d) The trip was not without its hitches
Before we set off, we opened our anniversary cards. Didn’t take long. I emailed my Sis and Bro, reminding them of our special day that they’d obviously forgotten. Bro responded with a lovely e-card. Sis responded with an emailed photo of her Darth Vader collection.
“It’s our anniversary, not Halloween,” I responded ungratefully.
“What’s the difference?” she asked.
We’d had this trip in our diaries for a while. Hubby bought it via an online auction to raise funds for Ukraine, so it was all done by email chains and not the usual booking system. Cue cockups. We arrived Wednesday afternoon and Hubby gave our name at reception.
“Would the booking be under another name, Sir?” asked the little man in an ill-fitting suit.
Aw crap. Hubby found the email thread on his iPhone, emailed it to the little man in the ill-fitting suit, who ran off to find the events manager with a ladder in her tights, who’d handled everything – or who, as it happened, hadn’t. After a little while he found us mooching in the bar and said our room was being prepared and would we like a free drink while we were waiting.
“Tea please,” said Hubby? Tea? TEA? I’m stressed out thinking I was going to have to sleep on a pavement in deepest, darkest Warwickshire and all he could ask for was tea?
Eventually in our room, Hubby went off again for a swim, and I settled down to read my copy of Richard III that I’d snatched from the bookshelf at the last minute to remind myself of the characters, royal family tree, plot and best bits. Confusion set in straight away. What’s he doing there, and who’s that, and … WTF? By mistake I’d grabbed Richard II, who was Richard III’s first cousin twice removed, which means that Richard II’s father (Edward, The Black Prince, son of Edward III) was Richard III’s great-great uncle.
And you thought my family tree was complicated.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by Nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands;This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England …
Ooh, I’ve gone all tingly!
Our tickets (for Richard III) were for Thursday. On the Wednesday evening we had a posh dinner booked in the posh hotel restaurant. We headed down early for a posh pre-dinner drink in the posh bar. Hubby ordered a gin and tonic; I ordered the hotel’s signature cocktail – rum, cacao liqueur and orange juice. I was expecting a morish concoction in an elegant glass. Instead, I was presented with a clumsy tumbler full of a yellow-brown froth that looked like it had leaked from the Manchester Ship Canal.
Thankfully, dinner itself was delish.
The next evening, we had an early supper in town before the play which, of course, opens with the iconic soliloquy:
Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York;
Richard starts off praising his brother Edward IV, who’s just defeated the House of Lancaster to secure the throne for the Yorks, but then he threatens to become a pain in the wotsit. And he does. By killing all and sundry. I haven’t reproduced any more of the soliloquy here because, to be honest, it doesn’t leave me all tingly like the John of Gaunt oration and, in the production we saw, it took the actor several lines to get into his stride. When he did, he was great but with an opener like this one, you can’t afford a period of grace; you have to hit the ground running, otherwise it’s like the drumbeat at the beginning of Queen’s We Will Rock You being played on a triangle.
Despite this, overall it was a jolly good play. Once I got used to the number of coloured actors in roles such as the Princes in the Tower, Richard III’s mother, and Princess Elizabeth the future mother of Henry VIII, I really enjoyed it. Didn’t feel like cultural appropriation at all. I can’t wait to see Othello played by a white actor, without his face blacked up.
We both particularly liked the ghosts of all Richard’s victims haunting him, before he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. Just before this, he yells, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” but hells bells, that was anti-climactic as well. Wot is wrong with this actor!
To complete the history lesson, the throne is won by King Henry VII (a Lancaster and the first of the Tudors; Richard III was a York and the last of the Plantagenets) whose father, a half-brother of Henry VI, and mother were both descended from Henry V, son of Henry IV and great-grandson of Edward III.
Glad we’ve got that sorted.
Earlier in the day, we went sight-seeing and shopping. Shopping was necessary because the only toothbrush I’d remembered to pack was one with hardly any bristles (don’t ask) and my mascara chose this particular time to go all clumpy. On the way to Boots, we passed several boutiques with some pretty dresses in the window, but I assured Hubby I had enough dresses. Then we passed J Crew. Oh I like their jeans, said I, and swivelled 90 degrees to head into the store, Hubby following dutifully, if resignedly. I was soon armed with a pair of jeans and a dress, and I headed for the changing rooms. I thought you had enough dresses, said Hubby. One can never have too many dresses, snapped I.
The jeans were too big. Dare I ask for a smaller size. I did. And they fastened. Yippee! Triumphant, I exited the changing room – single-sex, because anything else is an affront to basic human decency – to ask Hubby, “Does my bum look big in this?”
He responded grumpily, “A little.”
Another Shakesperean quote sprang to mind, this time from Bottom (ironically) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “… to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”
My ulta DEI devoted friend and I, we really should not be friends but we are, you couldn't get two people with a more diametrically point of view on the DEI issue (Diversity, Equality and Insertion by any means possible) have had the "should colourds play White role" argument over and over. She says a person's colour should not preclude them from playing a role if they are a good enough actor. Sounds like the lead in this Richard III was any thing but. Point taken, but I stand by historical accuracy, also would it be accepted if a white actor played Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Obamas or the leads in 20 years a slave or Roots, (the mischievous in me would love to see a coloured play Trump).
ReplyDeleteBring back the Black and White Minstrels.
I've seen a number of Shakespere plays with mixed casts, was a culture shock initially, however, I still balk when, for eg Shylock's daughters are different colors, what next, a non-binary Ruliet and Julio.
And don't get me started on James Bond or Dr Who, I know, from the sublime to the ridiculous, the current Who casting would have killed it for me if the casting of Jodie Whittaker hadn't have done that first. 57 years of been devoted to a TV series, even though its iffy years, and it had some, and finally wokey casting and plot lines blow it out of the water for me.
A Horse, a horse my Kingdom for a white horse.