all the world's a stage

After a day hanging out with the Binnie and bebe Margot, enjoying the brilliant turn up in the weather - sunshine! all day! temperatures over 20 degrees! - I hop on the train up to the South Bank for an evening of culture - King Lear at the Globe.

I studied King Lear for A Level and it's always been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays; the only stage version I've seen was a school trip to see it right before we read the book, and it was, by all accounts, a pretty crappy version.

The Globe itself is one hell of a place. I love that people took the time, patience and energy to rebuild this historical building. In fact I remember that my high school took part in a 'Sponsored Shakespeare' event (literally, readings of his plays for 24 hours straight, with people donating money for every hour or play that was got through) when Wanamaker and co. were raising funds.


I meet up with my friend in the coffee shop and hire cushions for £1 - well worth every penny. Musicians in 16th Century garb come out on stage and play on ancient instruments, before two of the actors come out and ask the audience to kindly not let any anachronisms such as phone rings or flash photography interrupt the play.

The performance itself is interesting; there's slightly less focus on the tragic aspects of the play, and the comedic side is turned up, but I enjoy it all and the individual performances are great. Though I did want to punch every member of the audience when there was a group "Awwww" when an insane Lear hugs Edgar in disguise as Mad Tom. IT'S NOT AN 'AWWW' MOMENT. Cretins.

Waiting for the bus back to Waterloo, a man starts chatting to me - a real local, South East London bloke - who tells me he was part of an activist group who opposed the building of the Globe, wanting instead for funding to go towards housing for local working class people in that area. I note that it's the first time I've ever gone to the Globe, but I'm sure it comes off as privileged whining. I shrug and sit away from him on the bus, my theatre buzz effectively snuffed by the guy. I guess I can understand his miffedness.

And now, a shameful secret I impart... There's a Dr Who episode in series 3 called the Shakespeare Code (wow, I've literally only just got that that's probably a play on the Da Vinci Code. I'm a dumbass) where the Dr and Martha encounter Shakespeare; the end scene occurs at the Globe, where they all fight off the bad guys for that episode. It's a brilliant scene, with a genuine laugh out loud Harry Potter reference. And as I sat in the theatre waiting for the play to begin, that was all I could think of. Not about how this was theatre as it used to be. Not about the historical importance of the place. Dr Who. Quel dommage.

i love the smell of spring sunshine in the morning

My love/hate relationship with the Smoke is well documented, but on early Spring mornings when the sun is wide awake and the sky blue and the air fresh, foregoing the bus and walking over Waterloo Bridge up to Bloomsbury, London looks it finest - and, with just the right music on the old ipod, sets you up better for the day than the strongest cup of coffee could.

walk the south bank

So a last minute decision, and we headed to The Scoop over by Tower Bridge to go to the open air cinema to see Walk The Line [think Bryant Park movies by Tower Bridge]. It was a beautiful evening and while we waited for the drawbridge [I feel so medieval saying that!] to go down, we stood on the bridge looking down the river. When we got down to the ampitheatre, it was packed. The theatre bit itself had already been shut off, and people were sitting around all on the towpath. There was no way we would have seen shit. So we gave up and decided to wander down the south bank of the Thames.

I think it was something I needed to do, something to remind me just how great London can be. It was beautiful. We - that's me, my bowling-ball-bellied pregnant friend M, and Izzy who'd twisted her ankle earlier in the day - ended up walking all the way down to Hungerford Bridge, past Waterloo. We walked up the small lane next to Charing Cross at about 11pm, eating Twister ice lollies we'd just bought in Embankment tube station and guessing who of those walking past us were headed to Heaven.