Saturday 26 March 2011

The time is out of joint

I may have said I'd post this yesterday, but anyway...

Last night (on Thursday night, if you want to split hairs) Lady Zorro and I went to see a play in Hackney. This was an exciting experience on two counts: I had never been to Hackney before, and the play was excellent.

Sadly, in all the excitement, I only remembered to take two pictures. We were a bit rushed, as we had both come from work and met up at about 6:50, and the play started at 7.30.

Here is the ceiling of the restaurant place next to the theatre, which had a sort-of-box office which turned out not to be the one we needed after all, but had loads of awesome lampshades:


And here is supper, in a sort of fried chicken shop. It was reasonably cheap, and I had peri peri chicken on a bed of chips, which I could never fault: 


We ended up staying talking over our meal for a bit longer than intended, and made it into the theatre with minutes to spare before the curtain went up (well, it was already up, but you know what I mean). 

The play we went to see was Hamlet The Clown Prince, at the Hackney Empire. I had already put it in the paper, but it was really, really funny and well-done, so I will promote it some more here! Go and see it if you can, tickets are not that expensive and it is excellent. The play had come over from India, where it apparently won all sorts of awards. It was about a company of clowns trying to put on Hamlet, with only five actors and a lot of squabbling. I've never laughed so hard at Shakespeare before. Lady Zorro was also impressed, and she is a lady of culture, so it must be good! 

The only downside was the audience. A couple in the row in front of us had brought their baby along, possibly in the mistaken belief that something with clowns must be for children, and it got very confused and upset and had to be taken out halfway through. The seats were the kind that fold up, so the entire row in front of us had to stand up in the middle of the play to let these people and their screaming child out. Thankfully, they didn't come back. The woman behind us must have been from an American television audience, because she had a somewhat disconcerting tendency to shriek with laughter whenever anything at all happened on stage, to the point where she was actually panting for breath. Also, the man sitting next to me apparently only knew one line from the entire of Hamlet - 'Get thee to a nunnery' - which he would repeat in knowing tones whenever nunneries were mentioned.  

Audience aside, though, it was really awesome! It was exciting sneaking off to do something fun after work. I should take advantage of working in London more often! Yes, the 'pubs' are insanely expensive and travel can be complicated, but there is always loads on.

I don't have much exciting news on today, except that I made an apple crumble this evening, and have the rest of it to look forward to tomorrow. What a glamourous life I lead!

Goodnight!

2 comments: