Yeah – I know – been gone for months.

It’s not that I wasn’t busy – not busy isn’t in my vocabulary, it’s more that reporting on trips to places like Maine (I love the sea – but is a family holiday worth a blog post) or Toronto (to play bridge – at the National ABCL conference – can you say boring) worth blogging. I say no.

So – what am I doing that is worth Blogging? Ah – that’s a very good question.

I just spent 4 wonderful days doing Theatre in London – which besides being unbelievably expensive – is also a top ranked city for theatre.

We caught two current offerings – Woman in Black (Ghost story that’s been running for 28 years or so) and a brand new play – The Play that Goes Wrong. We also opted for pre-fix meals before the theatre – one of which was a huge bargain, the other of which was terribly over priced. So even the best of planners can go astray.

First review – The Woman in Black with dinner at the Homage Grand Salon – in the Waldorf Hilton. First question – What happened to “Waldorf Astoria” – did Astoria lose out to a bidding war with Hilton. I suspect yes, but the signs were very consistent. But I digress, as I so often do. On to the review. The meal started off nicely – my daughter opted to join us – and the very kind Matre D’ allowed that he could seat 3 as easily as 2. Given that the place was sold out (he turned away folks while we were waiting to be seated), I was pleased. But I was much less pleased with the meal. I don’t mind small portions, in fact I prefer them. But these portions had been downsized to non-existence. And it wasn’t that much of a price bargain either. 23 pounds per person, plus extra for dessert, extra for drinks, extra for coffee – extra for tip – and some of the meals on the menu had surcharges that ran 50% of the price of the meal. Very very pricy dinner for a lovely restaurant, kinda icky service – we had to go find people to get water, butter, a knife – and to order dessert. Which by the way was the highlight of the meal. A decided high note in a meal that didn’t rate 2 stars – let alone 5.

But on to the Show.

The theatre is one of the smaller theatres in the West End – and it was packed with young women – looking for a good scare. And they obliged the actors by screaming pretty consistently at almost everything. Which is a good thing – Ghost Stories are much more fun if people scream.

The story of the play is pretty scary – although it takes some time to get to the scary parts. And the acting, as would be expected in London, was top notch. I won’t give anything away by saying that it did succeed in scaring me. I’d rate the play 4 stars, dinner 2.

The next night we picked much, much, much better!

Dinner was at a very casual place called Boulevard Brasserie – a ‘French’ restaurant within 150 feet of our theatre. The meal actually started off better – the waiter was much less pretentious, and while our table was smaller – the restaurant itself was cute and fun. Decidedly brasserie. Again we had pre-ordered the theatre meal – and were extremely impressed with both the quality of the cooking and the size of the portions. At least here they don’t think smaller is better! Bread was extra – and I needed to order the bread. My smoked salmon appetizer simply begged for it. And good bread it was too – served with both butter and an olive paste. Yum. My dinner was a lovely cooked trout, at least twice the size as the fish I’d starved on the night before – perfectly cooked and delicious.

Dessert was the only course where the Homage Grand Salon trumped the lowly Brasserie. Their potted chocolate was far superior to my too large and too dense Valrohna Chocolate Tart. But hey – at 1/2 price – the Brasserie was by far and away the better bet.

Again on to the Show..

We’d picked “The Play that Goes Wrong” because Victor felt strongly that we wanted something light and funny – enough seriousness in our lives. So the reviews made this one sound perfect.

Curiously – we had to subject ourselves to a bag and personal pat-down before we could enter the theatre. This hadn’t happened the night before, but we were assured that it wasn’t that unusual for London. Our seats – purchased at a substantial discount thru Time Out, were on the front row. But in these tiny theatres, it’s rather hard to get a bad seat. And we were center front at least.

The play started with a bang – the mantle of the fireplace falls off, and the stage hands madly attempt to fix it with duct tape while trying to tell the audience to ignore them.

And the play goes up, or perhaps down, from there. It is absolutely historically funny. So funny that I actually had issues stopping laughing – not helped at all by one of the actors breaking character to chastise me from the stage – “This isn’t funny – stop laughing!” You try to stop after that – I dare you!

The idea is that a group of rather amateur actors are finally getting to put on a play in a ‘real’ theatre – and the play in question is a murder mystery. There’s all the requisite components – house with hidden doors (including one in a grandfather clock), folks with too many secrets (including romances between several of the characters), and a section of the stage that serves as a study raised above the rest of the stage and reached by an elevator on stage. But of course – things go wrong, the mantle falling off is just the first of many gags that combine physical comedy with exquisite timing. When the study threatens to fall off the walls into the audience – with two actors continuing to speak their lines while game-fully trying not to slide off – well – the audience is torn between laughter and concern for their safety. I still don’t know exactly how they managed not to slide down – the angle of tilt was at least 35 degrees! It was steep!

Through all the mishaps – only one actor manages to stay serious – and I truly have no idea how he manages that feat. There are actors who overact their parts – there are stage hands that try desperately to fix things (doors that won’t open, props that go missing, and sound effects that either happen late, don’t happen at all, or happen incorrectly. A door slam to the face takes out one of the lead characters, and a stage hand with a script is quickly drafted to take her place. When the lead actress recovers and tries to get back her role a bit later – a fight ensues between the stage hand who is enjoying the applause and the over-acting lead actress not pleased at being replaced.

If you have ever been involved in amateur theatrics – or if you just want to laugh until your sides hurt – this play is completely irresistible.

5 stars for dinner, 5 stars for the Theatre – a prefect evening is a lovely town.

On Tuesday our trip changes pace – we’re heading to South Africa! So stay tuned.

Signing off to play with her newest grand-daughter – the Soup Lady.