It’s Monday. Two weeks since we drove down to London town to mind the dog, and two days before we drive ourselves back home again.
I had enormous ambitions to stay on top of my running and my weights and my writing, and two of those ambitions have fallen by the wayside. Yet the dog has been a very undemanding host, and we have had a rather wonderful time, and so I’m not feeling too bad about my best laid plans.
The Shows
Nye – National Theatre (South Bank)
Michael Sheen looks decades younger when that hobo beard is off him, which is lucky as he needs a lot of energy in this play, scampering through the life of Aneurin Bevan through the prism of Bevan’s final stay in an NHS hospital bed. We all know that this man’s vision and experience created an institution that transformed the health and welfare of an entire nation. I didn’t know just what a lone critical voice he was against Churchill during the war, which shows incredible bravery. For all its political underpinning, however, the play did not feel dry. There is a surprising amount of humour, the acting is first class, and the hospital curtains and beds are used very cleverly within the constant changes of scenes.
There are a lot of scenes. Childhood; Political Awakenings; Unions; Houses of Parliament; His father’s deathbed; The wooing of his wife. The list goes on. It goes at a gallop, and the spotlight is very firmly on him, although it is not a hagiography. A little more could be included about Jenny Lee, his wife, and a little less could be had of Churchill, but the play is entertaining, and an important reminder of what we’re close to losing today.
HadesTown – Lyric Theatre (West End)
I really am not a musicals person generally, aside from a few: Cabaret is an all-time favourite. I think it’s down to the type of music and the type of story. So, when Anne wanted to go and see this one – jazz/folk take on a Greek myth – I thought it might just work. The music was terrific overall, which is lucky because there is a lot of it, with only a little dialogue in between. I loved the fact that there were so many young people in the audience. I don’t know how much they know about the lives of Persephone and Hades, and Eurydice and Orpheus, but the Greek stories are getting a bit of a resurgence at the minute with several feminist re-tellings and new translations, so they may be very knowledgeable.
The set is laid out with a 1930s New Orleans type vibe. Eurydice is some victim of the Depression desperately looking for firewood to keep warm. Orpheus is a dreamy musician/café attendant. Hermes, a nattily dressed singer narrates the proceedings and the Fates and the Chorus envelop and underlie the story.
It does help to know the basic story of the original myths, but the production interweaves that with more modern concerns: Hades with his ‘Why We Build A Wall’ gets uber Trumpian with a catechism of a song that he sings with his slaves in the underworld.
Why do we build a wall my children?
We build a wall to keep us free
The wall keeps out the enemy
The enemy is poverty
They want what we have got
I really am not a musicals person, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself that evening.
The Exhibitions
Unearthed – The Power of Gardening – The British Library
This was Anne’s choice, as she’s the green-fingered one. It was surprisingly interesting for me too. I didn’t realise just how many plants were lost or destroyed in the great Victorian stampede to bring back samples from across the world. There were examples of guerilla gardening and community gardens, and the whole exhibition was well laid out. Not over facing for a non-gardener, it allowed me to appreciate how digging in the dirt can be quite transformative and political.
Ancient India – Living Traditions – The British Museum
The British Museum is a beautiful building, but so packed. Queues outside and scores of people inside, which is kind of nice to see, I guess. The exhibition space, however, was more tranquil with its swishing veils and serene statues.
The three ancient and extant faiths of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism all have their origins in India, and the exhibition looks at how their main deities or leaders came to be depicted. The items on display are beautiful works of art, and well worth viewing just for that. I got a little lost, however, on the underlying narrative. I still enjoyed it, but I wanted to understand a little more about how the three informed or reacted against each other as they developed. Still, the little grey cells were made to work.
We also, while we were there, popped in to see the (formally known as) Elgin Marbles, now called the Parthenon Sculptures. I still don’t understand why they haven’t been sent back to Greece, but then until recently, I didn’t realise that they weren’t round rolling balls, so what do I know.
The runs – there were just a few.
As I said, I had lofty ambitions here, but they came to nought. My saving grace was my running buddy John who works in London during the week. On two occasions I met up with him for a canter. Once around the centre of London with some terrific backdrops, such as the London Eye and Buckingham Palace, and once around the ‘mecca’ of running that is Battersea Park. Neither of the runs were anything more than gentle jogs. Nor could they be, given just how many people and bicycles we were trying to dodge. They were, however, wonderful ways to explore the city, and it was a real treat for me.
I’m writing this part on the Tuesday now, feeling guilty that the last time I ran was last Wednesday. I have only managed two rounds of weights in the two and a half weeks we have been here – all in the first week, and not a thing later. But to compensate for that slackness, I have been knocking out chapters of my novel. In these two weeks I’ve managed to get down ten thousand words alone taking my total up to forty-five thousand. It’s a first draft, full of shonkiness, but given that I’d previously not written much more than five thousand words for anything before, it’s an achievement. I don’t think I’ll reach the eighty thousand words which is what they say an average-sized novel should be, but I might just eventually get it up to around sixty. I still hope to get that first draft complete by the end of August, after which the glaring plot holes, and the dodgy characters will need filling in and developing in the edits. I don’t know if I will ever attempt something this big and effortful again, but it certainly has been an interesting learning experience.
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