I got Helen tickets to see Warhorse, at The New London Theatre Drury Lane, March 24 was the first Saturday available with decent seats. Theatre is not my thing, but the show seems quite different to the norm so I am quite intrigued. We did not get off to our usual early start as we were out late in Tring at Olive Lime for a curry, with friends.
We got to Berkhamsted station at 10:28 just in time to get our tickets and miss the 10:30 train to Euston, so we grabbed a paper and cappuccino (triple shot!) and took a seat in the sun. The 10:45 left on time with us on board searching for a seat on the crowded train. Not sure if it was our tardiness or the sun that had got everyone out for a trip to London. We eventually found some seats and settled in to the brief journey to London Euston.
Apart from the new Wembley stadium there is not much to see except for embankments, brick walls, and peoples back gardens. The gardens can be quite interesting, some are nicely manicure but most are just back yards left to their own devices except for the odd mow now and again. Some we completely concreted over.
Kings Cross station has reopened and has a new roof, so we thought we would take a look. We walked via the back streets to get there they are far more interesting and a lot less busy. The roof is very impressive, check out the pictures. From King Cross we headed to the Brunei Gallery, at the School of Oriental and Asian studies, to take a look at a photographic exhibition of Japan after the Tsunami, many of them were very moving. Some just out of this world such as a large ship sunk into the side of a building and cars on top of 3 storey buildings. After donating to the relief fund we jumped on a bus to Aldwych and headed towards Neal’s Yard to find some lunch. Near by we passed a nice looking restaurant, but we passed on it and ended up in a not so good one in Neal’s Yard. I ordered tuna salad and Helen a Pizza. The food was reasonable for London £25 for the two of us. I had water melon juice which was freshly made and delicious, Helen had apple which was also tasty.
We had 30 minutes to spare before the show so we took a leisurely stroll in the direction of the New London Theatre. We got to our seats not too early after Helen had to queue for a pee. I read the paper while Helen warned me of the dangers of rustling sweet containers at the theatre apparently it is not allowed! The set was pretty minimal but there were enough props to set the scene. The animated horses were very clever requiring three people to operate them. The show was bought to an exciting effects scene for the interval leaving the audience wondering what was going to happen next.
The second half had even more effects, there was a happy ending that bought made the audience shed a few tears. All in all I enjoyed the show but not enough to go rushing back to the theatre. I’m still a theatre Luddite.
We both wanted to drop into a book shop so the obvious choice was Foyles so we walked in the general direction of Charing Cross Road. On the way we passed a trendy publication shop (coffee table magazines) that also sold some good T-shirts, two that caught my eye, were one that listed the percentage constituents of a human body and another that had bird silhouettes. I took their website details www.mymagma.com
In Foyles I bought a book called Swiss Watching by Diccon Bewes, it won The Financial Times book of the year. It is about the idiosyncrasies of the Swiss, it sounds interesting, watch this space for future book reviews. We got a bus from outside Foyles to Holborn then you can walk round the corner and catch a bus to Euston. Finally we have figured out the easy way to get a bus from Foyles to Euston, on many occasions Helen has cracked and hailed a cab or we have ended up walking to a bus stop on Tottenham court road which is not too far but withe the crowds and tiredness at the end of a day in London is not fun.
We arrived at Euston station with enough time to spare to get some thing to eat when we got home, then we sat on the floor of the train to Berkhamsted. All in all we had a great day out in great weather. We have a BluRay to watch later called Drive, you may see a film review later.