the last ride

sitting in a lounge at heathrow, waiting to find out the gate number for my flight back to l.a. the gate opens in about an hour, so they should announce it soon. as i have a lot to tell about my last day in the UK, i'll try to use the time productively.

i did end up driving to hay-on-wye, which is famous for having tons of bookstores (29, i was told), despite its small size. brendan was in town visiting his old pal michael, who's irish originally (brendan is scottish, btw, but he lives in l.a.).

the drive wound up into the black mountains -- and there was snow on the peaks, which was pretty fantastic. the countryside was pretty, with rolling vistas and trees decked out with multicolored leaves, and i saw a lotta backpackers in and around the brecon national park (and signs for youth hostels, natch). right before i left the B&B, i checked my cousin mark's blog and learned that my beloved aunt fannie had passed away, at age 88 (she'd have been 89 on saturday). she'd been ill and was going downhill, but it was still sad. i shouldn't have looked, but i wanted to know; i'd had a feeling she was on her way out after talking to the squirrel the day i left. anyway, the countryside was so lovely, and reminded me so much of pennsylvania, that i ended up drivin' and cryin' for a while. i'm so glad i went to see her when i was in erie for my younger sister's wedding last november.

sigh. anyway. it took me about an hour and a half to get to hay. although at least half the drive, maybe more, was through rugged countryside, the road was smooth and well-maintained. once in hay, i got kind of lost, but the place is small, so i just phoned michael and quickly got oriented. he has a complex of a big house, plus a coach house and stables and suchlike that he rents out long-term. so i was able to park off the street in his lot. the three of us made our introductions and greetings, and then we had coffee by the fireplace in the big kitchen. it was pretty cold out, probs in the 40s. brendan complained more than i did, though; i think i'm getting used to it? (just in time to go home to the tail end of a heat wave.)

so, they listened to me blather on about hamlet and love's labour's lost and david tennant and my various adventures, and we had a nice chat. a little later, we walked to a pub called the blue boar, where i had some hard cider (good stuff, but dangerously drinkable), and we ate a late lunch/early dinner. i had welsh lamb chops in mint gravy with tasty potatoes and veggies. we chatted some more about arts and politics and the housing market and music and our families -- it was a very welcome change from my self-imposed isolation (although i wasn't ever lonely during this solo excursion). the fire was warm, and the pub was charming and cozy.

it started raining while we were in there, and when we left it was pretty friggin' cold, so i didn't feel much like touring the town or book-shopping. michael did show me the bookshop that's at a castle, explaining it was owned by one richard booth, apparently the architect of hay as a book town, who declared himself king of hay in the '70s. the picture at the top of this entry is of hay castle, but you can't see the bookcases that sit in the courtyard, open to the air and elements.

back at michael's, we sat by another fire in the living room, had more coffee, and chatted more about music, l.a., the clash of the sexes, and brendan's latest projects, about which he was anxiously awaiting word from new york. then michael talked about his own project called jump4timbuktu. hay is twinned with the west african city, and michael and his friends started this organization to help the people there "trade their way out of poverty," like the website says.

i want to write a separate entry about this endeavor, but suffice to say that michael showed us his short film about the project, which showed the tradespeople at work on their jewelry and was really interesting. there's more to the place than jewelry, but i'll get to that later. he gave me some info, and then showed us some examples of the jewelry. i took a few pix, but the light was very orangey-yellow, as you can see. still, nice stuff, like this bracelet:



and some earrings:



and lovely pendants:



(this stone is agate, i think michael said.)



i stayed as late as i dared. they'd invited me to stay there, but i kept thinking about the long drive to heathrow in the morning, and that leaving from hay would add at least 90 minutes, if not more. in any case, all my stuff was still at the B&B in cardiff. so i left around 8 pm, and it was still raining. the way back was easily found but, as i went up into the mountains, the rain got harder -- and then it started snowing! i mean, seriously storming, even whiteout time at points.

luckily, after a while i came up behind a car that was driving veeerrry slowly. so, keeping a safe distance, just enough to have their taillights in view, i tracked on that car, which helped to guide me. as previously noted, the road was well-maintained, and i could see the center line b/c it was made of an endless row of reflective dots. but it would've been 10 times scarier if i hadn't had those red lights ahead of me and been able to follow the car's tracks in the snowy roadway. i was glad i'd had that coffee after our meal, too. driving in snow is a skill i learned as a teenager, but i haven't used it in a while ... i guess it snowed a little bit last year when i was in erie. still, it was nerve-wracking to the max to keep peering forward into this dark-white barrage of blowing, icy particles, like a constantly shifting curtain dropping and rising in front of me, brrr.

eventually i came down out of the mountains and onto the motorway, where it was merely raining hard. i was well relieved to get back to the B&B, just before 10. i still had to pack, but first i needed to relax. so i turned on the laptop and checked my e-mail, which was stuffed with google alerts about david tennant leaving doctor who. thus ensued a frenzy of IM-ing, e-mailing, and texting my friends and sister about this regrettable but not unforeseen turn of events.

anyway, i got packed and managed to fall asleep at a decent hour. got up at 7 this morning, loaded the car, paid the bill, and pointed myself toward london. on the way out of town, i passed BBC wales, w00t! back at the airport, i even managed to find the rental-car return without once getting lost, hurray. then i dropped my bags off, checked in, and kicked around the duty-free shops for a while. got a starbucks coffee -- it's not as paint-strippingly strong here as it is back home -- and decided to try to get this entry done before boarding.

i had a fantastic time and feel like i did a lot in a week, despite not doing too much. the shakespeare was probs the most amazing part, but the exotic world of bath and my unexpected journey to hay were also delightful (and i am chuffed to have survived the snowstorm, even though it was a wee bit terrifying at the time). as usual, i'm still processing everything and may have more to say about all this at some future time. i would definitely travel halfway around the world to see david tennant do shakespeare again ... i'm betting i'll get another chance before too many years have passed.

