King Henry VI by William Shakespeare

I seem to be making a habit of getting immensely excited about Shakespeare’s earlier plays that the rest of the world firmly regards as ”not very good” attempts by a man who was to become the Bard but was not yet at the height of his genius. Well, alright, Titus Andronicus was quite impossible for me to like because it violated the rules of drama even worse than its poor characters, but I have a very special place in my drama geek’s heart for The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Timon of Athens – all of which are usually placed at the beginning of Shakespeare’s career, way before the ”great ones”. Now the same thing has happened with the three parts of King Henry VI.  

Shakespeare wrote two tetralogies, or series of four plays, about five consecutive kings of Britain. Richard II, the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V are called the ”second tetralogy” because they were written later, at a period when Shakespeare was starting to write his ”better” plays according to scholarly opinion. The three parts of Henry VI and Richard III are therefore called the ”first tetralogy” even though they actually take place after the second one. And even though Richard III was an instant hit at the time it was first performed and is still one of the most frequently-staged and well-known plays in Shakespearean canon, the first tetralogy as a whole is considered to be of a less refined quality than the second.

Say what you will, Shakespeareans, but Henry VI was an absolute page-turner for me, all three parts of it. I’m guessing that my attraction for these plays comes mostly from the fact that I find everything related to the politics and machinations behind wars hugely interesting. Essentially, I’m a war nutter – though I don’t really care for the part when people are actually on the field going bang bang at each other (or whatever the sound effect is in the case of swordfighting). So I really shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself liking a series of plays that depicts the Wars of the Roses. Here’s what happens: When the great warrior king Henry V dies, the crown passes to his infant son. Henry VI grows up heavily influenced by numerous noblemen of the court, including the Duke of Gloucester who is Protector of the kingdom. Gloucester, though, is one of the few who are actually loyal to the king, while most of the noblemen are scheming for their own profit entirely. Richard Plantagenet harbours a grudge against the royal house – the House of Lancaster – because in his eyes, the first Lancastrian king was a usurper and the crown should have stayed in the Plantagenet family. Even after King Henry makes him Duke of York, his hatred for the Lancasters persists. He gets into an argument with the Duke of Somerset, and the feud between the two men gradually grows into a fully-fledged war where Somerset’s faction wants to keep the Lancaster king Henry on the throne, and the Duke of York gathers supporters in order to take the throne for himself and, as he sees it, right the original wrong that Henry VI’s grandfather did to Richard II. This is not the only political strife going on – as was predicted at Henry V’s death, Henry VI loses all the French territories that his father conquered as his lords quarrel with each other and he is persuaded to make a politically worthless match with Margaret, daughter of a French nobleman somewhat down on his luck. When Margaret is made Henry’s queen, she takes an immediate disliking to the Duke of Gloucester, who has too much power over the king in her opinion. She gathers some noblemen on her side to finish off Gloucester. The Duke of York dies in battle, but his sons keep up the Yorkist cause – these sons will later become King Edward IV and King Richard III.

King Henry VI, r. 1422-1461

Whew, that was a long plot summary – but hey, that’s three plays, and as you probably noticed, there is a lot of scheming and back-stabbing going on. George R.R. Martin actually named the Wars of the Roses as a source of inspiration for A Song of Ice and Fire, so it’s not surprising at all that while reading Henry VI I was constantly thinking ”This is like Game of Thrones accelerated, SO AWESOME!” while I kept turning the pages like a war nutter gone, um, more nuts. Shakespeare took some liberties with historical accuracy when writing the first part of Henry VI, which deals with the loss of the French territories (with a guest appearance from Joan of Arc, who is here made a lying bitch who gets supernatural help from fiends instead of angels). For instance, Henry VI is old enough to marry in the play, while in reality he was just a baby. However, parts two and three are much more accurate, and go right to the roots of the Wars of the Roses. In an iconic scene, the Dukes of Somerset and York have an argument in the Temple gardens, and Somerset picks a red rose as his emblem while York picks a white one. Henry VI, who really doesn’t have clue about how politics work, insists that all of his noblemen must be equal and that he is very upset to see them disagreeing – but still, takes Somerset’s side in the argument, which then swells into royal proportions because of him.

