London Day 10 – Imperial War Museum, Book of Mormon, Salt n Pepper, Winter’s Tale with Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh

10/21/2015

It rained today but I didn't care...because I got tickets to The Winter's Tale! :) I'd gone to the Garrick Theatre a couple days ago to ask about possibly getting tickets. It's completely sold out and I thought I'd get laughed out the door, but the guy was super nice and said I could queue up at 10am every day to buy returned tickets day-of from ticket operators, if there are any. There's another queue at 6pm every day for returned tickets from the theatre itself, but I thought I'd try the 10am line. He said to be here before 10am because there's usually a line of people waiting already. But since it was raining today, I didn't think people would actually show up to try getting seats, so I got there around 9:55am. There were already a good 8 people in line and I started kicking myself--why didn't I go earlier??? 

Thankfully, three of the men in line were only there accompanying their wives--they didn't actually want to see the play, they were just waiting for their wives to buy the tickets. Yay! So I was able to get a ticket and the lady said I had a pretty good seat. The tickets were 95 pounds, and the lady explained that even without return, the regular price is 95 pounds, so I'm not getting stiffed. I'm one happy camper. I went across the street to the Half-Price Ticket Office just to see if they had any on discount and the lady there said tickets to The Winter's Tale is like gold dust--it's that hard to come by.

I absolutely adored Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet (he was my teenage crush!), so to see him and the great Judi Dench together on stage...stuff of dreams, that. I felt like I was floating on air for the rest of the day.

How cute are these umbrellas! Even has fur handles!

I went to the Churchill War Rooms afterward. Not because it was my destination; for some reason, I thought the Imperial War Rooms was directly across the Churchill War Rooms. Yeaaaahhh...I read the map wrong. The security guard told me it's at Lambeth North, directing me where to go. 

So I walk across the Waterloo bridge, through a maze of streets and finally found it. By this time, it's already 11am and I had to leave at 1:30pm to catch the tube to Book of Mormon. I was already panicking because timing's pretty tight, especially when Dad had spent a full two days here. 

Imperial War Museum

I started out in ground zero, documenting the First World War, when a museum docent came up and started chatting. I wasn't really talkative because I was panicking about not enough time, so he let me be for a while. 

A few minutes later, he comes up again and gives me a brief overview of how the war started (there's a really good cartoon that illustrates this for kids that I was standing next to). He was super super nice and I did learn loads from him, but ended up spending half an hour talking instead of seeing ;( 

I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Britain before WWI

Robert Baden Powell is the founder of Boy Scouts...I saw his portrait yesterday in the National Portrait Museum

A brief summary of how WWI started:

At the start of the 1900s, Europe is at peace but tensions run high. Britain has emerged as the world's superpower because it's accumulated so many colonies. A quarter of the world's population count themselves British, and England owns a quarter of the world's landmass. They have the strongest navy, control the market on spices (very valuable back then), fabrics and other goods. Other European countries are jealous, but there's not much they can do to catch up. Oh, but how they want to.

To restore national pride, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II focuses on making art and science thrive. German culture and machine/engineering is considered the world's best, even in Britain's point of view. The Kaiser is Queen Victoria's favorite grandson and is also cousins with Russia's Tsar. There's a coat on display that is a gift from the tsar to his cousin the kaiser. The Kaiser was born with his left arm shorter than his right, so you can see the coat was tailored specifically for him because of the different arm lengths. He was very sensitive about this (Napoleon complex, anyone?). And he was ticked off that Britain ruled over so much. 

Coat from the Tsar to his cousin, the Kaiser

Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy sign a treaty, which makes neighboring France and Russia panic. So they sign a treaty as response. Since France and Britain are building a bridge to connect the two lands, they sign a treaty.

Serbia has emerged from the Balkan Wars stronger and is Russia's ally. When a Serbian-backed fascist assassinates Franz Joseph's only heir, Archduke Ferdinand, the German Kaiser seizes this as the perfect opportunity to go to war because he wants more land, more resources, more everything. He basically wants to be better than Britain (be better than his cousins). You need to fight--and win--a war in order for this to happen. So he eggs Franz Joseph on, telling him to take revenge. They declare war on Serbia and Germany promptly invades neutral Belgium...which happens to be Britain's ally. Since Serbia is Russia's ally, Russia gets drawn into the war, which means France (Russia's ally) is dragged in as well. 