... and there's the gate announcement. off i go ... .

countdown

we interrupt this trip report to say that, sadly, i was right in my prediction that david tennant won't return as the doctor for 2010. much as i hoped i wasn't.

dear mr. fantasy

dare i enter? why, yes, since the doctor who up-close exhibition at the red dragon centre was one of the reasons i wanted to go to cardiff. i wished i had been able to get ahold of nick griffiths's brand-new book, who goes there, which is a travelogue of UK sites where the show has been shot, but i couldn't find it in two bookstores in bath, and i think it may only be sold online. oh, well.

the drive to cardiff was uneventful and even sunny. i paid 5 pounds 30 pence to go over the really cool-looking second severn crossing, the big modern bridge that takes the M4 into wales (where the road signs are all in welsh and english, a la scotland being in gaelic and english). but the fee is only one-way, phew. once in town, i experienced the same hapless luck and slight confusion in the neighborhood that i had in bath, but after getting oriented along cathedral road, i found my B&B, the town house, and parked in their back lot. signs everywhere admonish people not to leave ANY valuables in their cars, so, although i had planned to leave my suit bag, with all the theatre clothes i no longer needed, in the car's boot (as i had in bath), i decided to haul everything upstairs to my room. this was a single, but it was fine, with a good-sized bathroom, tv, tea/coffee tray -- the usual amenities.

my friend brendan found out via facebook that i'm in the UK; he's in wales right now, visiting an old pal in hay-on-wye, a town about 60 miles from here. we decided to try to meet up, and that idea really appealed to me after nearly a week of touristing, and not really having anyone to talk to. so, i figured i would do all my half-assed touristy who/torchwood stuff today, since it was pretty early when i got here. i took a coffee break (all hail the coffee tray) and got myself together -- then, just as was about to step out, the sky darkened and it started hailing. fuckin' hell!

i waited a couple of minutes, and it subsided to mere rain, so i ventured out with my umbrella, following the path along the river taff as my hostess had suggested. cardiff bay was about 2.5 miles away, but i decided to walk, b/c i didn't want to deal with the bus. whatevs, i wanted to be in the city, among the people -- but not too close; i of course had my ipod. emerging from the leafy path, i crossed the river and passed by millennium stadium. right in front of cardiff castle, i turned down the high street, which becomes st. mary street, which i followed to callaghan square, then headed east to lloyd george avenue, a long, long stretch lined on one side by apartment buildings (one called silurian house, a perfect name to notice on my who quest, as the silurians are old foes of the doctor).

i ambled along in a fairly steady rain, although the sky was clearing to the west. it was coooold. i saw a black-and-white cat running along the sidewalk in the opposite direction, but it was on a mission and had no time for me.

finally, i got close enough to see the millennium centre (which i later learned is nicknamed "the armadillo" by some locals) and the inscription on the front:



(although i actually took this shot later, from the opposite side of my approach.)

according to wikipedia, the inscription is taken from welsh poet gwyneth lewis: "creu gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen" means "creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration." in english it means "in these stones horizons sing" -- and she has a whole explanation of that, which you can read at the wiki link, so please you.

i toddled about the freezing-cold plaza, taking pictures of the weird pillar fountain that's so famous in torchwood:



and this red building, which it turns out i was mightily confused about. i thought it was a church, but it's actually called the pierhead building, and it was the HQ of the cardiff railway company. ok, then. anyway, it's cool, and whenever i saw the opening credits of torchwood, i was so curious about what it was, standing out like a red thumb on the mostly beige waterside:



i also walked along mermaid quay, a touristy seaside area with restaurants and a starbucks, where i took another picture of the pierhead building:



it really is cool.

here's one more shot of the millennium centre:



but i didn't go in (and i totally missed the roald dahl plass, too -- sorry, anthony! ETA: der. i was actually STANDING RIGHT ON IT -- ahaha!). the afternoon was wearing on, and i wanted to check out the who exhibition. had to prioritize. maybe next time -- although if i ever come back to cardiff, it will be in the summer!

ok, so. the red dragon centre sounds like it might be groovy, but it's really just a small mall next to the millennium centre, with several restaurants, a movie theater (showing high school musical 3, yikes), and a bowling alley called hollywood bowl, ahaha. i could hear the cacophony of recorded sounds -- the theme song, various crashes and crackles, and shouts of "exterminate!" -- as i was paying my 5 pounds at the entrance to the exhibit. it reminded me a lot of the rock 'n' roll hall of fame, which when i visited many years ago was a riot of overlapping, clashing sounds as you moved from one display case to the next. it was hard to get good pix inside the exhibit, thanks to all the flashing strobes and different colored lights.

but who cares, b/c ... daleks!



there's another one, look out!



when you push the button on this interactive exhibit, the supreme dalek rises from the back of the stage, going "elevate! elevate! elevate!" brill!



the mirrors make it look like there are three, but there's only one.

also there were cybermen -- eyieee!



and a tick-tock man from "the girl in the fireplace":



i had a hard time getting shots of the costumes that were right inside the entry, but this is probs the best one, showing the tenth doctor's jim-jams from after his regeneration and his blue martha-era suit:



martha's costume of jeans and oxblood leather jacket is right next to the blue suit, but that shot's cut off, rats.

right around the corner was the ol' familiar blue box:



i had a grand time wandering around looking at all the stuff, including lots of costumes, like jack's trenchcoat, donna's jacket and jeans from when she had the spider on her back (in "turn left"), and astrid's waitress outfit from last year's christmas special, "voyage of the damned." they had a cool display of the hath from "the doctor's daughter," and the donna-faced info-bot from "silence in the library," but my pix suck. one centerpiece was the whole lazarus machine from "the lazarus experiment," and there were a couple of the weeping angels from "blink," but they were high atop the walls, and i couldn't shoot them. plus sontarans, w00t!

