i am his highness' dog at kew

Today was Sunday and I wanted to take a breather, specifically in Kew Gardens. Actually it was Becca's idea; Daniel and I just tagged along. This was after church at the Hyde Park Ward, where I wore a pink dress shirt and didn't apologize for it. Because if you can't wear pink shirts to church in London, where can you?

Kew Gardens is kind of a paradise. It's enormous. It's not like it's full of flowers, but there are incredible patches of flowers. The rest of it is trees of every variety and type. And little ponds with ducks that make funny little quacks. You go inside the main gates and you just wander. We wandered for over four hours. Here is what we saw:

The Palm House. Built in the 1800's for the World's Fair. And full of, you guessed it, PALMS.
There was an aquatic section of the gardens, and I liked these sea basses a lot. They don't seem particularly happy with each other. They were disrespectful to each other, these fish.
Here are those palms I was telling you about! You can climb up a bunch of stairs and look down at all of the vines and fronds. The only bad thing is that it is one million degrees at the top of the glasshouse. We did not stay long.
This is King William's Mediterranean House. Just like the real thing!
A Japanese pagoda!
Here I am in the Minka house. This is my neighbor Totoro.
Hydrangeas.

60 feet high atop the treehouse walk, Daniel and Becca displayed a range of emotions:

ODD
CONFUSED
EXCITED!

Not everyone is that excited about Kew Gardens:


After we had dinner at Ma Cuisine near the Kew Station. It was voted the #1 restaurant in London by ITV a few years ago, but we didn't know that. We just didn't want to go to Pizza Express again, and this place seemed both fancy and moderately priced. Our waiter looked suitably French:When our food came, and we raised said food to our mouths, there was a giant explosion in the heavens. A firework in shape of Padma Lakshmi lit the sky up, the world briefly stopped turning, and for a few moments there was peace on earth. Because this chicken was seriously that good.Becca ate some kind of vegetarian business with ratatouille.

Saying goodbye to London is always hard. It always means I'm one step closer to reuniting with the family I love and miss so much, but it's also the gamble of not knowing when I'll get back. I tried to come home from the gardens and pack, but it was killing me to watch the sun go down. So I grabbed my ipod and set out for one last walk through Hyde Park. It's really beautiful this time of night, and surprisingly full of people. I made my way to the Serpentine Gallery, to see this year's pavilion installation. Every year an artist is commissioned to create an eating space for the public in the middle of Hyde Park. I thought this year's pavilion, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, was very bold. All angles and completely red. Super cool.

And then I walked back to my flat. No long goodbyes. Just listened to a few tunes on my ipod and watched the sun set over the park.

Tomorrow is Scotland!

all is true

We were up early today for a Saturday, putting some finishing touches on Rappaccini's Daughter, the piece that my students are taking to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on Monday. I'm excited to see how the piece works up there. They've certainly put a lot of time and work into it, and it has been carefully adapted and directed by Scott Stringham and Alex Ungerman. It was odd, and a little inspiring, to watch these students work through a piece that was blocked in Utah, re-rehearsed in London, which will be performed in Scotland. I'm excited for them.

We had a busy day, and those are the best kind. We started with a backstage tour at the National Theatre. Our tour guide was probably the most irrepressible person you could ever imagine. She had so much energy and talked so quickly that I was barely able to get a photograph of her. You can see what I mean. She didn't stop. She also asked us not to take pictures as soon as I snapped this - in fact she's starting to say it right as I took this - so I'm glad I got what I got. I think she would be the ideal Mary Poppins should Lisa and I ever need one. We'll just wait for the wind to change direction, and then this girl can blow in and tell us all about prop tables and revolving sets.

The amazing thing about the National Theatre is that it is so ingeniously designed, so artfully cared for, and still so socialist. I kind of like that. Nobody gets special treatment. There are no tricked out dressing rooms for stars, the programs are free, the shows are cheap, and the work is incredible. It's subsidized, naturally, but it's exciting to see people working because they love the work. You may hate a show at the National, but at least there's passion in it. It's not like watching Wicked or Les Mis, where the entire cast spends the performance thinking about what they'll have to eat after the show.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the appropriately named EAT, strolled past the bookshop under the Waterloo Bridge, and then headed back to the National for an amazing performance of After the Dance. It might be my favorite play this year. I need some time to reflect on everything, but it very well could be. Wow. It was incredible. It's a simple story: a few wealthy Londoners in 1938 refuse to admit that a war is coming, and they continue to party like it's 1925. And of course nobody is happy, and nobody wants to admit it, and terrible things happen. It was just so beautifully directed and performed. The best acting I've seen this year. I was so excited that my students were able to see it - it's the kind of work that you remember for a lifetime. But what my students will probably remember the most is this fight I got into with a middle-aged woman who sat behind me. She was upset that we stood for curtain call. I told her we had every right to. She said when we stood up she couldn't see the bows. So I told her she was free to stand as well. Then she said that I was a real pain. And I said I could say the same thing about her. And then she said "I daresay."


