Happy Halloween From London!

It's been an amazing two weeks here! The weather has remained beautiful -- it's 60 degrees here today -- and we have had a fantastic weekend we've got to tell you about!

On Friday, we decided to get an early start and go into central London, about a 45-minute Tube ride from Uxbridge. When we arrived, Maria and I went directly to Westminster Abbey, because one of Maria's great-grandfathers is buried there. I stayed outside because of the horrendous admission prices they charge (we had forgotten it was about $25.00 each), and Maria went in instead. She did the smart thing- she asked one of the attendants about finding her relative. He not only conducted up to their very beautiful private library, he copied their records for her and let her take photographs of the site (Westminster Abbey strictly forbids photography!) She was so excited! SHe's really getting into her family tree and those of her clients, too, so anybody who wants quality geneological research done, get it from the woman who can now trace her ancestry back directly to both William The Conqeuror and Malcom and Duncan of Scotland. (I've always said she was a royal pain sometimes...)
After that adventure, we went to a little Italian place near the Leicester Square TKTS booth and had some great, cheap, pasta for lunch, then walked up Charing Cross Road to the "cinema", as they call their movie theatres here in Great Britain. By the way, they take their Halloween seriously here: there was a 100-person line just to get into a trendy Halloween costume store, and it got longer as the day progressed. Arriving at the cinema, we got our tickets for the new movie Anonymous, which we have highly anticipated seeing, since it included a pretty radical theory on the Shakespeare Authorship Question, namely that Edward DeVere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, in fact wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare of Straford-upon-Avon. Having met the director, Roland Emmerich, the screenwriter, John Orloff, and the star, Rhys Ifans the previous Monday at an event in London, we were VERY anxious to see the film!

It was everything a good Shakespearean play should be: a fine ensemble cast, murder, comedy, royalty, and pathos, and I'm going to have to see it again just to get everything I missed the first time! The backgrounds are beautifully created, the scenes are staggeringly realistic, and the acting is uniformly brilliant. Please go see it, even if your old English teacher is doing somersaults in her tomb...! And join the revolution if you so desire: one site I like is http://www.shakespeare-oxford.com/, which has numerous followers and a tremendously balanced FAQ about the authorship question.

And if you're looking for reviews of the film, let me just say that Rex Reed and Roger Ebert and huge number of good critics liked it, and that's pretty high praise. Also note that there is an enormous amount of nasty name-calling and other vituperative behavior coming from those fully invested in the Stratford legend: as you all know, when you don't have the facts on your side, you insult the other side. It's pretty sad behavior, actually, and I think they're going to lose the battle eventually if only because so many of them are so pompous, rude, and condescending. One "expert", author and professor James Shapiro, intimated that the director (who is German) was actually a Nazi at one event, then proceeded to actually lie about Shakespeare's will and the possible inventory associated with it, but never found. It's kind of sad. Anyway, on to brighter things!

After Anonymous, and after seeing Alfie Boe on a side street (he is the star of Les Miserables here and played the role to world-wide acclaim at the 25th anniversary show), we had a quick dinner and went to get house seats for a show we have never seen and which has been in London since before I was born. That's right, we saw The Mousetrap Friday night! Great fun, and still playing to packed houses after almost 60 years! We saw Performance Number 24,555. Amazing, funny, and Maria had it figured out -- at least down to 2 suspects, one of which did it -- by interval (intermission is called interval over here)! She must have been a cop in a previous life...! Definitely a full day, and another great one!

Saturday morning, we were up early again and headed into central London, this time on the south side of the Thames and the National Theatre. It's pretty ugly on the outside, 1976-era concrete and dark glass, but the inside is functional and beautiful, too. Thanks to our friend Robin, we got a fantastic tour of the 3 theatres in the complex, and even got to "meet" one of the puppets from their incredible hit show War Horse. It was truly amazing to see how a very large thrust-stage theatre (the Olivier), a traditional proscenium theatre (the Lyttleton) and a up-to400-seat "black-box" theatre (the Cottesloe) are all integrated together back stage and in the shops. We highly recommend that tour, and it will be getting on the 2013 London trip itinerary!

After a morning tour, we got to see a new play, The Veil, at the Lyttleton Theatte. The acting, the sets and the costumes were all excellent, but the play's ending disappointed us both. It seems that the script was not quite as fully fleshed out as it could have been, possibly because the playwright also directed the show. Those of you who know me well know that one of my "doing theatre rules" is that you never direct yourself on stage. After seeing this show, it seems that maybe you shouldn't direct your own play on stage either. In any case, it was a quite fabulous afternoon, complete with double-cream ice cream at interval (I had caramel-hazelnut, which was simply divine!) Another wonderful day of discovery in London!

Sunday was church in the morning, studying in the afternoon, and then Buster, Maria and I settled in to watch a show at our favorite theatre venue -- Lakeland! Through the magic of Skype and our friend Leslie Carver, we had seats for the last performance of Jekyll and Hyde. it was great to see the show, and very nice to see all of the wonderful people who are taking care of Lakeland while we're gone. Thank you, everyone!

But it's Monday and I have to do two major presentations for classes on Wednesday, plus I have a Tuesday morning appointment with my advisor on possible dissertation topics. Thanks for reading!