i think my favorite things were the smaller props in the cases, including river song's TARDIS-esque journal and her future-doctor sonic screwdriver, harriet jones's ID card, the adipose capsule from "partners in crime," the dimension-jumping discs that rose, mickey, and jackie used in the last series finale, and even the osterhagen key, among other cool pieces. i managed to get a good clear shot of john smith's journal from "human nature"/"the family of blood" -- if you embiggen it, you can read the text and everything:



and not forgetting a lovely sight at the end of the exhibit: k-9, yay!



i wandered through it and then doubled back to look more closely at the smaller items, and finally made my way to the little shop. it didn't have as much stuff as i had expected, but i got a nice haul of easily packable/portable stuff, including dalek party napkins (should've bought the tablecloth too, oh well), a TARDIS-decorated soft pencil case that will make a great makeup bag, some other stuff as gifts, and the best thing EVAR: an ice cube tray with shapes of k-9, daleks, cybermen heads, TARDISes, and DW logos. the lady at the checkout said the molds also work great for chocolates and mentioned she'd made a white cake with brown chocolates stuck all over -- wowee! the mind boggles. now i can have a dalek cake for christmas, or a TARDIS cake for my birthday -- whee!

ahem. ok, so i escaped with my haul and started the long hike back to the B&B in the deepening twilight. stopped and got yet another chicken sandwich (on wheat bread with mango-chutney mayo and mixed greens, OMG delish) and some wine and crisps. it was fully dark by the time i reached the river path, but tons of people were jogging, walking their dogs, and riding their bikes along it, so i wasn't worried. it started to rain while i was about a half-block from home, so my timing was good. now back in my warm room, i'm starting to realize just how frickin' cold i've been all day. in the morning i'll call brendan and sort out the last details of the drive to hay-on-wye -- it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and it looks like part of this drive goes on mountain roads, but i'm up for it -- but right now i think i'm gonna finally watch (some of) kenneth branagh's hamlet and unwind. hmmm, maybe i'll do a little stretching first. yeah.

roman gods

so, bath. i came here b/c the doc said it was something to see -- and indeed it was. i didn't really have much of a plan of action: i knew i wanted to go to the roman baths and the fashion museum, plus see such architectural marvels as the royal crescent and the circus, but otherwise i figured it would be whatever came up.

i have pretty much not used the garmin nuvi satellite device that my older sisters gave me. i tried to use it on the way from heathrow to stratford (having already mapped out my route via google and using the directions on the RSC's website), but i had to turn it off, because it kept telling me to get off on every single frickin' exit i passed on the M40, which was extremely annoying. it's more useful for me to write my route out on post-its and tear them off as i go. that may seem laughably primitive, but it's hard enough to drive on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road without having to listen to a stupid machine and peer at a tiny fucking screen that doesn't really show you anything anyway. i much preferred to look over the route on google the night before and trust my memory.

there were flaws in that plan too, however. although i now feel like an old hand at roundabouts, they confounded me horribly at first, and my confusion created one long delay in getting to stratford, the less said about the better. as for my trip to bath, everything went smoothly until i actually got into town -- google says follow this numbered road, but there aren't any signs saying this is the numbered road. so i was wheeling through the town of bath, blinding following along what seemed to be the main route but totally lost, looking for a place to pull over and get my bearings. (cuz the streets are narrow and not conducive to parking in a lot of places.) i finally emerged from the winding bits onto a slightly wider street where cars were parked on one side, so i pulled up behind the last one (in a space that was a bus stop, of course). i had phoned the B&B from a turnout on the road a few miles outside of bath, and been told that the place was right in front of a red signal post. so, i'm sitting in the car, peering around, and i see this red post right across the street! NO WAY! i had to pull forward a little bit more to see the sign, but wowee! it was my destination. somehow i had stumbled upon it -- amazing.

and so i arrived at number 30 on sunday around noon, and was greeted by a woman named jean, who checked me in, helped me with my bag, and gave me a map of town and a five-minute lowdown on the sites, a daily walking tour, area restaurants, and other incredibly useful info. i had the john wood room on the second floor, which faced the street and was very cozy, with a double bed, good-sized bathroom, tea tray, tv, and even a portable stereo. john wood (the younger) was the architect of the royal crescent and, i was happy to learn, had a thing for occult symbolism. here's my only shot of (part of) it (for obvious reasons, it's hard to get a good picture):



see the man and his dog there at the left? you have to be a resident to go on the nice green grass. i wonder if it's considered, like, a cool place to live? like, in l.a., when people ask me where i live, and i say "laurel canyon," there's this "oh cool" type reaction. maybe it's the same for the royal crescent ... . anyway, i thought it was cool.

i considered taking the walking tour, but it started at 2, and i needed to get settled in and have a coffee break (hurray for the tea/coffee tray). jean had told me what things i shouldn't miss even if i ended up walking around by myself, so i took the map and my ipod and ventured out, heading first up the woody hill behind the B&B to the royal crescent, then continuing east toward the center of town. i just kind of rambled and randomly took pictures -- the one at the top of this entry is of the parade gardens (i'm pretty sure), which are behind bath abbey near the river avon.

these are some buildings along the steep hill of marlborough lane leading up to the royal crescent:



the day started out sunny, if bracing (in the mid-50s), but as the afternoon went on the sky got cloudier. i walked through the circus without even realizing where i was (der), then headed toward the main part of town. i pretty much stumbled upon bath abbey, and it was hard to get a good shot of it b/c it was half in shadow, half in light, but here y'go:



you can see the entrance to the roman baths at the right of the photo.

here's the back of the abbey, where tour buses seemed to congregate:



just around the bend to the north of the abbey is pulteney bridge, which looks like a bridge from this angle ...