Edward IV, r. 1461-1470

Henry VI couldn’t really be more different than Henry V, his father. His insignificance to the governing of Britain and the influence of the noblemen over him is made very clear from the very beginning – unlike all the other kings that Shakespeare wrote about, Henry VI doesn’t even appear till Act III of the first play. From there, things just go downhill for him, but it takes him quite a long time to realize just what his position is. Throughout the first two plays, he often stands meekly by while the various noblemen and his queen take turns in having massive rows in his presence, and even when he finally points out in the end that he is the king and therefore entitled to have his voice heard, Margaret has already taken his place as the symbol of the Lancastrian cause.

The fact that Shakespeare wrote so few female characters into his plays is an endless subject of woe for female enthusiasts – but I’d say that when the man did create a female character, they usually turned out damn fierce. Think about Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, Portia, Rosalind, Paulina, Emilia – and Queen Margaret. My main motivation for reading through Henry VI was so I could get properly, well-informedly excited about the superstar-cast second series of The Hollow Crown. Now, just the prospect of seeing Sophie Okonedo play Margaret through this most interesting character arc is enough to reel my mind. She makes her first entrance to the Henry VI series when the English are fighting in France and the Earl of Suffolk, one of the many devious noblemen, decides to make a match between Margaret and Henry (he can’t marry Margaret himself because he already has a wife). His grand plan is to become the power behind the throne through Margaret. However, Margaret appears to possess quite a strong mind of her own. She plays an important part in bringing down Henry’s last loyal advisor, the Duke of Gloucester. She then feeds the flame of the Wars of the Roses by putting up a vehement opposition for the Yorkists, even when Henry starts to give in. When the two factions are lined up on the battle field, Margaret is also there, wearing armour, no matter how unnatural the men in the Yorkist side find it. She is furiously disappointed in her powerless husband and doesn’t keep quiet about it, and she is also a mother protecting a son whose inheritance of the throne is in danger. 

As action-packed and intriguing as the Henry VI series is, it does have its slow moments and a couple of plot-holes. Especially the first part wouldn't suffer at all for having a couple of scenes snapped off entirely, and sometimes it seems that the same characters have more or less the same argument twice, as if these quarrelsome characters didn't engage in enough verbal sparring already. The reason for Somerset and York's disagreement is some vague stuff about some law thing; seeing as this unspecified legal dispute leads to all that rose-picking, several murders and a great big civil war, it would have been very considerate to let the audience properly in on the background. A couple of characters suddenly pop up during the last scenes of the second part and as late as the third part, which in itself is completely fine, but then these late-comers suddenly become vitally important to the machinations of the civil war. Compared against some of the other characters, whose personalities and motivations have been developed from the very beginning, these newbies feel a bit plastered-on. Also, you shouldn't expect Henry VI to be an objective account of the Wars of the Roses; Shakespeare is quite clearly taking the Yorkist side. Seeing as he was writing at the time of Queen Elizabeth, whose dynasty had been founded by Henry VII marrying Elizabeth of York (daughter of Edward IV), it would probably have been unwise to favour the Lancasters. Then again, once the war between the factions was done he didn't have any qualms about writing Richard III as the most evil king ever in his next history play...

