Sun, 08 Jun 2003

author Tim	location Australia House, London, England
posted 10:07 BST	section Europe2002/Europe/UK/England/London/Working in London 2 ( all photos )

Shakespeare's Globe ( 22 photos )
Sunday morning, we had a bit of a sleep in before awaking the sleepy-heads Meaghan and Dave, who had spent the night uncomfortably on the couch. It could have been worse, since there were also two extra people there staying (for a total of twelve) - Ben and Liz who used to live here, have been travelling and have come back to look for work. Luckily they had squeezed themselves into somebody else's room for the night.
Staggering slowly on the walk down to the cleverly-named Bronds Age restaurant/pub (it's at Brondesbury station, just past Kilburn), Meaghan noted that she had been there before visiting Clinton, who lived here during his Big Europe Adventure a year or so ago. It was not a night she wished to recall, apparently.
This places serves the best full vegetarian breakfasts - we ordered one each and relaxed in the funky, nothing-matches-at-all atmosphere of the pub, complete with "hand" chairs, Julius-Caesar style lounge-chairs, and so many other things that if you don't like what you are sitting on, just pick something else from close at hand.
Jumping on the tube at Kilburn, we waved farewell to Meaghan and Dave for the next month or so (we should be able to visit them on our way across England from Ireland to Holland) at Finchley Road, the target for Liz and I was the replica Shakespeare's Globe theatre at Southwark.
Not being the hugest fans of the master's work, we had none-the-less had this listed as a "must-do" before leaving London. We had put it off all winter as they only run plays during the summer months.
It was so worth the wait.
The building itself is very impressive - reminding me constantly of my English classes at Sydney Tech where we studied the original and how the audience were participants. Picture a shrunken football stadium, round, with vertically-stacked stands around the outside, a stage at one end of the middle and the "plebians" watching the show from the ground. That was us, and at £5 a ticket it is one of the best investments so far.
The show itself we went to see was an all-female production of Richard III. This I found interesting, as back in Shakespeare's time even the female parts were played by males, so this was quite uncommon. Richard II is also on there at various times, so I was a little wary about booking tickets to the "sequel" without seeing the original (or, for that matter, Richard I!), but my worries were un-founded.
Standing for three hours (with interval) passed quickly, and the cast dealt amazingly well with the weather (there's no roof for us in standing-room), which they weaved into the plot to great effect when the rain started pooring down. The rain dried up, but we both freely admin to a few tears at the end, such was the quality of the performance.
Best thing in London so far. Although there has been plenty of contenders to that title!
We then wandered next door to the Tate Modern. Even Liz who freely admits she's not a big fan of weird modern art was impressed by the strange array of things on display. Of most note were the strange massive inflatable sculptures out the front, visible from miles away that you can actually walk inside, and an exploded shed, captured with suspended bits of abandoned junk as it would have been micro-seconds after the explosion, with a light bulb in the middle that casts amazing shadows all over the room the display has to itself.
Would have liked to have spent more time there, but I guess we can't have everything.
We found ourselves at the dingy little Black Friar pub at, funnily enough, Blackfriars a little later on. We had wandered up here on our Eccentric London Blackfriars and Fleet Street walk a few months ago, but the pub was closed at the time. It turned out to be an amazing little place, complete with mosaics on the roof, very dingy little corners which the two of us just squeezed into, squinting to read the menu in the gloom. Great stuff. It was a bit of a toss-up between travelling into Chinatown near Leicester Square for some Chinese food or staying in the pub.
Eventually, the ability to get a train straight back from Blackfriars to Cricklewood won us over, and we did so, retiring for the night after a weekend well-spent around London.

(customised)