note, for example, the picture that has apparently fallen down the stairs:

And what a stag's head is doing, actually in the fireplace, is beyond me.. but then, they have no more space on the wall!

Acres and acres of model ships:

Tons of terrific teapots:

Every so often, a mouse could be seen:

Now, I still hadn't found the others, and was just wondering.. when I got a helpful message from Connor to say they were in the gallery. So, out I schlepped.. to find them in the throes of a drawing competition, producing pictures of the abbey. (I wonder whose idea that can have been.) I demurred when asked to participate.. but here are, well, the only two pictures I actually have access to! Not saying they're the best, mind.. but, well, JW's incorporates not only the abbey, but the famous black dog, a legend in the area that also appears in the novel, Dracula.. and a vicious seagull.. and the group, all gathered at the abbey, apparently lined up as for a firing squad. Perhaps to accommodate the seagull. (Very comprehensive, then:)

And Dar's, while showing far fewer features of the site, displays far and away the most use of colour, and great attention to detail:

Well, while they polished off their masterpieces, I wandered around the gallery, which has some interesting things:

And then they meandered through the gift shop.. gee, what is the local obsession with badgers?!

I knew about the fascination with witchcraft and magic:

Well, they finally got into the museum, where I proceeded to see lots of things I'd missed before (see? impossible to find everything):

More neat accessories:

A chatelaine - the belt the lady of the household used to carry useful things in!

We horror fans searched amongst the dolls for the one most like Annabelle:

Found a complete Punch n Judy set:

The keys to the abbey:

We did wonder why Whitby came into possession of a samurai suit of armour:

We saw pipes so ornate, it'd be a shame to smoke them:

There was a treasure trove of curiosities from around the world:

Stefan messaged to say he'd found a cool video about the Hand of Glory.. so a couple of us wandered over to watch that. Turned out to be about a handful of the odder exhibits, which are displayed outside the video room:

The fabled Hand of Glory:

A dark matter detector. Nah, it isn't that easy to track, guys!

The hangman's necklace, sold as a souvenir of an execution:

An orrery - a mechanical model of the solar system - so called in honour of Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, who subsidised the manufacture of the first one.

Upstairs, it turned out they had an Alice in Wonderland exhibition:

Upstairs was a display of costumes from the book - and one from Lewis Carroll himself:

And there were samplers:

That mouse looks familiar:

They don't get so many crocodiles there anymore:

Skirt lifters! (kind of tongs to lift skirts from the mud):

Candles used to be big business:

Oh, and speaking of crocodiles:

Ubers ordered for later - but not too much later, in case of delay - we thought about lunch.. and Dar was given the heady task of finding somewhere. 

She finally settled on The Rusty Shears.. which turned out to be a pretty inspired choice! We all sat outside, under a massive fig tree - which proved fairly effective at keeping out the rain that was to fall a bit later. Yes, they do use the figs in the menu. I had a quite moreish ham & chutney sandwich - and you could choose your bread - and wine. And a trip to the loo:

Coming out, I saw the most comprehensive selection of cake I've ever seen - so we were all kind of obliged to have some. And thus was had a most excellent lunch. But of course, as with all our meals over the weekend, it wasn't just the food.. this is, inarguably, one of the best groups on Meetup, and gee, seems to keep attracting genuinely lovely people. It was my first weekend away with them - not the last, for sure! - and it would have been hard to better.

Off we went to catch our Ubers, and ours arrived first. I have to say, we had the most unpleasant driver.. when we started chatting, he immediately turned on the music (I guess he wasn't interested in listening to the chat?!) Anyway, we now couldn't hear each other, so asked him to turn it off - it took a number of goes, though. Then, one of the backseat passengers wanted her window open, but immediately she closed her eyes during the long journey, he tried closing her window.. in fact, he was constantly controlling my window as well. As we arrived in York, he started to complain about how he hated city driving. And to top it off, as soon as we were out of the car, he added a few quid to the fare - quite unjustifiably. Well, I queried it, and got a pretty immediate refund - when one of the group let me hotspot from his phone, my signal being AWOL again. Mind you, we were lucky - JW, Shelley, and Connor had their Uber cancelled, and had to get a regular cab, which cost half as much again..

And so to the Line & Whistle, one of the two pubs in the station. Where I ordered a large wine, and the waiter asked whether I was ok with the price! Jeez, he should see what I've paid in London.. and wow, Penny finally, at the very end, met Jules! See, on Friday, Penny came to dinner but Jules didn't, and on Saturday, Jules came to dinner but Penny didn't.. and in between, they were doing different things! That was kind of epic.. also nice that it turned out that Jules was sitting beside me for the return trip. Which was delayed by over half an hour, and Shelley helpfully sent us the link to request a refund. Which was processed very quickly, I have to say! Over messages, it transpired that JW just managed to get his train home - she had problems with hers, mind. The trains have become even more unreliable during the heatwave - and yes, we got off the train and into an oven. And that was London welcoming us back. And as I recall, I did start the blog that night.. but considering how much stuff we packed in..