Still, even with those flaws present, the Henry VI plays are a lot better than what their status as "early plays" gives to understand. Shakespeare's earlier works are most commonly criticized for having less refined dialogue and more violence, which in some cases is a fair judgement (Titus Andronicus, that means you). I have to say though, I really enjoyed the language in all the Henry VI plays. Even if it's not as elevated in style as, say, Hamlet, there are many places where Shakespeare conveys an idea with heart-clenching precision. Whenever Queen Margaret opens her mouth for a monologue, you can expect an absolutely chilling delivery, and various characters, including Henry in one of his very few longer speeches near the end, say some pretty thoughtful stuff about why exactly the crown is so much coveted, with all the trouble it brings. Lots of characters die – in battle or in the hands of political enemies – but I wouldn't say there's any gore just for the sake of goriness. Each death happens for a reason, even if those reasons are all connected to the devastating premise of a country fighting within itself.

Who's with me in hugely anticipating the second series of The Hollow Crown? I'll be reading and reviewing Richard III very soon, and then I'll have to do a post about the cast that has been revealed so far, because boy are there some wonderful actors included!

Ballet Shoes

How do you usually choose what book to read next? You probably have many different methods, just like me – there is that favourite author (or six) to whom you keep returning, there are friends and family to tip you off, sometimes you just take a look at a book's back cover and find it interesting.

I can only recall one case where a book has had me obsessed just by its title. The title was Ballet Shoes. The second I learned that there was a book out there with that title, I didn't really care what the story was, who had written it, or if anyone liked it. If that book was called Ballet Shoes, I wanted to read it – because ballet shoes are beautiful! See that picture?

Of course, no bookstore here in our little Finland has ever heard of Ballet Shoes, and based on my very scholarly and accurate (yeah right) Google research it has never even been translated into Finnish – if somebody knows otherwise, please correct me. So, I seized my chance at acquiring this book when a nice friend of mine travelled to London where there are plenty of those lovely little shops called Waterstones. By that time, I had learned that there was quite a recent movie adaptation of Ballet Shoes, and that the original book had been written by Noel Streatfeild in 1936. It also turned out to be a children's book, which again somewhat shifted my expectations towards it. In the end, I was to be surprised one more time when I finally got to read this book – it's beautiful, it's sweet, it's engaging, it's emotional, it's so many different kinds of adjectives that I should really get to the point and start the actual review right now.

Ballet Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild, is subtitled a story of three children on the stage. These children are Pauline, Petrova and Posy, three orphans who are adopted by a very eccentric but kind old fossil collector, Great-Uncle-Matthew ("Gum" for short). Gum goes off to another of his long expeditions, leaving the girls in the good care of his grand-niece Sylvia. As the years go by and Gum stays absent longer than expected, the money he left for Sylvia and the girls grows short. However, the girls are given the opportunity to take lessons at the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training, which will eventually allow them to work on the stage and earn much-needed money as soon as they turn twelve years old. Despite being adopted from different parts of the world and knowing nothing about their real parents, Pauline, Petrova and Posy decide to be true sisters to each others and start using the surname "Fossil" (because that was what Gum collected before he started bringing in orphan girls) to reinforce the idea. On each of their birthdays, they make a vow "to try and put [their] names in history books".

The Children's Academy and the entertainment business reveal the girls' talents as well as their shortcomings. Pauline is employed in one stage production after the other thanks to her classic beauty and great talent in acting though she has to learn the hard way that letting the success go into hear head and behaving like a diva will not impress her employers. Petrova, on the other hand, turns out to be completely mediocre in the arts of the stage and would rather learn all about the mechanics of cars and airplanes than practice lines and dance steps, but her diligent and selfless nature gets her through the work she doesn't like because helping to bring money to the house is the most important thing for her. The headmistress of the Academy immediately recognizes Posy's exceptional gift for dancing, and the passion for the art soon takes over Posy so completely that she appears somewhat insensitive to the people around her.

I would have loved Ballet Shoes when I was younger, but it doesn't really matter that I missed it in my childhood, as it's one of those brilliantly written children's books that can be very enjoyable to adults as well. Streatfeild provides a very interesting and clearly expert view of children's employment in the entertainment business in pre-Second World War England; we get to see everything from nerve-wracking auditions to rehearsals and then the backstage bustle during performances, but we are also provided a surprisingly in-depth explanation on how the child actors' payment and welfare were handled. I was intrigued to find out that children's working hours and age limits were so efficiently monitored in theatre business already at this period.