This being a two-show day, we scrambled to get more food in us before the second performance: Henry VIII at the Globe. Luckily there is a Wagamama's just a bit further down the river, and our timing was good. We made it inside and got a table just as the rain hit. Very rainy lately! But our exceptional timing, which is also luck, kept us dry. And after a really nice dinner (I had some kind of ginger chicken noodles) we found blue skies and a little sun. So that was encouraging. And Alex, Rachel, Jessy, and Nick had saved us spots at the front of the Globe so we could lean on the stage.

Part of the charm of seeing Henry VIII is knowing it may be the only time you get to see it. Nobody ever does it, and you can see why. It's kind of a snorefest. People talk and talk, and then there's a coronation, and then more people talk. It's more of a poetic pageant than a play, and many people don't think Shakespeare even wrote most of it. Certainly it has a different feel than most of his plays. But leave it to the Globe to find interesting and exciting ways to tell the story. They used film motifs throughout - flashbacks, montages, cross-fades - and did all they could to keep our attention. I admit I zoned out while Cardinal Wolsey talked for three pages, but I certainly loved the lady who played the jester and the waiting woman. Her rubbery face alone was worth the price of the admission.

big, tall, terrible, awesome, scary

Whenever people ask me what they absolutely have to see while they are in London I usually tell them two things: the Imperial War Museum and Sir John Soane's house. Neither sound very exciting, and maybe that explains why neither are overrun with tour groups. If I had a museum that I wanted to keep a secret I would call it "Drill Bits and Handkerchiefs: The Chris Clark Museum." But the people who DID come to my museum would love it. And that's basically how John Soane's house is.

If you go to John Soane's you have to, first of all, make sure you DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING. Because I was snapped at three times in there for touching things, and one of those things - honestly - was the wall. One time I was trying to lift a latch that opened a secret passageway, and the guard came flying in and said "NO. You don't touch NUFFINK!" And in this case he was right to do that. They are very guarded about this place, and with reason: it's packed with archeological treasures. It's the most amazing little house. Soane collected items from all over the world, and he designed his home to fit them all. He also designed the house to be lit from natural light, so the stained glass ceilings make everything colorful and mysterious. And there are mirrors everywhere that trick you, and walls that aren't walls, and a hidden skeleton, and a giant Egyptian sarcophogus, and a shrine to a dead dog, and another shrine to his "friend" who was a monk (and who was also imaginary), and you could spend all day in there finding hidden places and unexpected objects. I love it there. You should go.

After the museum we all split and went our separate ways. Daniel and Alex and I made a very important stop at Pizza Express, where Daniel sampled his first, and likely last, anchovy pizza.

Then I made the guys go with me to the Charles Dickens Museum. I go to little places like this to see if they would be of any interest to the rest of the group, and the verdict on the Dickens museum is that nope, it would not. It's very sparse in there. They don't have much to show. It's housed in Dickins' old house, which is cool, and there is a writing desk he actually used, which is also cool. But then they have rooms decorated "in the style" of Charles Dickens and it's not that impressive. We did, however, watch a very informative 30 minute video about him which doubled as a 30 minute post-pizza nap.

We decided to go into town. The tube was very full today, and there were giant gusts of wind down in the tunnel that were very pungent. We called it "blast of body." We devised a line of perfumes and colognes based on various tube stops:

A wisp of Westminster

A touch of Tottenham Court Road

A hint of Holborn

And so on. Basically they would all smell like sweaty people. We went into town and braved the crowds at H&M and Topman on Oxford Street, and then took some refuge at Ben Sherman on Carnaby.

