Excellent break in London, good hotel at great rate (always a plus for a Yorkshireman), theatre, exhibitions and “attractions”! Very successful combination….
Managed to get to three theatre productions. Finally got to see Blood Brothers (wanted to give it time to bed in and mature!). Got to be worried when Marti Pellow is the main draw but it was superb, as was Marti to be fair, thoroughly enjoyable.
Caught the matinee production of the Ladykillers which was definitely OK (damning with faint praise) but could have been a little sharper I think. We were in the Gods for this one however, so a little of the dialogue was occasionally hard to hear, which never helps.
The real surprise was the Pitmen Painters production in the lovely, small Duchess Theatre. Well acted, funny, heartwarming, political and totally engrossing. All the attributes you often read about in the London-centric press reviews only to find the production is actually, to use the vernacular, shite. This play deserved all its plaudits and more. Inspired you to discover more about the Ashington Group (which I’ve now discovered is quite difficult, material is a little patchy).
Also managed to get to the Old Operating Theatre Museum in situ in a roof of a building on the old St. Thomas Hospital site. This is a great find and, although small, is well worth a visit to see how it was all done before anaesthesia revolutionised surgical procedure. Despite the horrors of the surroundings, surgeons were remarkably successful apparently, although I suspect that’s a relative rather than absolute judgement.
The Lucien Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery appeared to be well put together. I say appeared as I don’t know enough about his work to comment with confidence – loosely chronological and thematic in layout, it was a comprehensive overview of his work. Don’t stint on time if you go.
Final port of call was the War Cabinet rooms, which I’ve been threatening to go to for quite a while. Didn’t realise that, when combined with the integrated Churchill museum, there is an awful lot to see and experience. We got there at 3.30 in the afternoon, only just got out before it closed at 6.00 and we both agreed we could go again and get plenty out of a return trip.