Not only is the setting for Ballet Shoes appealing and very well laid out; the story itself, centering around Pauline, Petrova and Posy, is so beautifully paced and full of ups and downs for each of its protagonists, that it's impossible not to be seriously interested in the girls' lives. In addition to the three main characters facing their own difficulties and disappointments in their studies and their work, there is also the constant worry of poverty over them. The adults in the house have to carefully count each penny that the children earn, and the children have to carry the responsibility of providing for their unconventional, but all-important family.

Pauline is the eldest of the three orphans and therefore is the first to start proper work on the stage, which gives her the most focus and development. Shakespeare enthusiasts will surely enjoy reading about the productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Richard III where she works, and eventually she aspires to work as a film actress too. Her story works excellently as the main focus of Ballet Shoes because she genuinely grows and changes as a character, and both her triumphs and her disappointments on the way really make you empathize with her and wish her success.

The younger sisters are not by any means overshadowed by Pauline, though. Petrova, who struggles to fit in the world with her "boyish" interests, makes quite an outspoken social commentary about traditional gender roles – even though the character herself is quite timid and only reads her airplane manuals when nobody is around. Posy is too young to work when the story takes place and because of that she doesn't get to do as much as the others, but it's very clear from the beginning that her passion for dancing is of a very extraordinary kind. It's not just a favourite pastime, it's a way of thinking for her – for example, she memorizes things by converting them into dance steps!

Posy Fossil, illustrated by Ruth Gervis – Noel Streatfeild's sister!  All of her illustrations for this book are lovely, I really like her style of drawing.

In addition to the three Fossil sisters, I would like to mention Winifred, who is another student at the Academy and Pauline's class mate. She often auditions for the same roles as Pauline and rivals her in talent (actually surpasses her in some respects) but she is not the typical, evil and jealous rival whom the reader is just supposed to hate in favour of Pauline. Instead, Streatfeild gives us not only a completely worthy competitor to Pauline, but one that deserves compassion and heartbreakingly reminds us that casting often overlooks a great talent in favour of better outward appearances.

So, if you are a reader like myself who wants a compelling story and well-developed characters, by all means you shouldn't shun Ballet Shoes just because it's labelled as a children's book. It has very nice material for lovers of theatre and advocates good values and morality without being preachy. I imagine that any parent who wants to introduce their children to good-quality literature would find Ballet Shoes very much up for the task – but, even though I vehemently oppose the ridiculous "acting and dancing are girls' hobbies" prejudice, I do think this is very much a girls' book. You can't really expect anything else when all the main characters are girls.

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I'll just squeeze in two very quick things I want to say, related to the blog but not to the book I reviewed. Firstly, you might have noticed that these posts are now being written by Manette instead of Mizzie-Me, but it's still the same old me – just showing some special respect to A Tale of Two Cities from now on! Secondly, my blog stats showed today that I have over 10000 page views! I would really love to know where all those views came from, how people actually find their way here – it's a great mystery to me! Except of course that handful of regular visitors who leave wonderful comments and whose blogs I follow in return. But anyway, thank you everyone who is responsible in any way for those 10004 page views – whether you are invisible or not!

Shakespearean Lovers Quiz Answers

Time to reveal how the matchmaking goes for these romantic heroes and heroines! Hannah was the only one brave enough to submit her answers, and scored 18 points out of 30 – which is a great score as I deliberately included some of Shakespeare's least-known couples.

Also, what a perfect post this is to remind everyone who might have missed it that William Shakespeare's 450th birthday celebrations took place this week, on the 23rd of April. What a legacy that is, to be so avidly commemorated worldwide after so many centuries. The Bard is certainly going nowhere from our theatre stages.