Britain initially didn't want to go to war, but felt conflicted because Belgium is its ally. But when news (and propoganda) began to appear about the German atrocities in Belgium--whole cities were being massacred by German soldiers who didn't do it for the fun of it; they did it because they were afraid the Belgians would kill them when they marched through the towns--the British were outraged. There was a sense of horror and a sense that it's so close by; it could easily be a British village being massacred by the Germans. So they declare war as well.

The fact that these kings (Germany, Britain, Russia) were all cousins didn't stop them from going to war with each other. Talk about family feud!   

The famous painting Gassed by John Singer Sargent

No one knew the war would take so long. Both sides thought they'd win before the autumn leaves fell.

The German massacre of Belgians:

And German's justification for the massacre:

Soldiers from both sides came together to celebrate Christmas. To put aside your differences for a night, after so many months of fighting each other, is truly heartwarming.

But of course, after Christmas, it goes back to digging, digging, digging:

In order to navigate through the labyrinth of trenches, they started naming the trenches after places from home. Or they'd take ironic names like Death Valley, Hell Fire Corner:

My favorite--Suicide Corner:

Women were very enthusiastic about contributing to war efforts. Though some of their efforts were not appreciated:

A statue across from National Portrait Gallery is Edith Cavell, who Angel and I had asked about back on our first day here. We had no idea who she was; turns out, she was a British nurse who was executed by the Germans. Her execution marked a turning point in British civilians' minds. One writer wrote: "This is the first time the British people have learned to hate."

There was such propaganda against Germany (and vice versa). Germans in the UK were being harassed, their shops looted. One hotel I walk by almost every day is the historic Connaught hotel. It used to have a German name, but had to change it during this time!

Trench warfare could only get the armies so far. It was a defensive method, not offense:

They had to get creative if they hoped to win the war. The Germans' trenches were all on high ground, which meant the Allies had the weaker position. Anytime they went out of their shelter, the Germans could pick them off one by one. So the Allies came up with fake trees to camouflage their soldiers:

One of the fake trees used

There's so much to see--I didn't even get a quarter of the way through WW1 before I had to leave! I also briefly saw the 5th floor exhibit of medals for valor. It had medals on display and a brief description of the heroic deeds of each serviceman/woman. The Victoria Cross was established in 1856 and the medals were made from melted bronze from captured French guns during the time.

I rushed out to catch the 2:30pm showing of Book of Mormon:

It was very good! My seat was balcony and the view was very nice; could see their facial expressions. Though the guy in front of me was pretty tall, the slope is steep so he didn't block my view at all. I was amazed that the matinee was completely sold out. What is it with London??? And a lot of the people there are English. Young, old, how can they just show up in the middle of the afternoon? As intermission drew to a close and people were filing into their seats, one guy sat down and asked the guy next to him if he watched rugby. Um, this is England? Obviously the guy replies yes. So the first guy points to the middle section. Turns out, there’s rugby player sitting there and he passed him on the way back to his seat. It was either Ben Carter or Dan Carter; didn’t quite catch the first name. Sounded more like Ben, I think. The guy behind me chimes in on the action and muses, “Wonder if we can trip him down the stairs.” Man, they’re competitive here!

The turn-it-off guy and the black lead girl are the same as last time, I think. Elder Cunningham was appropriately fat and his laugh was obnoxiously high squeal, which added hilarity to it all. At the end of the musical, Elder Cunningham and Price came out to speak...to raise money for Acting for Others. Cunningham is Irish! And apparently this donation thing is a race for which play/musical can raise the most money every year. Last year Wicked won, so Cunningham said: "Let's not lose to those sluts over at Wicked." haha He also said, "Hope you enjoyed the show. If so, my name is David O'Reilly. If not, I'm Imelda Staunton (Gypsy!!!)." Lol

The show let out at 5pm, so I went around the corner to Salt n Pepper to use off my Wicked free 2-course voucher. It was delicious! The paneer tikka was perfectly spiced and the texture divine. The chicken tikka masala was very nicely balanced--not too tomatoey, and apparently is made with almond milk. Naan was fluffy, the rice so good I kept eating it! It's made with some kind of meat broth, I think. Add in toasted shallots, yum! The restaurant says it uses British products whenever possible, low oil, etc. It's a pretty posh yet cozy restaurant. I was the first person in, but by the time I left, it had filled up 2/3 full. And it wasn't even 6pm yet! 