... but it's also a shopping street. you could walk right across it and never know you were on a bridge. after taking this picture, i did indeed walk across the bridge to a convenience store and got a half-bottle of wine for later, having decided to pick up something for dinner and eat in my room (partly to save money, and partly b/c it was sunday, and a lot of restaurants were closed).

my attempts to take pictures of the hillsides covered with georgian buildings weren't entirely successful, but this gives some sense of the totally cool views one could see pretty much by just looking around:



yet also there were pretty natural vistas, like these fall-foliage-festooned trees on the other side of the avon:



i rambled some more and listened to the street musicians -- a guy was playing didgeridoo along one of the main drags as i walked toward the abbey, and he was later joined by someone playing some sorta flute, so there was this curious aboriginal note in the air. stopped at a sandwich shop and picked up some sorta totally delicious chicken salad with lemon-y mayo and rocket, plus some chedder-red onion crisps and a slice of lemon-poppy seed cake for my dinner. it was getting dark as i made my way back to the B&B, which took longer than expected b/c i detoured the long way along royal avenue, to the south of the royal crescent, when i could've just walked back the way i'd driven into town. oh, well, it was a pretty path, anyway.

day two in bath started with breakfast, which was delicious but maybe not quite as good as the one at ambleside. the weather was colder but sunny, so i stupidly decided not to take the horrible turquoise-colored umbrella the B&B had loaned me, figuring i'd pick up a new black one later in the day.

i headed out, remembering to take a photo of (part of) the circus on my way:



see how nice and blue the sky is? yeah. anyway, then it was off to the assembly rooms and fashion museum. i mostly wanted to see the punk exhibit, called 1977, which was just a series of 20 black-and-white photographs. of course the actual clothing wouldn't have survived 30 years ... . anyway, the shots were interesting. naturally, it was pointless to try to take pictures of pictures, but here's a good one of the clash, by caroline coon, from the FM's website:



it was cool to peruse all the rockers in their DIY finery, harking back to the days when one had to invent one's own punk costume instead of buying it at hot topic, ahaha. debbie harry at a surplus store in fatigues and a bomber jacket, the jam all cool in their moddy-boy outfits with blazingly white shoes, ari up of the slits in her shredded black top, stockings, and white panties, hair flying wildly. fine stuff.

the museum had lots of other things to look at, including a fab collection of 17th-century gloves that i found impossible to photograph. the exhibit explained that these ornaments were more for ceremonial use, at the most, and often simply given as opulent gifts. they were lavishly embroidered with animals, people, plants, etc., in metallic threads and fine leathers.

the display cases were filled with gorgeous outfits, like this beautiful formal evening gown:



and this cool chinoiserie gown:



you can see the backs of some of the other things in the display case, like the fancy fur-trimmed coat at the right.

there were also a lot of cool men's suits, but all my pix of them came out blurry. wtf, it was dark in there, and i had to shoot through the glass, ok?

then there was the dresses from history section, which included many fantastical garments, including this victorian number:



there was also a big exhibit devoted to '70s-era UK designer bill gibb, who clothed david bowie and other rock icons and was apparently quite the pioneer of knitwear (lots of colorful and cleverly patterned dresses and sweaters) and had a flair for lavish, extravagant ensembles. not my taste of what to wear, but truly gorgeous and fantastical, unique items.

after studying the clothing for a while, i emerged back upstairs to wander around the assembly rooms (also designed by john wood the younger), which were basically public areas for big balls and card games and other amusements for the townsfolk in the georgian era (of a certain status, i assume). i pretty much failed to take any good pix of these rooms, but here you can get a sense of them all. the chandeliers were amazing, and i couldn't help thinking my mom would've loved them.

now it was time to head to the roman baths, so i popped out of the assembly rooms for the short walk over there ... and into the pissing rain! rats! i wrapped my scarf around my head and hurried to the baths, not getting too wet, but cursing my decision to leave the umbrella behind.

i had purchased a two-fer ticket for the fashion museum and baths, so i just waltzed on into the baths, which were really cool and interesting. i even took the little hand-held recording device so i could learn more about the place (instead of just putting on my ipod and wandering around staring at stuff like i usually do in these situations ... but, then again, i didn't have the squirrel there to download everything she learned into my head at day's end). however, i am not going to recount all the info here, b/c you can learn for yourself on the website if you wanna.

the main thing is that these baths date back to before roman times, and they were built on the natural hot springs that the celts used as a shrine to the goddess sulis (bath was called aquae sulis by the romans). as is traditional with religion, sulis got absorbed into roman culture due to being similar to minerva, the goddess of wisdom (aka the greeks' athena). the worshippers of sulis didn't bathe in the waters b/c they were considered sacred, but the romans combined the holiness and the bathing, clever bastards.

the museum is an awesome subterranean maze of ruins and partially restored sections, including the altar where they did sacrifices (pick your own goat at the marketplace), and the old temple steps. the sacrifice part had me shaking my head at the stupidity of religion. there were tombstones and sections of the waterways, mosaics and bits of the temple, plus tons of smaller artifacts, from sandals and pots and tools to coins and (my favorite) curses thrown into the water for good luck or granting of said diabolical wishes (usually having to do with wanting revenge on someone for stealing something or suchlike).

you may recognize the gorgon's head, which was on the temple of sulis minerva:



it's a pretty tough guardian and basically means "don't mess with this place."

anyway, the centerpiece of the joint is the big bath itself, which of course you can't actually go into (but you can plunge into the thermae spa next door, which i had thought about doing but ended up not, b/c i spent so much money in stratford). here it is from one side:



and the other (with bath abbey in the background):



the museum had two guys in roman dress standing by the pool, calling each other "citizen" and greeting people in latin. ahaha, how very disneyland.

i went into the little shop and picked up a couple of refrigerator magnets as souvenirs, then headed to the pump room for tea. the same couple in stratford who recommended the thai place had said that the scones with clotted cream at the pump house were fantastic, so i ordered some tea and the scones and ... the lady wasn't lyin'! mmmmm.