1. Lysander and Hermia, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Puck's shenanigans with love potion get poor Lysander a little sidetracked from his love for Hermia, but in the end they do manage to get out of the fairy-infested woods and even Hermia's father can't stop them from getting married when they get the sympathies of the Duke of Athens on their side.

2. Orlando and Rosalind, As You Like It
Rosalind gets smitten with Orlando when he wins a wrestling match. Once again the lovers must run around in the woods, but this time, the lady has cross-dressed as a man in order to travel more safely. Orlando becomes the forerunner of blogging when he writes love poems to Rosalind and brings them to the public eye by pinning them on trees.

3. Posthumus and Imogen, Cymbeline
These unfortunate souls get separated quite early on in the play, when Posthumus gets banished from King Cymbeline's court and goes to Rome. While there, his "buddy" Iachimo devises a seriously evil plan to make Posthumus believe that Imogen is being unfaithful to him, when all she's been doing is cross-dressing and accidentally finding her long-lost brothers in the wilderness.

4. Benedick and Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing
Everyone in the play knows that Beatrice and Benedick's eternal war of words is just a sign of their obvious romantic chemistry – except for the couple themselves.

5. Lysimachus and Marina, Pericles, Prince of Tyre
By a series of unfortunate events all across the seas, Marina ends up working in a brothel. Luckily, she manages to win the love of Lysimachus, who takes her away before she has to actually serve any customers.

6. Bassanio and Portia, The Merchant of Venice
Bassanio is not quite the typical romantic hero, as his attraction to Portia is initially motivated purely by the fact that she's a rich heiress, and he's broke. Because there just can't be enough of Shakespearean heroines cross-dressing, Portia has to do it too. But she takes the act a step further – she pretends to be a lawyer and just sorts out everyone's problems like a boss.

7. Ferdinand and Miranda, The Tempest
Miranda's dad Prospero is changeable, to say the least. First he makes Ferdinand do all the hard work around the house that he can think of, then he decides that he actually likes him a lot and throws an engagement party to the young couple, complete with magical spirits.

8. Valentine and Silvia, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Life certainly isn't sunshine and roses for this young couple. Valentine's supposed best friend Proteus decides he wants Silvia for himself, and maneuvers Valentine's banishment from the Duke's (Silvia's father's) court in order to achieve this.

9. Florizel and Perdita, The Winter's Tale
Florizel is the Prince of Bohemia, but neither he nor his shepherdess girlfriend Perdita know that the latter is actually the daughter of the king of Sicilia, who had a really bad falling-out with Florizel's dad a long time ago.

10. Orsino and Viola, Twelfth Night
Viola really likes Orsino, but it's somewhat difficult for her to make this known for him, not only because Orsino is at first fixated with another woman, Olivia, but because Viola is... you guessed it, cross-dressing!

Shakespearean Lovers Quiz!

Do you know who loves whom in Will Shakespeare's great plays? See if you can play matchmaker to these ladies and gentlemen and place them in the right play too! Some famous characters have been excluded from the quiz because I think I would be insulting my readers' intellect if I asked them to guess which characters belong to Antony and Cleopatra. Or Romeo and Juliet.

The right answers will be up on April 13th, and even if you're not sure you get all the answers correctly, don't be shy to take part!

Here's a picture of Antony and Cleopatra anyway, just to set up the mood. These actors are none other than Alan Rickman and Helen Mirren, which makes me wish desperately for a time machine.

Gentlemen

Orlando
Ferdinand
Florizel
Lysander
Bassanio
Posthumus
Benedick
Valentine
Lysimachus
Orsino

Ladies

Beatrice
Miranda
Marina
Imogen
Hermia
Viola
Rosalind
Silvia
Portia
Perdita

Plays

The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
Cymbeline
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Twelfth Night
The Winter's Tale
Much Ado About Nothing
The Tempest

London Culture Explosion!

