As almost advertised at reference 1, from the days when trolleys were on, off to see Sigourney Weaver in the Tempest at the beginning of the year. A very modest amount of Arden revision for a lady who is ten days younger than I am.
The day in question was cold, colder at least than it had been. The duffel coat was still wet from the rain of the day before and in any event a bit bulky for a theatre, so settled for the padded jacket, bought something over a year ago, as noticed at reference 3. Not a jacket I get a great deal of use out of it, but it earns its keep with a few cold days on cold railway platforms. Plus stick rather than trolley, this last being deemed a bit bulky for a theatre too.
Passed a well laden trolley on the way down West Hill. Had some drunk pulled it out of the bushes the night before?
Saved a few quid on fares by settling for London terminals rather than Travelcards. To catch one of the new-to-Epsom style red train shortly after midday, already pretty full when it arrived at Epsom for some reason. We were reminded how much a pair of young people - probably students of some kind - can talk. I suppose we must have been like that once.
Nearing London, viewing conditions for aeroplanes were good, but I failed to make the jump from one to two. Disappointing.
Opted to take a snack at the Benugo up on the Waterloo mezzanine. A snack in the form of one of those toasted sandwiches filled with bacon and some kind of cheese - twice the calories and twice the price of the rather better bacon sandwiches offered by the market restaurant in Whitecross Street. Will I get to visit the place again before St. Luke's gets back into life sometime towards the end of this year? After completing a substantial renovation project with Alex and Elena Gerko as lead donors. With Alex being a philanthropic quant of whom I had not previously heard, but who is to be found at reference 3. Perhaps he can be persuaded to prop up the Wigmore Hall? Perhaps they wouldn't won't to be behoven to one big donor like him?
Sandwich aside, I took a lively interest in the roof of the station, a lot closer from the mezzanine than it is from the concourse below. I think what my father would have called a pleasing blend of structure and function, all there for the eyes and the brain to take in and appreciate. Furthermore, unlike, say, the vaulting of a cathedral, there is little faking and little superfluous ornament. What you see mostly does what it appears to be doing, rather than just giving a pleasing impression of so doing.
Only marred on our descent by an unpleasantly loud lady busker.
The theatre was very grand, with lots of pillars and flummery on the way in. And a very impressive auditorium. I suppose I was being a bit snobbish or elitist to find it a little odd that such a place had been home to 'Frozen' for three years - about which a slick and entertaining, if rather noisy, video is to be found at reference 5. But maybe what this did mean was that the whole operation was very slick, both front of house and on the stage. They could cope with the numbers in a way that many theatres cannot.
A bottle of beer was quite reasonably priced, while the programme was a tenner, up from the fiver that I remember. Furthermore, the text was printed white on black, hard on the older eyes, and the ink was stinky, hard on any nose. An unbalanced cast in the sense that while I had heard of Weaver - my main memory of her being an interview in which she explained that she was not a bimbo, rather a well educated woman who wanted to be treated as such - I had not heard of many of the rest of the cast and a lot of the CVs looked a bit thin. Maybe you have to skimp a bit on the supporting cast if you are paying for a star?
But they did not skimp on the set which, while it did not involved much in the way of construction or furniture, made very clever use of lighting, wind and what appeared to be long pieces of fabric. A good sound track. I think all the actors were wired for sound, which meant that some of the time the speeches got a bit detached from the speaker.
No idea what the usual running time is, but here it was about two hours with an interval in the middle. Quite a small Arden and reference 6 confirms that at around 2,000 lines that the play is indeed a short one and that running time should be around two hours. So there were probably cuts, but perhaps not that many,
The page at reference 6 seemed to be copy protected, but it was not protected against Microsoft's 'view source', and from there I was able to export the data to Excel. A bit of trouble formatting it, but I got there. Even more trouble getting the histogram I wanted, with the Microsoft help I could find not getting me anyway. Eventually I was reduced to using Google's Gemini, which got me there in seconds. And I now find the Tempest in the third column from the left in the graphic above, well below average. Hamlet far right.
So visually impressive, but the words were not all they might have been - which was a pity because what little revision I had done suggested that this was a serious play, addressing issues which remain important today. Was back to nature, for example, something to be desired? While in this rendering, the famous line about the brave new world, was rather lost. On the other hand, my memory said that the line should have been near the beginning of the play, whereas now I find it is very near the end. Act V, Sc I, Line 183. Roughly where it was on this occasion.
Out to take solid refreshment at the Delaunay on the Aldwych - with the restaurant being new to me, although I have used the café section next door once or twice. Lots of brass and brown wood - a bit like the Wigmore public house in a corner of the Langham Hotel. Pleasant and efficient service - including little notebooks to take the orders, rather than little computers. Very oldspeak. Also including what might have been EPNS cutlery. Not stainless steel, whatever it was. Busy by the time we left at 18:30 or so (on a Thursday).
A satisfactory German red in the liquid department.
Good white bread, very much in the way of that at Côte. But the custom here is to serve it without side plates - but which are supplied fast enough if you ask for them. Perhaps that is the foreign way.
Borsch for her, chicken soup (thin) for him. Both good. Followed by mackerel roulade for her and lambs' kidneys for him. Both good again. Plus some French beans on the side. The white donut in the snap above being mashed potato rather than plate. Followed by an apple strudel.
The contraption for tea. New to us. Any offers on what it was made of?
The strudel. Plus something that warms, left. Calvados from Camut. Unusually, I failed to get any nearer the source than reference 9. Looks to be a serious producer all the same.
A very satisfactory meal. I dare say we will be back one day.
Out to find that there was an alternative, should Delaunay's have failed us. No idea what was there when I was a student at LSE back in the 1960s - although it would not have been Greggs. Not much that I remember on this stretch at all.
Across the river, with it all looking very pretty downstream. What with the lights on the cranes to scare off the helicopters and one thing and another.
Just missed a train, but the view from the bridge was worth it.
PS 1: Weingut Battenfeld-Spanier Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) is well known to the Internet, and I eventually tracked it down to its source at reference 10, from where the snap above is taken. Furthermore, reference 10 also talks of Spätburgunder grapes, which I now know is German for Pinot Noir. And suggests a Delaunay mark-up of between 4 and 5: fairly strong, but someone has got to pay for all that brass and brown wood.
PS 2: for some reason, Google thought to put an advertisement for an Argentine flavoured café at Windlesham, near Bagshot, in my email. With a connection to the Guards Polo Club. There are pictures at reference 11, but not very glossy ones. Probably a bit too far out of our way to take a chance on.
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/11/trolley-755.html.
Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigourney_Weaver.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/11/shopping.html.
Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gerko.
Reference 5: https://frozenthemusical.co.uk/.
Reference 6: https://www.playshakespeare.com/study/play-lengths.
Reference 7: https://www.thedelaunay.com/.
Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/modigliani.html. A visit to the Delaunay café.
Reference 9: https://madeincalvados.com/producteur-113-calvados-camut.
Reference 10: https://www.kuehlingandbattenfeld.com/en/battenfeldspanier/winelist.
Reference 11: https://www.clarascocina.com/.
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