Anne Hathaway did what; or, where in the world is Dorridge?

 Hi, dear Reader,

Well, I clearly did something wrong with the opening post bc readership was only half what it was on day 1 on day 2. 🤔

And I told John he could stop reading at the beginning of the play stuff! (FYI, there’ll be more play stuff today and I’ll again put it at the end). 

Today we went to Stratford-upon-Avon (if you’re wondering, yes, there are other Stratfords here, one of which is at the end of the Jubilee Line, so an outer ‘burb of London). 

Before going on, the funny of the day: we’re walking back to the train station in SuA and there was a sign pointing to “Anne Hathaway’s cottage” … and the one next to me said, “I didn’t know the actress had a place near here.”  ROFL.  Well, uh, she doesn’t (that we know of)…

The day begins with an oh, f***! Story.  Years ago we left a student on this day at the train station bc at the magic moment we bolted for the train platform, she was off looking at Paddington Bears and missed it. 

Today we got there, with 17 minutes till the train left.  I told them they could go grab something while I hit the kiosk for the tickets.  I slid to the kiosk next to the ticket kiosks that did coffee, looking over my shoulder at the spot I said we’d meet at.  No one.  I got my coffee, then proceeded to spill it all over myself and the station tiles.  Nope, they weren’t there to see it. 

With 5 minutes till leaving, still not there, still not in sight.  With 3 minutes to go here they all came, Starbucks in hand.  No problem.

The train was mildly crowded so I grabbed a seat at a 4-person table occupied by a woman on each side.  I didn’t know they were together.  Two of the students were across the aisle, so a brief conversation ensued as we pulled out. 

Not long into the journey the woman across from me (let’s call her Heidi) said, “so you’re going to Stratford, too”. A lengthy conversation ensued.  I felt like “someone” as we shared back-and-forth on our way to Dorridge.

I don’t know.  They didn’t know.  Dorridge is practically all the way to Birmingham (more on that briefly later), which seems too far in the wrong direction.  There was a train that ran direct from there.  I have changed in Oxford, Leamington Spa and Warwick, but never here.  As Heidi and Eva (let’s call her that) said, you’d think there’d be enough tourists for direct routes.  But who knows. 

Heidi and Eva work at an English school in Switzerland; Heidi has Swiss nationality but is an American, who went to Denison and has “half a masters in England” from San Diego St (which is where she’s originally from). Eva is South African and less talkative. 

Heidi revealed that she, like the minions across the aisle, had done a May term as a student at Denison.  In 2000.  The first year Michael Collins and I went.  She remembered a bunch of the plays she saw: Blue/Orange with Bill Nighy, The Tempest at the Globe with Vanessa Redgrave and (they spent one of the weeks in Stratford) both Henry 4’s and Richard II.  We also so those, except the last which Michael saw on a Saturday while I was in a bigger theater seeing something else (I think it was Restoration comedy). We ended up having a good chat, they had read multiple Nick Hornby books and Evelyn Waugh books (favorites of mine, too) and we exchanged numbers as they asked me to join them for high tea and/or the play at the National Saturday evening. 

Okay.  We (the 6 students and I) got to the middle of Stratford, which is full of eateries, and I told them if they wanted to eat they had an hour plus (70 minutes?) and the playhouse was at the bottom of the hill, which you could see, make a right before the river and you can’t miss the huge effin’ building.  And the theater cafe is quite good (which might have been a stretch).  Again I had to collect tickets.

I collected, ate in the cafe, and walked outside where I could see the corner at the bottom of the hill they had to come through…at least I thought they did (I began to doubt this).  Fifteen minutes before the play began, I begin to wonder and text them.  NA.  They ring the bell to say to get to your seats, still not there.  Finally, with less than 5 minutes to go, I see them at the corner!  We were literally the last ones in our seats. 

It was 3 hours and 15 minutes long.  Two intermissions, though they were sure to remind us the second was only 5 minutes.  One student admitted to sleeping through half of it.  I asked, theoretically, what an assignment that asked for a plot description would look like and I was told I wouldn’t want to read them.  One said “I think I got the plot, but I got no one’s name, so it’d be like ‘this guy went up to the girl” …

😂😂😂

I found out that the culprit was Thai food, which they decided on after I left.  It was two blocks BACK toward the train station, but they said they asked about being done in time and were assured, oh yes.  They said they gulped their food (I never heard anyone comment on how good it was) and were rushed.  Which added to their lethargy during the play. 

On the trip home, we went through Birmingham, the real deal. It is the wrong way, in case your English geography is broken.  I almost lost one on a crosswalk.  My fault, I was in a hurry (our train was 10 minutes late) and crossed without the light…number six got the bus to honk at her. 😱. I leave out the guy who told us twice about making sure we were on the right platform in Stratford because they “do it differently on Mondays and Wednesdays.”  G2K. 

When we got back to London, I made a rookie mistake.  We came into Euston RR station and I took us down to the Tube station and was about to punch in when…I realized none of the lines I wanted were listed. Backed out and backed them all out and looked at a map — I knew what I had done. 

There are two Euston’s, across the street from each other.  Euston Square and Euston Station.  We found the other and away we went.  

I had Wagamama’s, which some of you will recognize as a Steve favorite.  In case you don’t know, I was put on to it by my friend Rey, who recommended the chicken katsu curry, which I almost always order.  It is good.  Not as hot as most Indian curries.  Here’s the pic for you with the food porn addiction.

AND NOW FOR THE PLAY

It was Cymbeline, which RR reminded me when I booked it we had seen before.  In DC about 15 years ago.  I remembered neither seeing it nor the play.

The play might not be awful.  But it is long and with multiple disguise routines and fake deaths, I think convoluted is accurate.  It opens with a woman (I am not sure we know who she is) giving lengthy exposition with the characters on stage: you are supposed to remember the genealogical details of them all.   It is titled “The Tragedy of Cymbeline,” yet only a couple shits die, and the main characters do all kinds of happy-ending stuff.  (I want someone to tell me how many times Shakespeare used the girl as a man thing).  

The actors were fine; as you expect from the RSC they delivered their lines fairly well, though twice I thought they forgot them or stumbled.  NBD. 

But it was disappointly bare, which may be the thing with the “new” stage (it was there in ‘18, but I think closed for renovation in ‘15, so I’ve only seen one other play there) — one reason for going to the big theater there is the spectacle of money spent on shit you can’t imagine.

OTOH, see picture above.  Yes, they lowered a gold person down from the ceiling for the deus ex machine scene, which we didn’t really understand anyway.  And I’m sure the spirits of Michael and Michael would have come away talking about “do you know what bespoke Roman armor costs?” Which they used for one short fight scene.  

There was a straw gate.  BFD.  And that was about it for set stuff to look at.  So, for the purposes of attending there, it was a bit of a bust. 

Final funny: one of them actually asked why the play was called Cymbeline. 🤦🏻 He’s the king and has several significant speeches — the whole plot revolves around his daughter and stepson? And his two sons who were taken away as infants.  A rather big miss. 

Tomorrow we have to be up “early” — we have tickets at Windsor at 10, so we have to be on the 833 out of Waterloo (key ABBA song)…they aren’t happy.  I’m cutting into their party time.  We get back “early” tomorrow, but they are all going to Paris Saturday morning, some on the 640 train.  Not a big party night it looks like.