Last week was was possibly the most wonderful week of my life, and the reason for that was spending four days in my favourite city: London! Em and I had started planning this visit months ago, booking tickets for Ryanair and Les Misérables at Queen's Theatre. I can't possibly describe how over the moon we were at the prospect of not only seeing our favourite musical on stage for the first time, but also of seeing our first West End show. The excitement threatened to turn into stress and anxiety as I waited, waited and never received the confirmation email that I was supposed to get and print out to show at the Queen's Theatre box office. However, as you'll read in my travel diary that follows, everything turned out spectacularly fine.

Monday

The Tampere-Pirkkala airport is one of the dingiest, most depressing buildings in the Universe, but being stuck there for a couple of hours was completely worth it considering where we were going. To make our destination even more exciting, Em got a phone call from our hotel before we boarded the plane. We were told that the room we had booked had become somehow unavailable, but in recompense they had arranged us a room in another hotel just around the corner, and we would get the hotel breakfast free of charge.

It didn't take us long to turn into "lost little tourists asking questions" once we arrived at Stansted Airport.  We had a very amusing conversation with the ticket booth man who patiently explained to us that the Stansted Express would take us to Liverpool Street and yes, that was indeed in London.

By the time we were transported to our newly-arranged hotel room, Em and I were already completely in awe about how nice and polite all the people in this country seemed to be. From now on, I will call Finland Grumpyville in my mind. We were a little travel-worn from the plane and the train, but nevertheless we couldn't bear to stay shut up in that beautiful hotel room, when the city was calling us out! Not that we got too wild on our first night. It consisted mainly of wandering around Piccadilly Circus, admiring how pretty the city looked in the dark, and ogling at theatres and their advertisements. We went to admire Queen's Theatre in advance and also Her Majesty's Theatre, which of course is the home of The Phantom of the Opera. 

Something surprising happened too, something which I'm immensely glad about in retrospect. After seeing dozens of those "half price theatre tickets" booths along the streets, Em had the unstoppable urge to make her way into one of them and ask if they had tickets for The Phantom of the Opera this week. The answer was: "Would you like to go tomorrow?" Can you guess what we responded to that?

Tuesday

The first thing I did on Tuesday morning was find out what the situation was with our Les Mis tickets because we were genuinely scared that we wouldn't be let into the theatre at all on Thursday. In the end I only had to make two more phone calls and as both of the personnel I spoke with were extremely helpful and efficient, I had the much-needed ticket confirmation number in no time. We may have had a little hype attack with Em after the ticket business was officially settled.

Now we were completely free to enjoy a shopping spree to London's most celebrated shopping area, Oxford Street. Em found herself a very nice dress to wear to the theatre, but as neither of us are big fans of shopping in the traditional sense, our morning of shopping turned out to be a little tour around the different Waterstones bookshops. I have to admit that going to Waterstones was, right after seeing Les Mis, the thing I had been looking forward to most! We first went to Oxford Street Waterstones, where I made a rather surprising find: there, in the small selection of DVDs, Liza Minnelli was staring right at me from the cover of Cabaret! I couldn't possibly leave her there. Next up was the Waterstones at Piccadilly Circus aka "Book Heaven". It has five floors!! And in one of those five floors there was an entire shelf dedicated to Shakespeare, and I found this:

I haven't had the chance to properly read this book yet, but according to the back cover and the table of contents, it contains articles about challenges in staging Shakespeare plays, such as costumes, props and stage fighting. Just you wait, Royal Shakespeare Company, I'll be joining your ranks in a couple of years...

Between the Waterstones visits, we managed to find a gigantic CD/DVD store (everything in London seems to be at least six times bigger than in Grumpyville) where we went absolutely hyper when a salesperson told us they had a whole shelf for musicals. So there we went, and met the glorious sight of stacks of movie musical DVDs which we would never, ever find in our dear country. Anttila Megastore should be ashamed. I managed to control myself enough to settle to buying just four new movies.

