The last bit of what we did in London - we managed to finally, finally go see a show in the Globe Theatre. I've wanted to do this for ages now, ever since I heard about the theatre, back when I was still studying in Bamberg. However, I'm not in London that utterly often, and the times I happened to be there in the past were usually outside the Globe's season, or there was just no time at all to go there. This time, however, it did work out, and we went to see the Merry Wives of Windsor. The play was nice, there was tea, the theatre was very much an experience as well, and so overall, it was fantastic.

What I found especially impressive was the performance of one actor - Bryan Dick. The actor that was supposed to be on stage was indisposed, so they had to fill this gap with someone... obviously. The audience was duly informed of this by someone coming on stage telling us before the play started, and there was also a note outside (which I didn't see until afterwards).



What I didn't realise at first was that the role would be read... either I didn't catch this bit, or the announcer did not explicitly state this. Anyway, it took me a long while to realise that the man holding a few sheets of paper in his hand did not hold stage props, but they were actually the text in case he'd need it. If not for the paper, I wouldn't have been able to tell who the stand-in would have been. So - very, very impressive performance, and I'll happily go see more things in the Globe if I can, in future visits to London. (The only not-so-enjoyable thing was, by the way, the planes going overhead, with quite a bit of noise... but that can hardly be avoided in an open air setting close to an airport.)

We also went to see another thing that had piqued my interest, also already a good while ago: The musical "Matilda". While I didn't know a thing about the story, which was originally written by Roald Dahl, I did know that Tim Minchin wrote the music... and since I vastly enjoy his music, that was on my list of interesting things one might sort of stumble into if one could. And we did. With a dash of luck, we got the two last leftover side-by-side seats in the theatre, and it was utterly glorious - the stage setting alone, and how it was used in the different scenes, would have been worth a visit, not to mention the choreography and the music. Ah, the music. Here, have a snippet:


All the song lyrics are very, very much Minchin, and so is the music. I found it vastly enjoyable and now have lots of new earworms.