the rain had stopped by then, but it was getting dark (and colder, brrr), so i went back to the same sandwich shop and got another chicken variation. i walked a couple of blocks to marks & spencer and got more wine and a teeny-tiny umbrella, then hoofed it back to no. 30, taking the shorter route this time. i did pass by the jane austen museum both yesterday and today, but didn't really feel like going in, so didn't. again, it wasn't all that late when i settled in for the night, but i'd done a lot of walking and was pretty tired. i had plenty of blogging to do, and, after a while i had my sandwich-dinner, read for a while, downloaded the new sarah jane adventures (re-watched most of the two-part finale of the last doctor who series before it was done), and am about to watch it before i go to sleep. tomorrow it's back to pop culture as i wheel off to cardiff to visit the DW exhibit and the millennium centre (aka the torchwood hub). the weather is supposed to continue on the cold side, so i'm really glad i brought that extra sweater and my overcoat, not to mention the warm scarf that coiledsoul made me.

all you need is love

here i am in bath, for the first of two nights of a history break before i trundle over the bridge to wales and continue my sci-fi geek tour. it already seems like days ago, but it was just this morning that i left stratford in the rain -- and realized just before packing the car that i'd left my umbrella in the very crowded dirty duck pub last night. it wasn't raining when i walked out with a couple of cool chicks i'd met at the bar, so i didn't notice at the time. anyway, i walked over there before driving off today, hoping it might have been turned in, but all they had was a very large black-and-red-striped brolly -- definitely not mine. oh, well. the B&B here (called number 30) loaned me one for today, and i'll get a new one of my own tomorrow.

am tired but feel great, though am about shakespeare'd out. mostly b/c i feel like i could spend weeks processing and pondering the two plays i saw. last night it was DT and most of the rest of the hamlet cast in love's labour's lost -- a MUCH different experience to hamlet, natch. not just b/c it was an hour shorter and, duh, a comedy, but even the way the audience behaved was very different. for hamlet, everyone just sat attentively, never applauding b/w scenes or making any sort of comments or anything. but for LLL, different little vignettes -- like a don armado comedic bit or a really cool, percussive dance that the "commoners" did at one point -- were met with applause and cheers. the play wasn't really interrupted due to audience reaction; there seemed to be pauses built in, and/or the players were good at holding for that extra beat. but i was surprised b/c i didn't expect that. though for all i know it's standard ... i'm no expert on theater or seeing shakespeare performed live.

anyway, the stage was dominated by a giant tree festooned with "leaves" of translucent, mostly green glass, which looked very cool and impressive. this time DT was more of an ensemble member, although he still was made to stand out in his role as berowne -- one of three young noblemen who vow to study with the king of navarre, fasting, sleeping little, and not seeing any women for three years -- since his costume was the only blue in a sea of cream (above are the hapless lads, w/king holding a letter, in a photo nicked from the royal shakespeare company's website).

needless to say, hilarity ensues, since pretty much right after the boys make their vow, the princess of france shows up with some of her galpals, on official business from her father the king. each guy falls for one of the ladies, and the king for the princess.

like i said, DT was more part of the ensemble, but for us fans he also stood out b/c he spoke in his native scottish accent (he used an english one in hamlet). and berowne does stand apart as the pragmatist, the skeptic, who tries to weasel out of the vow right away and seems to have not wanted to make it in the first place. he's also the one who figures out how to extricate them all from the vow without losing their honor ... and his loss of love at the end feels very poignant, b/c he argues with himself about falling in love in the first place, then goes for it, and totally gets crushed. sorry, dude.

berowne's love is rosaline, played by nina sosanya, who was in the doctor who episode "fear her" and also played bellino, a lover for david tennant's casanova in the 2005 british miniseries. her dress was spectacular -- this photo shows a little of it but doesn't do it justice.



and sosanya was more than a match for DT's rapid-fire banter ... in fact, this piece in general is seriously high-octane with the wordplay, which was such a delight and made me VERY happy i'd read the play beforehand. otherwise, i'd have been completely lost at times. as it was, i followed along with a big grin on my face.

the actors also seemed to be having the best time -- and, as with hamlet, all of them were great. ricky champ, who played costard, the clown, was especially fun and really reveled in his part. joe dixon totally hammed it up as armado and got a lotta laughs, and the young woman who played armado's page (moth), zoe thorne, was spectacular. (she also has a who connection, playing a toclafane in the master storyline and the gelth in the 9 ep "the unquiet dead"). i have to admit i actually thought she was a child actor, b/c she is so small, but she's really about 24. oliver ford davies as the pedant holofernes was brilliant, and mark hadfield was smirkingly delicious as the ladies' keeper, boyet.

LLL was last staged by the RSC about 15 years ago, and i can sort of see why. it's a bit of a dog's dinner by the end, with the boys going incognito as caricaturish russians to fool the girls (who are totes NOT fooled and exact a comical revenge), and the pageant of virtues, and the songs of spring and winter, and all. for a comedy, it's got quite the downer ending, when the princess finds out her dad's dead, and nobody actually gets together. although, frankly, everyone acts like such children, they're obvs not ready for marriage anyway, ahaha. but it does feel like there's a big "to be continued" stamped over it ... and i guess there is some case for a love's labour's won, after all, if you can believe wikipedia. (when it was mentioned in the who ep "the shakespeare code," i thought the idea was made up ... but, again, what do i know of such things? not much!)

before my night at the theatre, i did some more wandering around stratford. on saturday morning at breakfast, i met some women who were also there for the plays. one had seen hamlet on friday, like me, and was going to LLL that night. the other two, who sat at my table, were there to see patrick stewart give a talk that morning to his appreciation society (aka fan club) members, and were hoping to get return tickets for LLL that night. our B&B host had said that most of the people who'd stayed with them had had good luck with the returns -- he advised lining up around 4, which is a damn long wait (play started at 7:15), and today was much colder than yesterday.

we had a nice convo about shakespeare and sci-fi, and i bade them good luck and went back upstairs to read for a while. i hadn't gotten much sleep on friday night, and needed to finish reading love's labour's. so i climbed under the covers and started reading, then fell asleep till the early afternoon!

