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October 25, 2006

In and Around London, Part 1

London Theatre

Out of the 4 days I was in London, 4 of the nights were spent at the theatre. Life doesn't get much better than that! The fantastic thing about theatre in London is that it is so cheap! They have student concessions at nearly every theatre so we saw some remarkable shows for max $30 apiece. I tried to buy Wicked tickets here in Chicago and the minimum I could find was $60. And for the non-students, there is a half price ticket booth in Leicester Square (pronounced 'Lester' - I definitely got scolded on that one) that offers tickets to most of the shows playing each day at half price (if they're not already sold out).

My first night there we saw Wicked, with Idina Menzel as the wicked witch. She won a Tony for that role and was absolutely unbelievable. I cannot recommend this show enough, it's chock full of amazing songs, incredible voices, and out of control sets. Our seats were up really high, but even that could not spoil this show. A funny surprise was that the love interest in Coyote Ugly was the love interest in this show. So funny seeing movie people real life and in person.

And speaking of famous movie people, we got to see Tim Curry as King Arthur in Spamalot the next night.

(That's my sister in front of the giant glowing chalice)


Nothing like a giant glowing cup to draw a crowd! If you like Monty Python at all, go see this show. It's hysterical, with all the good parts from the Holy Grail movie and none of the bad. Tim Curry is delightful (but when is he not??!!) and the rest of the cast is just fabulous. I laughed so hard the whole show long.

The next night was a more serious number with more famous people. We dressed up for this show just because it was Kevin Spacey. That and we like to dress up! Colm Meaney was also in it (click, I didn't recognize his name either but you'll recognize the face). The Old Vic theatre was a perfect place to see a play. Not too big and just the right amount of crazy decor to make it feel special. We had amazing seats for this show and it was really neat seeing K Spacey up close and personal. Live theatre really proves that he is a gifted actor. The play was really fantastic.

And FINALLY, we saw Tom Stoppard's new play Rock N Roll. I had absolutely no idea what this show was about but had read several of Stoppard's other plays and thought, why not?? It was very interesting, a statement on communism in Europe peppered with Rock music that defined a generation. The movement of the show was really unique, with songs from Dylan and Pink Flloyd and the Stones and even the Beach Boys separating the scenes. Being the dork that I am, I loved the history lesson that was involved and told via the music. All in all, a really cool play but I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. You have to like that kind of thing.

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