We met early tonight for our show since it was at Regent's Park and we wanted to have some kind of picnic before the performance. Even though the skies were overcast and threatening all day, nothing had really happened. We hoped that the weather would hold out for the show, which it luckily did. Regent's Park was awesome, as always, and it was really fun to sit by the fountain and play Silent Football, which has now become sort of a tradition. Nicholas lost, and his punishment was that he had to ask some English ladies if this was the Globe, and when they said no, this was Regent's Park, he had to ask for directions to the Globe. Regents Park is miles away from the Globe. That was the joke.

I was excited for tonight's performance of Into the Woods but man, was it a hot mess! The Open Air Theatre at Regent's Park is the perfect place for this show; in fact the set was very striking and exciting. All of these levels and stairs and everything built right into the trees. I loved that. And they would light it all up and it was fantastic to look at. Too bad the lights didn't come on half the time and we couldn't follow the action because the mics sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. And the acting was sort of flat, even though the witch was played by Hannah Waddingham - who I've seen in Spamalot and A Little Night Music - and is usually amazing. Judi Dench was the voice of the giant, and they made the giant puppet really cool - about 40 feet tall and made of umbrellas and massive pointy fingers. There were interesting visual ideas throughout the piece - the wolf in Granny's bed was especially cool - but there were so many technical problems that it became tedious to watch. Tonight was their first night with an audience and it really showed. The Baker hit a note so flat that the entire audience gasped. I'm not making that up. And some Einstein decided to have the show narrated by a little boy, which begs the question: is there anything more irritating than child actors? Anything? Little monkeys shouting their lines at us? Nope. This was a bad idea.

warwickshire

My room at the B&B in Stratford was a little snug. My shower was literally next to my bed. You could roll out of bed and into the shower, and that's not just a cute phrase. You could actually do that. But little rooms like that are fine if it's just you. I don't have that much stuff. When I stay in little European hotel rooms I feel like Hemingway. Anyway, I woke up feeling great, and is there anything better than a traditional English breakfast?

We spent time in Stratford this morning. I did my usual Stratford tour, though I didn't actually go into some of the properties. I am a little crowd-averse lately, and I actually enjoy sitting in gardens and waiting for my students to come through the gift shop. Does this mean I am old. Yep! It does! Anyway, we watched that fancy new movie at the Shakespeare birthplace and then I sat in the garden while a nice gentlemen performed a monologue from Antony and Cleopatra and another one from Henry V. Then his friend showed up, and they did two scenes: Twelfth Night and Hamlet. They were really good - fun to watch. You can see one of the actors playing Andrew Aguecheek in the photo. He had a pretty sweet wig. It's nice to see good Shakespeare in Shakespeare's own backyard.

Our tour progressed down Sheep Street, which was the source of the Stratford plague in the 1600's (dead sheep in the road, ratty wool, mountains of poop) and also #40, the most haunted house in England. I told the students about the axe murderer who lived there in the 1500's, the old witch who had her face slashed in Sheep Street, and the little girl who was disemboweled in the Stratford town square. All of these ghosts show up at #40, plus a bunch more. And even though it was mid-day, I got a little chill passing under the windows.

Next we made a brief stop at the town council, where Becca and Dan did a little trick where they made it look like they were magically sliding up and down the pews. It was really funny.

We also stopped by Hall's Croft where our tour guide was quite a character. I hesitate from saying much more than that. Go see this guy, and you will see what I mean.

We had lunch along the river Avon and we fed the geese french fries. I had a little nap and my students played a funny "joke" where they hid from me and then watched me wake up alone and confused. I hope they enjoyed their little "joke!" It was very traumatic for me. Just me and some geese. All alone. Until I made friends with the harmonica player who made his dog howl on cue:

I only went inside Warwick castle for about 20 minutes, and most of that was spent reading my book up on the lookout. It's not that I dislike the castle, but I've seen everything there 3 times over and I'm really into this book (The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall.) After a while I wandered out of the castle and into the city of Warwick, where I saw the following:

The town center:
This museum, which was one half Victorian children's schoolhouse, and the other half a monument to soldiers. This museum seemed to have some identity issues. If someone asked you what kind of a museum it was you wouldn't know what to say. "It's a museum with blackboards.....and......bayonets..."
A really cool spider web on the bridge.
This place, which is called a hospital, but isn't one. It's more of an inn.


We drove back to our flats in the evening. The countryside was beautiful and it was great to chat along the way with Alex Ungerman. Our driver Gwin did a good job getting us home despite road blockades, confusing signage, and the mess of streets called London. I think if I had to drive in Zimbabwe I would do a much worse job.