fortunately, i hadn't planned to do a lot, having gotten my touristy thang out of the way on friday. but i did want to explore more of the town, so i got myself together and headed out in the rainy day. i stopped at a shop and got some tea for the divine ms. m, and wandered around a bookstore. i thought about buying RTD's the writer's tale, but it's expensive and heavy, so i decided against it. i figured i'd go across the bridge and walk along the other side of the avon river, and, while crossing, i heard a familiar rumble in the street -- an american muscle car?! by the time i looked, it was headed off to the right through the roundabout ... i think it was a charger, but not sure. wowee.

i ambled past the big theatre that's being built (scheduled to open in 2010) and took a few shots:



this one's on an angle and shows the giant cranes better:



one crane has a big light on it at night, like an artificial moon hanging over all.

continuing along the river, i got a shot of the dirty duck, my stratford hangout:



and a cool one of part of the graveyard around trinity church, where shakespeare's entombed:



it was a very peaceful walk shared with families, couples, and people exercising their dogs (and lots of swans and other waterfowl). i crossed the bridge i'd stood on the day before to take some pix of the river. i'd thought about going to this thai place for dinner, which a couple at the B&B had recommended, but ended up going back to the dirty duck and making another rez for half-five. (then i stayed and had a cup of tea and finished reading the play.) what the heck -- it was close, and i enjoyed my dinner the night before (duck, ahaha). i hiked back to the B&B, got ready, and tripped on back out at about 5:20. ambleside was a great choice for a place to stay -- my room was excellent, the breakfast delish, and it was so close to everything.

at dinner i was greeted by the same servers from the night before, and i ordered the paella special, which they pronounced pie-ella, like nigella, ahaha. it was quite tasty. for dessert i had clotted cream ice cream with chocolate sauce, mmmm. with dinner i had a large glass of wine, and afterward some decaf coffee (not wanting to be awake all night). i got finished a little earlier than i had on friday, but went over to the theatre anyway, bought a program, and found my seat. it was in the same area, the stalls, but a little bit further back and more toward the end of the stage. still a fantastic seat.

at intermission, i went out to the lobby but made no attempt to get a drink. i ran into all the women i'd met at the B&B that morning, including the ladies without tickets, who'd managed to snag returns literally 30 seconds before the play began. they weren't sitting together, of course, but they were just delighted. they were having an ice cream, and they complimented my outfit (black velvet trousers and blue velvet jacket with blue ruffled shirt). i said it was my jon pertwee (third doctor) outfit, and they totally got it. my own private idaho translated to someone, ahaha. anyway, we chatted happily for a little while before going back to our seats for the second half.

after the play was done, i went to the dirty duck again for a drink. it was possibly more crowded than after hamlet -- there was a birthday party going on in the back room, and this night most of the actors stayed in the actor's bar instead of going to the patio for the private party. i stood at the back of the room and just kind of gawked around, a bit overwhelmed by the play and the whole thing of just being there. everyone was really friendly and nice, with lots of "what did you think?"/"oh, it was fantastic!" type exchanges. after about a half hour, these two chicks started talking to me. i quickly realized they were americans. both from new york, although one lives in ireland now (and plays the bagpipes, wowee). we had fun talking about all sorts of sci-fi and music -- they'd gone to a talk given by a couple of the hamlet actors earlier that day, although they hadn't seen the play yet. they were hoping to get return tix for monday.

while in the bar, i was passed by mariah gale, who plays ophelia in hamlet and the princess in LLL, and i did stop her for a sec to say she was really great in both. she said thanks, but i didn't prattle on. i felt sort of shy being around these peope who were just trying to get their pints or whatev (the actors had to wait in line like everybody else). also saw edward bennett, who plays laertes in hamlet and the king in LLL ... wanted to say hey, you were great, but he was deep into a conversation with his (or a?) girl, so it seemed like not a good time.

had such fun talking to the american women that we ended up being among the crowd closing the place down. they walked partway with me back toward our respective hotels, and then i continued to ambleside alone. it was the night the UK turns the clocks back, so i got an extra hour to finish packing (and sleep), which i sorely needed.

the drive to bath was uneventful. i listened to radio 1, where the big topic of discussion was the scandal over russell brand and jonathan ross prank-calling andrew sachs (the now-78-year-old actor of fawlty towers fame, to whom they said brand had fucked his burlesque-dancer granddaughter), in between the DJ playing vintage hip-hop. so, i was tooling through the picturesque countryside, listening to "baby got back" and "white lines" and suchlike. xlnt.

cruel to be kind

ok ... hamlet at the courtyard theatre (pictured above). it was really wonderful, and i had a fantastic seat. seven rows from the front, two seats away from the aisle. the production was in-the-round, so the actors passed close by me up that aisle many times during the night. the only drag was that at times the actors stood with their backs to me or were slightly blocked by others on the stage, but that never lasted long.

i feel like i could go on at length about it, and i probably will. this was my first live shakespeare experience ever -- what a way to start. DT was really good, but patrick stewart was also fab, and indeed most of the actors were great. oliver ford davies was quite memorable as polonius (maybe not as awes as hume cronyn in 1964/richard burton, but oh well), and mariah gale as ophelia was very good. one of the things i liked about this production was how it managed to convey the way ophelia's madness reflects the escalating insanity of the whole scene while never making her a mere symbol. when we first see her interacting with her brother, laertes (edward bennett), she's really comical and playful, her body language mocking his admonishments to guard her virtue -- he's blathering on about hamlet's dangerous affections, and at one point she lies on the floor on her back and scissors her arms and legs as though her whole body is going "wah wah wah, whatEVER, dude!" yet by the end she's this hollowed-out shell -- the effects of being treated like a commodity by everyone -- from her father to her brother to hamlet to the queen -- having taken a horrible toll. she's all streaked with dirt and blood -- her right hand's even bandaged around the middle as hamlet's left is, 'cause he cuts himself while vowing to avenge his father's death ... a really nifty mirror image, i thought. and her last scene where she's handing out the flowers/herbs and talking about their symbolic meanings is really moving and kind of choked me up.