I already had something for Monday, but before I wrote the blog, I spent some considerable time booking things ahead, as I still hadn't anything for Tuesday! Well, Meetup tends to be a bit dead at the start of the week - particularly in the summer - so those days were both cheap ticket events. Monday was The Right to Disappear, with TAC, an hour-long, solo piece at The Courtyard, about a young woman who's grown up with her mother vlogging her without her consent - and now she's taking back control of her life. I booked to eat in Schnitzel Heaven beforehand.

Made it early - it's one of those places where they can open the whole front wall, and in the heat, they had. I was told I could choose any table - I'd come before the rush. I knew not to have a starter - they're all breadcrumbed, like the schnitzels, and breadcrumbs on breadcrumbs is a bit much. I had the katsu schnitzel.. now, the specialty ones like this come as a double, and they came with a jug of katsu sauce, a slice of lemon, and a pat of butter. Rice as well. Lotta food on the plate. Well, I wondered what to do about this.. love them with butter and lemon, but of course I didn't want to miss the katsu. Well, I smeared the top one with butter - unfortunately, I knew the pat of butter would have melted by the time I got to the bottom schnitzel, so I could only use it on the top, and popped the rest on top of the rice. And then I applied the katsu sauce to the schnitzel, over the butter. Used the lemon on the lower schnitzel, with the sauce on top.

Both good combos, I'm happy to say - I prefer the butter, personally. And it worked great on the rice. Meantime, I had a couple of glasses of wine - they only do medium glasses, here - and the very perceptive server pointed out that she'd just taken both glasses from a new bottle, and did I just want the rest of the bottle? Now, how could I refuse an offer like that.. so I finished the bottle. I had time. And then I had the manager pop by, asking how my day was going.. and as I said to him, I actually had to leave imminently. Whereupon he burst out laughing. "Oh, no!" He'd obviously had visions of selling me lots more stuff. Ah well.. I mean, the desserts do look good, but I didn't have time.. it's a good place, they always have a crowd of delivery riders waiting for pickups, in a line outside.

And so to the theatre, where I just had time to order another glass of wine before the house was open, and we went in. Unassigned seating, so I just sat in the front, as usual. Happy to say this was excellent.. it's a really disturbing piece, she gives a moving performance as she incredulously describes how she always had a camera in her face, how her every action and expression was scripted.. and how it got gradually creepier. It's so powerful that I was upset by the end. Very well done indeed. Only one performance left, on the 23rd - highly recommended, if you can make it.

And of course, such time as I had to blog this week was all given over to covering the phenomenal schedule we had in Whitby.. so, although I started this post on Tuesday, and had high hopes of getting up to date.. yeah, that didn't happen. Yet.

Tuesday was with CT, who were offering A Very Divine Election, described as a horror comedy, showing at Theatro Technis. I booked a table at the nearby Lyttleton Arms for beforehand.

Well, he pointed out that there was an open mic in the pub, and asked whether I wanted to be sat in front of it, or "somewhere more private". Hmm. I pointed out that I had to be somewhere for 9pm (nice n late), he suggested I take one of the tables in front, near the door. It wasn't too close to the stage, and I agreed. Quite a cool pub, actually..

I had a chicken schnitzel, which was fine. And the music started.. I swear, the first guy up had a song about "my electric bike".. and when he had this line that went something like "I like to..", jeez, it reminded me of nothing so much as My Lovely Horse.. the second artist up was really good, though, apparently only visiting from the States and had brought her guitar:

And so I left, for a short walk to the theatre. Again, unassigned seating, and I was on the front, in the corner - had to watch where I put my feet, the actors were coming in and out that way.

Yes, hmm. The play was set in Barnet, where a local election was underway - not sure how Laurence Summers, who lives there, would feel about that. There was a sleazy candidate, and his nephew, who worked in the campaign office, and was instructed to do a deal with a local advertising agency - who seemed to be in cahootz with the devil..

I mean, it was nearly excellent. Diction could have been better - there were some truly funny moments, but the witchy character who kept running in and out, giggling, was not among them. I did like the coven idea - overall though, it didn't really hang together for me. However, good effort. I think it's no longer playing.

Right.. I have high hopes that the NEXT post will bring me up to date.