Shopping haul from the morning's excursion:

• Book: Shakespeare & The Making Of Theatre, edited by Stuart Hampton-Reeves and Bridget Escolme
• Movie: Cabaret
• Movie: The King and I
• Movie: Hairspray
• Movie: RENT

Once Em and I were satisfied with our shopping, we returned to the hotel to get ready for the evening's ex tempore programme: The Phantom of the Opera! We were slowly starting to realize that we were in fact going to see the show that we had been drooling about for such a long time. We absolutely didn't want to be late at Her Majesty's Theatre, so we gave ourselves plenty of time to get pretty and find our way there, because with two people with almost no sense of orientation on the move, we had to give ourselves time to get lost on the way to the theatre. We didn't get lost, but somehow the hotel's elevator managed to get stuck while we were in it! Was the Phantom stalking us even before we entered his theatre? However, we got out safely and arrived at Her Majesty's Theatre an hour before the show started, which meant there was loads of time to take pictures of the posters outside and do some Phantom gift shopping. I have a thing for bracelets with things dangling from them, so I had to buy the Phantom-themed bracelet they had there (and then find a way to shorten it because apparently they manufacture those things to people with huge wrists). I also bought the programme leaflet with lots of gorgeous pictures in it.

Unfortunately I won't say anything about the performance itself here... because I'll be making separate blog posts for each of the plays we saw in London! That is the only way to do them justice, don't you think? All I will say now is, I will never stop thanking Em for bursting into that half-price ticket booth.

Wednesday

The sun was shining brightly from a dazzlingly blue sky – what a perfect day to go walking along the Thames! Our plan today was to cross south of the river via London Bridge, see if we'd be lucky enough to get return tickets for the matinee performance of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe, and then cross the river again to visit St Paul's Cathedral.

We took the underground to the Monument and finally found out what that immensely tall construction was. There was a wonderful surprise in the train as well: three guys scrambled in with their instruments and played Irish jigs!

The entrance to London Bridge is practically next to the Monument, but somehow we managed to make some strange detour before we eventually found ourselves on the Bridge. Walking across the Thames was awesome, especially as we had an excellent view of the famous Tower Bridge as well. Actually, my whole infatuation with London began when I saw a picture of Tower Bridge in a book – why it was a picture of a bridge that had such an impact, don't ask.

Once we were on the south side of the bridge, we began the search for a site that I particularly wanted to see as a musical fan: Nancy's Steps, where Nancy dies in the musical Oliver!. It turned out to be very well hidden for a famous site! We had to ask directions from two people before we found the Steps, where the plaque bearing their name and history had somehow been taken away!

Picture taken by Em

While making our way towards Shakespeare's Globe, we stumbled upon Southwark Cathedral. As we had still hours to pass before the Macbeth return tickets would be sold and Em is a huge cathedral junkie, we popped in for a visit. Southwark Cathedral, it turned out, is the oldest cathedral in London, and has a memorial for William Shakespeare – his grave, of course, is situated in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Thames looked absolutely beautiful in the sunshine, and the temperature must have been even higher than the 24℃ that the weather forecast promised. So it was really quite comfortable camping outside Shakespeare's Globe in the return ticket queue. I was once again amazed at how popular this theatre is – I already witnessed it during my previous visit to London, but now I got to see how many desperate people there were besides us as the return ticket queue got longer and longer!

It had been our plan from the start to see Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe, but the tickets were sold out at lightning speed, which left us the option to trust our luck with possible return tickets. I don't know if those people at the end of that huge queue got tickets, but Em and I did! They were much pricier than the standing tickets of ₤5 that we would have wanted, but it didn't matter at all in the end, because we got the best possible seats: in the lower gallery, almost exactly in the center, with a completely unblocked view to the stage! There aren't many seats like that in the Globe. Because it is built exactly like it would have been in Shakespeare's days, from most seats the view is obstructed by pillars. However, this is the spectacular view from our seats (I took the picture before the play started, because taking pictures during performances is of course forbidden)

The sun kept shining, which was nice because the Globe is an open-air theatre so if it rains, the people with yard tickets get wet. However, I did feel sorry for the poor actors (among them Billy Boyd as Banquo!) who had to perform in the sweltering heat with those heavy Renaissance costumes on. Once again there will be a separate post for Macbeth where I will tell you more about it.