seeing patrick stewart in this, having watched his portrayal of claudius in the derek jacobi hamlet from 1980, was really eye-opening. the performances are sooo different -- and not just b/c this production is modern-dress. he still doesn't seem as evil as he should seem -- i mean, claudius is a bad dude, what kills his brother for his crown and his wife. but i think he should've been even more despicable. OTOH, stewart does put across the character's elements of ego, cowardice, and oily self-assurance, while giving the king a kind of charm that one could see working on, say, the queen ... and the people.

the production was pretty daring in spots, and in others it seemed like director gregory doran was going, gettit?gettit?gettit?!!!!!! like when ophelia is being lectured by laertes about not entertaining hamlet's overtures, and she retorts that she hopes he's not just telling her to be virtuous while he himself goes down the primrose path, and she digs through his suitcase and yanks out two condoms and waves them around. or just when the play-within-the-play is about to happen, and hamlet asks ophelia "shall i lie in your lap, lady?" and she's all freaked out, and he's like, "i meant my head in your lap. did you think i meant COUNTRY matters?" and tennant falls back and thrusts his hips forward a few times ... yeah. i mean, that IS the pun, but, i dunno. subtle. and when ophelia goes nuts in front of the king and queen, she strips to her underwear, which was just like, goddammit, is no young actress ever allowed to keep her clothes ON anymore?

the cuts didn't bother me that much -- it's true that, while horatio says, "so rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead?" after looking at a letter, we don't hear about how hamlet faked the letter to england that ordered them to be killed, etc. etc. it kind of doesn't matter, but OTOH, the kill-or-be-killed situation that he's in with them does demonstrate that hamlet's not totally incapable of calculated homicide (or whatever ... death by other people, is that still homicide? it was in charlie manson's case, right?). i think maybe that shows that doran wasn't so interested in the whole "a man who couldn't make up his mind" thing. BTW, peter de jersey as horatio was excellent, and i've really come to appreciate horatio as a character -- he's one of the only truly decent ones, a guy who is just doing for hamlet b/c he's his pal. and his reward is he has to stick around and tell everyone else what happened -- he doesn't even get to die, to sleep, to go to heaven.

more surprising was the cut at the end, where fortinbras comes in after "good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," and just removes his helmet and stands there. w/o saying his piece and having hamlet carried off like a soldier. the other sort of political/military parts are left in -- the bit where claudius entreaties norway to keep young fortinbras in line, and the part where hamlet encounters the troops going off to fight the polacks. all the military stuff was staged very modernly -- the latter part involved helicopter and radio noises and guys coming down ropes from on high. (except the king's guards had these old-fashioned uniforms on with crazy helmets ... but i guess that even in modern times, palace guards can be wearing silly hats.) but hamlet was not borne like a soldier from the stage. he just laid there in horatio's arms and looked angelic and dead. maybe the point was that hamlet was NOT a soldier, and to assume he would've become one would be too much ... especially in this day and age when real soldiery is indeed going on, inna seriously deadly stylee. i dunno.

also, tennant said "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in OUR philosophy," and i'm not sure if he misspoke or if that's how they're doing it here. (s/b "your philosophy," said to horatio.) seems a pretty big line to eff up, so i will assume it's intentionally different.

like many reviews said, tennant excels at the physicality, the intensity of emotions like grief and anger, even some of the questioning of the human condition, but he kind of, i don't think fails, but falls curiously short in the existentialism department -- eg, to be or not to be was ... i'd give it a B. (ahaha.) but he was really entertaining to watch, often extremely involving, and certainly he gave it his all. hamlet's scene with his mother, gertrude (penny downie), in her bedroom was really intense and wrenching. all of his interactions with horatio were lovely, and his playing of the calculated madness was breathlessly giddy at times. ophelia's final scenes really mirrored that arms-flailing, brain-babbling pace -- much to gale's credit.

there were some points where little tics of tennant's showed through and recalled the doctor, faintly -- like the way he'd say "weellllllll" and certain mouth movements and gestures. (and i had to laugh when stewart actually did the picard manuever (at the link, the 1st meaning) at one point, yanking at the bottom of his vest to straighten it and readjusting his tie.) but i've seen DT in enough stuff to know that he does have some oft-employed tics. like most actors, i guess.

at the end the whole cast took many bows, and when they left the stage for what seemed like the final time, patrick stewart, david tennant, and the other stars walked out via my aisle. so i got a good look at them all. and just before he would've passed my row, tennant got this little look of one-more-time on his face and ducked back round to go onto the stage again to soak up a last solo wave of adoration. then everyone came back out for yet more bows. my hands hurt from clapping so much!

i really enjoyed the show, but the thing i might have liked best was seeing DT's face at the end. he was just beaming with happiness, like he'd live on the stage if he could, and it was lovely to see such pure, unfettered joy on a person's face. i suppose in part b/c the role is so demanding, and the character of hamlet is so mercurial, and angry and brooding and fake-insane and all, that tennant's glee once he was out of character was such a delight.

anyway, i did not go to the stage door afterward. just seeing it was enough. instead i went to the actor's bar at the dirty duck and had a drink. i ended up talking to this nice young couple (wife a big DT fan), and we had fun spotting all the different actors who came in. pretty much everyone passed through except tennant and stewart -- the wife, vanessa, suggested they might've taken such a back way to the back patio, which was reserved for the actors/friends. we didn't really expect him to come in, but i think we were both hoping a little. the husband, mark, actually got up at one point and told her he'd go do recon and see if he was out in the back. i laughed and said, "now, THAT'S love!"

