The week was fine--nothing too special, considering where I am… :) Taught another Dickens mini-walking tour followed by Borough Market and The George Inn for Global Foods and then took my Twain in London class to do original research at the British Library and check out their Treasures Collection, followed by lunch at Bloomsbury Farmer's Market! OK--those were both pretty awesome days!! Funniest (??!) story during the GF walking tour: I was taking them around a bit of the Little Dorrit/Marshalsea part of town. We're not reading LD, but we decided NOT to visit Newgate on our rainy tour last week--and D had plenty of history with Marshalsea--so I made the call. Showing them the remaining portion of the wall of the original prison--all that is left and where there is a little plaque commemorating it (as there is with half of London for something historical or other). Couldn't see much because they were doing construction. Then one of my students observed that the construction team was actually PULLING THE WALL DOWN! Who needs history, clearly! I was floored… and an Eddie Izzard bit kept playing in my head where he mocks the US for "tearing [our] history down, man." And all I could think was--what do you call this??!! The rest of the tour was fine, and just the right length, and the students then were told to go around and chat up a couple of the stall attendants and different venues at Borough Market. Get to know the food producers a little more! I gave them an hour--and said: Go! Consider this a sociology project. Call me interdisciplinary!! They seemed to love the project… and of course had to nibble their way through the market, too! Then, we had some time left in class to actually, you know, have class, so we went to the George Inn-- one of the oldest places in or out of London-- and one where both Dickens and Shakespeare hung out. It was hard not to squee like a little girl!! Ditto for the Twain class-- I love the BL--and I got to tell my class about the King's Library--and that fabulous display in the middle. And they could check out actual old manuscripts and look at the actual handwriting of authors/musicians they loved… It's a heckuva buzz!! Twain researched at King's Library back in his various stays in London, btw. This was totally legit! And we continued our class out in the cold at the Farmer's Market--but OMG I love my London street food!
Wednesday night I saw a short-and-sweet-and-loud-and-weird version of Macbeth. It was pretty cool, though my chair was actually TOTALLY uncomfortable and after a while that's ALL I noticed. Very minimal and spare. It edited out chunks of the play and added a lot of techno-style music… I thought it was cool just to see how people can play with the original works. I saw a relatively faithful, old-fashioned version at the Barbican with the Henry IVs, then this Techno, jeans-wearing, gender-bending version of Macbeth, and in April I will see what I'm sure will be a VERY traditional version at the Globe itself with Merchant of Venice… Fun to compare!
That all brings us to Friday the 13th… and what is a girl to do in an old and creaking town like London on a day like that? Already saw Woman in Black… don't really feel like a Jack the Ripper tour--a little too on the nose and cheesy… also it's raining…
Then, I decided--it was finally time for me to go to the Tower of London… (Kinda the dumbest name for a castle ever-- can't they just call it London Castle or something??) It took me three visits to do it, but I finally did… And it was worth all the gajillions of pounds it costs… It's a huge place and every part of it is dripping with history… much of a particularly gory nature!! It fit the Friday the 13th bill just fine! Despite the fact that I wasn't a fan of the rain… and the Beefeater tour was wonderfully funny--so not exactly in tone… and of course parts were crowded (but silver lining to the rain--it kept the numbers relatively low!)…
I don't care so much about crown jewels, unless the jewels are cursed or something… But I did my duty to my tourist's bank account and glided by them on the moving sidewalk… and I saw the (empty, thank god) stanchions for the lines they must get in the summer that looked like something out of Disneyland… Eep! Spoiler alert: the jewels are sparkly!!
I also didn't spend so much time in the fusilier museum… I really don't know much about army paraphernalia, let alone that of another country… really the only reason I even entered was because I could hear Martin Freeman as Watson going on about being in the fusiliers… ;) I did get a good old fashioned USA giggle seeing the red-coat early uniforms, though. I didn't see that coming. I thought: thanks for the target, there, during the Revolution! :)
The white castle museum was wonderful-- history of armory… which is exactly as alien to me as history of fusiliers--except for the fact that this looked EXACTLY like walking into a fantasy book-- or ALL the fantasy books. This I understood--just not on a level of any kind of reality… judge me if you dare! There were a few suits of armor for Henry VIII, of course, and he's real. He's the British version of Elvis--everything is divided into two periods: skinny Henry and fat. The armor showed the difference. And you had to laugh!! This is also where I had to almost gag--I saw one of the most hideous masks I've ever seen in the executioner's mask from back in that day… all the wives and such that lost their heads on the (also displayed) block. The mask had a painted-on grin, but it was done wrong and all shifted to the side. So the mask had a painted on leer, basically. THAT'S clearly the last thing a person wants to see in life… *shudder* How have they not used that mask in a horror movie yet??
Speaking of block, there is a display out in the courtyard memorializing the six people who were beheaded inside the walls of the castle. LOTS more were executed outside…but the wives, sisters of wives, cousins, etc got the whack within the walls. (VIP indeed!) It's a modern memorial--which is interesting in this area of oh-so much history… but I liked it. Also, both Catherine Howard (number 5, I believe) and Anne Boelyn's sister Jane (friend of Catherine) were beheaded on a Friday the 13th… so there were flowers on the memorial for them…
Jane Grey, though, is clearly the saddest story of the lot! (Along with her husband, Guilford Dudley, I suppose…)
The other part I really liked was the graffiti in the towers. Everyone tells you about it--and I don't know what I thought, but I didn't imagine the detailed bas-relief going on there. That was practically sculpture. I didn't understand much of it-- initials or crests and occasional Latin. But there were a few poems and names I did recognize and such… It was fun in the creepiest sense!!
This is one of the few museums where I actually did have to grab lunch at the cafe to replenish for round two!
But enough of that! I ALSO tubed and DLRd back to Greenwich to see a production of Jekyll and Hyde… I really liked it--one of my favorite shows so far! It was spare and modernized--as seems to be the theme this year--but in the end it stuck to the original story pretty closely. And this production used a lot of smoke effects--very cool for suggesting smoky London… and a revolving elevated stage platform that became several different "sets" in different positions. And the actor playing Jekyll/Hyde was phenomenal--ran around all over the place and did a ton of acrobatic physical acting that was really amazing to watch. Something I really liked in the modernized version was making Jekyll/Hyde a black actor (biracial), Utterson gay (and in love and formerly in a relationship with Jekyll), and all the other smaller roles played by a woman--who made a point that as a woman she didn't have a bigger role/wasn't allowed… They were all interesting choices and I liked them all! I really liked this show! Not as much jumping-out-of-seats as Woman in Black, perhaps, but there were some pretty disturbing parts… (Hyde tortures a woman at one point-- it was fascinating how they staged it!) So well worth the Friday the 13th honor!
AND so a very successful (if wet and rainy and so I was occasionally cranky) Friday the 13th in London… Brief side note-- both days I was in Greenwich now various museums and spots have been closed to the public because they're filming Now You See Me II… SO whenever that comes to theaters-- look out for some scene at the Cutty Sark!
Here's to more adventures!
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