Paneer

Chicken Tikka Masala

Paneer

I went over to the Garrick, where I saw a bunch of people lining up for the 6pm return ticket line. I don't know why the box office wasn't selling yet...it was around 6:40pm by the time I got there. I talked to one woman at intermission who said there were only 2 returned tickets...so all the people after them didn't get one. She was lucky because there were 5 people in front of her...and 4 of them left after they found out the tickets weren't gonna be discounted. It would be the full 95 pounds. Gypsy, Les Mis, Winter's Tale, Hamlet all don't do discounted tickets, even if they're returned tickets. So no half-price day of. 

That totally sounds like something I would do...and Angel would yell at me for. You already went to the trouble of going to the theater, waiting in line...and not buy the tickets??? C'mon, it's Judi Dench and Kenneth Branaugh! 

I still had a little time before the show started, so I ducked into the library next door and saw an Agatha Christie display. Mousetrap is London's longest running play and is actually The Three Blind Mice. She adapted it for the stage at the request of Queen Mary. Agatha Christie's works is collectively the third best-seller of all time, behind the Bible and Shakespeare. She bequeathed the rights to the play to her grandson (lucky bastard!) and no film adaptation can be made until the West End production closes--but it's been going strong for 60-odd years! 

The seat I was allocated was superb! Front row of the balcony, seat 18. The lights kind of blocked my view, but if I sat forward enough, that wasn't a problem. I didn't mind sitting at the edge of my seat for 3 hours--watching Judi Dench is entrancing! I wanted to kick Kenneth Branaugh, so he was successful. The story is much like He Knew He Was Wrong; Kenneth Branaugh, the king, is very much in love with his pregnant wife, but when his brother comes to visit, Kenneth's character is driven mad by jealousy. He thinks they're having an affair, so he tries to have his brother poisoned (his trusted adviser warns the brother and they make away to the brother's land). He throws his wife in jail, which stresses out their young son. The wife gives birth to a baby girl, but the king won't acknowledge it as his and tells his servant to get rid of the child. Their son dies. The queen, upon finding out about the death of her son, falls ill too. The king is told she's dead and mourns for the next 16 years, too late he realizes he's wronged everyone. That's Act I. Act II is when the baby girl grows up and falls in love...with a prince. She was raised as a lowly farmer's daughter, so their inequality makes the prince's dad go apoplectic. Turns out, the prince is her cousin. When they discover her royal lineage through a bunch of comedic circumstances, the prince's dad accepts her. The queen is still alive!

Everyone and their mother is pretty much here for Judi Dench. I will agree that whenever she comes on stage, she steals the scene. Could also be because she’s playing the impertinent if ever loyal servant and has witty lines. Kenneth I wanted to smack and knock some sense into for not believing his wife’s fidelity. I did feel some parts that he could have cut his lines (he has a lot of soliloquys) to shorten Act 1, but hey, he’s the director of the play. Who am I to argue with the master? I loved the queen’s performance; you can really see how heartbroken she is when her husband thinks she’s cheated on him. She plays the regal quite well.

Don't know if you can see Dame Judi and Kenneth in the middle...

The lady beside me and another behind me got to talking during intermission. Both are American who love shows. One's from Rochester, NY, the other from Northern Illinois. They both want to see Hamlet so were asking me about that (it started as me talking to the lady beside me, then the lady behind us jumped in when she heard "Hamlet"). Returned tickets are 250 pounds and go on sale 10:30am day of. The lady said she talked to the theatre, and some people line up around 3-4am to get those tickets. They are both older, so they don't really want to go that route. 

This week is Preview week. After the 3rd encore, they bowed and left the stage without asking for a donation for Acting for Others. I thought this was strange because Mark Rylance just said yesterday that Judi Dench had asked him to say the speech.

When I was walking back home, I passed Leicester Square:

Spectre

A lot of people were lined up for the Odeon theatre so I asked a girl what was going on. Turns out, Skyfall officially opens in theatres on 10/26 but they’re having a preview tonight for it. But the line started moving, so I didn’t get a chance to ask her how she got the tickets. Later, when I was talking to Stephanie, she says that Leicester Square is where London has all its movie premier events.

I chatted with Patricia and her daughter (separately) when I first met them. They didn't return til Monday evening because Patricia thought you guys were leaving Tuesday morning, so I got one night to myself in the apt. Patricia said if it's possible, could I ask her daughter to museums with me because she's shy. I didn't find her shy. I told her I really enjoy art and she (the daughter) graduated with an art major. We're going to the V&A and Science Museum tomorrow. She has the membership to V&A and she can take one guest into the exhibits for free, so we're going to check out the India textile exhibit.