PS (on mon. nite 10/27): i wish there were more photos in this post, but i'm afraid i might have crashed the B&B's server while trying to add some -- i'm in bath now, more on that soon -- so for now you'll have to deal with words words words. i'll make smaller versions of photos and do a separate photo post later. also, there will be more words. fear not. or do. or something.

timeless melody

wowee!! i'm in stratford-upon-avon. and in just a few short hours i will be seeing david tennant and patrick stewart in hamlet!

i booked my tickets (for tonite and also for tomorrow night's perf of love's labour's lost, with DT playing berowne) soooo long ago (back in december), and today i finally held them in my hands. but don't let's get ahead of ourselves, yeah?

i flew to london heathrow out of LAX on wednesday night at 6, via virgin atlantic. i had such a horrible experience with american when the squirrel and i flew to paris, i vowed never to use that airline again. friends recommended virgin, and i must say it is definitely better. the economy seats were still small, but nowhere near as horrible as the ones on american when we went to paris. the food was pretty good, and the wine was free (although i only had two glasses). the in-seat entertainment was bitchen -- i watched two episodes of "30 rock" and the iron man movie, which was actually pretty good until the end, which was just your standard CGI battle kind of thing, and a strange sorta letdown. but robert downey jr. was good as tony stark/iron man, and the script up to the end was lively comic-book fun.

anyway. it was a bit of a haul to stratford. i didn't really sleep well on the plane. we got in about 30 minutes late, and it took a long time for the rental car shuttle to come. i managed to stay on the correct side of the road and not kill anyone, but i missed the exit on the roundabout to the M25 (fucking HATE roundabouts ... HATE) and ended up going the wrong way ... for a while before i could turn around. i was pretty tired on the drive to stratford (about 90 minutes once i got going in the right direction), but i managed to get there before dark. people were pouring in for the play that night -- a midsummer night's dream -- and i got lost again, but by chance i happened upon the proper road and found the B&B, which is called ambleside and is on grove road.

the owners, peter and ruth, are very nice, and the place is really comfy. i have a quiet, spacious room with space for all my crap. peter suggested a pub down the road -- something like the old thatched pub, i forget exact name (and no time to look it up b/c jamming this entry out before i gotta get ready). so i walked over there, and it was the picture of english pub-ness -- small bar, cozy bar room with fireplace and rough wooden tables and comfy chairs, plus a small dining room in the back. i sat at a table in the bar area and had the pie of the day -- homemade steak and ale. oh boy was it good!! but i swear it was like six pounds of food. it came with tons of steamed veggies that were delicious and not soggy. i had a tanq & tonic too.

afterward i thought about walking on down to waterside, where the courtyard theatre is, but it was really windy out, and i was pretty tired. there was a funky street carnival going on during the short walk b/w the B&B and the pub. you know -- tilt-a-whirl type rides and throw-the-ball-win-a-stuffed-tiger type thing. with loud kind of dance-music type music, ahaha. it wasn't all that hopping in terms of customers -- probs due to aforementioned wind? i don't have the squirrel's capacity for asking billions of questions ... if she were here she probs would've bombarded the nice young lads behind the bar about the whole street carnival thing, but i was too tired and busy soaking up the atmosphere.

so, i fell asleep around 10:30 last night and woke up at 8. had breakfast at 8:45 -- delish! -- then got showered and dressed and went exploring. the forecast had called for rain, but it was actually a beautiful sunny day (though cold, in the 50s). didn't wear sunscreen and worried i got burned, but we'll see.

first i walked down scholars lane to the theatre and got my tix. i looked in the little shop but decided to buy my program later. then i strolled along the avon river to trinity church, where shakespeare is buried. had to donate 1.50 pounds to see his tomb, but that's ok. my picture of the tomb isn't great, but here's what is engraved in the stone (some call it a curse; i think it might be more like a warning?):



the church had lots of lovely stained glass, and i tried to take some pix -- i think they came out better than i thought at the time. what do you think??



wandered on and down by the water, watched a boat with three boys in it struggling to turn it round (almost shouted advice but figured they would be embarrassed, so didn't). some nice willow trees, yeah?



wandered some more on the nice tarmac pathways -- behind some posher apartment buildings and homes and all. and also past shakespeare's birthplace (pictured at the top of this entry). stratford is very woody and pretty, brick homes and winding roads. picturesque.

then i hiked to anne hathaway's cottage, about a mile from my B&B, along another tarmac alleyway-type path that at one point crosses a huge green field, lovely. i also walked past a long hedge that was humming with bees. anyway, anne was shakespeare's wife, and the cottage was her family home, where, the tour guide said, he would've visited her before they got married. he was 18 and she was 26 (and preggers with their first child) when they got hitched -- wowee, they even had cougars back in willie the shake's day! he was considered a minor still, so he had to get a special license to get married. the neighbors raised the money -- 40 pounds. whoa. that's a lotta dough 400 years ago. not cheap now, even. the tour lady said, in response to someone's question, that bill "knew" anne -- i guess perhaps she meant in the biblical sense, ahaha.

the cottage didn't take long to go through: it's just 12 rooms, most of them upstairs bedrooms. small and narrow (you're not allowed to take pictures inside), but i couldn't help thinking that some L.A. hipster would love to have a funky place like that and put loads of high-tech, high-priced appointments in it. in fact, that would be cool.

one can take pix of the outside, though, and so i did. lovely, yeah?



here's the willow hut where "famous actors" read sonnets. no one was there at the time, of course.



here's an apple tree in the orchard:



i didn't walk around the grounds as much as i could've -- had to save my feet for the hike back. during which i played the clay idols on my ipod and smiled to myself and also sang out loud -- b/c who cares if people think i'm crazy? anyway, i went to the dirty duck, the famous actors' hang, and booked for dinner tonite at 5:30. like the sign says ...



then i had some tea and gazed around and wrote in my journal. i am starting to feel a little fangirl-ish squee-ness for being in the same town as two of my favorite actors. can't really bring myself to entertain the notion of going round to the stage door afterward, but ... we shall see. maybe patrick stewart needs the attention, ahaha.

anyway, i wrote this and posted the photos in like 35 minutes, so excuse the typos or whatevs, cuz no time to reread.