The Bard’s Birthday
I’ve had a very busy week of work this week, so busy it’s 6.20am and I’m sitting here waiting for the train to take me to Hammersmith. I seem to be spending a lot of time with clients who live around Hammersmith so the area is becoming familiar and fancied to me. There are a lot of the shops that reside on Oxford Street without all the crazy hustle and bustle, and the main station services three tube lines and over 50 different buses.
I filled the weekend with work, but managed to squeeze a few hours of self-fulfilment on Sunday when I made my way to the Southbank – think Melbourne’s Southbank but five times the size and full of theatres, museums, lovely eateries and don’t forget the London Eye. This particular Sunday was a gorgeous day so every tourist, local, and national visitor was out enjoying the sun, the ice creams and the free attractions – the huge outdoor book market by the National Theatre, the skateboarders falling off their boards when the try really fancy moves for their audiences, the kids playing in the mud bank where the Thames is low, and this weekend we had the added free attraction of a sand sculptor.
He had made a couch with a sand person lying on their stomach with their hands on their chin, but it looked funny because a bunch of hippies were sitting in a circle on and around the couch and encompassing the sandman. He also made a big TV and two armchairs further on.
But my excitement for the day was the Globe Theatre open day in honour of the Bard’s Birthday today (Wednesday 22nd). For four hours entry was free, and the line-up was *ahem* only ten minutes long. Once inside you had to fight your way through the crowd to view the exhibition, or more like it I was actually reading about the Bard’s life so everyone was being annoying and walking right in front of me. There was handbag jostling, there was elbowing, there were dads yelling out for lost kids. Pure enjoyment I tell you. But a saved a good few pounds. And still you ask me, was it worth it?!
I thought so, for one reason, I got to speak a line of a sonnet which was filmed on camera and being aired as a part of today’s celebrations in an attempt at the world record for most people speaking a sonnet. I also sat in the actual theatre for a while, as there was a workshop on teaching kids how to fight “ye olde stage” style. Stage acting finger-in-the-eye pokes, Roman punches and hair grips, it was all for fun and the kids loved it.
The theatre itself is quite amazing. On any night of the week there are performances for £5 standing room (although I’m sure you could sit on the ground if you wanted to), and the structure itself is like a giant cylinder. The stage comes out on one side, and all around there are four tiers of seating as well as a few boxes, and yet still the theatre keeps that cylindrical shape. They do say that any seat is not exempt from a proper view of the action at any one time, and they say the £5 seats are about the best. I grabbed a program and I’d like to go back when they are playing As You Like It, a classic that I never saw or studied. They’re currently playing Romeo and Juliet. Yawn.
So that was my exciting part of the weekend, since then I’ve just been working my butt off to save up for Berlin and Pamplona and anywhere else I might be going to.
Tags: Travel
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