I bought this poster from the Globe giftshop:

Our plan to visit St Paul's didn't work out because it closed at 4 p.m. so that would have to wait till the next day.

Thursday

We left our hotel room later than usual today, because we were going to give up the room so we had to pack and make sure we didn't leave anything lying around. However, we still had one whole day to spend in London. We were going to visit St Paul's Cathedral again (properly) and take a look at the British Museum before the long-awaited Les Misérables in the evening. While we were able to leave our big suitcases at the hotel for the day, we had to take our theatre dresses and everything else we needed for the theatre night (shoes, jewellery, hairspray...) with us on the road.

We went to St Paul's with much better success today. We got inside and saw the famous cathedral in all its magnificence. Every time I see such a massive church, I can't help but marvel how those buildings were put together with none of the technology we have nowadays, and how many decades and how much supplies of all kinds the process must have taken. St Paul's, however, does use modern technology: all of a sudden, there was a voice coming through a loudspeaker, inviting everyone to join in the Lord's Prayer! If I was a practicing Christian, I wouldn't necessarily choose St Paul's Cathedral for my prayers – so many tourists in there, must be impossible to get into a peaceful state of mind. St Paul's has attractions both high and low. We visited both the Whispering Gallery high up in the dome – a climb of 232 steps – and the crypt down below, where the air was so bad I got a terrible headache.

Police horses!

Unfortunately Em and I weren't as lucky with the British Museum as we had been with all other things so far. Everyone goes to the British Museum to see the Egyptian mummies, but we weren't really interested in those. We wanted to explore the rooms of European history, especially the Renaissance and Victorian eras, but those very rooms happened to be closed that day. Well, at least we found fabulous glitter masks from the gift shop, so we can now pay homage to the Masquerade number in The Phantom of the Opera.

After a tasty Italian dinner, we had to find a place to change into our theatre clothes. We ended up invading a Pizza Hut ladies' room, where we might have got a couple of funny looks from people as we liberally sprayed perfume and hairspray all around. We had a nice extra addition to our outfits tonight: Em had sewn us tricolor sashes in honour of Les Amis de l'ABC.  The nice guy at the Queen's Theatre box office didn't even have to ask me which tickets we were collecting. He, the theatre giftshop salesman, and even the man at the cloakroom were very genuine in wishing us a good time at the show, something which a citizen of Grumpyville finds very uplifting. It had been my plan for days to buy this t-shirt from the Les Mis shop:

Once again, my thoughts on our very first, long-awaited experience of stage Les Mis will be posted separately.

Friday

There wasn't really anything Culture Explosional about this last day – all we did was transport ourselves with all sorts of vehicles in a dead-tired state.

I think we baffled the hotel personnel just a bit when we returned there to collect our luggage and then asked to use the toilet, going in wearing theatre dresses and getting out wearing jeans and Cosette shirts. Then it was time to say goodbye to that beautiful, comfortable hotel and journey into the night.

We took the underground to Piccadilly Circus once more, only to find out soon after that that all tube stations would close for a couple of hours, meaning we would have to find another way to get to Liverpool Station. Once more we got advice from a helpful stranger and found a bus to take us there. Another closed gate: the station was also closing for the rest of the night! For the past three days, we had been living like London posh people, going to the theatre every night – tonight, we tried out the life of London hobos, camping outside the station gates and devouring McDonald's nourishment. The man who finally opened the gates at 3.40 in the morning was such a welcome sight.

The Stansted Express took us smoothly to Stansted Airport, where we miraculously ended up at the right gate despite our sleep-deprived states and were extremely depressed to hear Finnish being spoken around us once again.