Love never dies

So if you've read the comment on my last post you will see a very unfavorable review of the show. Although I enjoyed it it because I like live musicals, I have to agree in part. It has not the class of phantom and spoils the characters.
There are some really nice songs but because it is set in a carnival vaudeville setting the chorus numbers are in vaudeville style which I'm not a fan of. Phantom was so beautiful and majestic with it's opera house setting and big operatic chorus numbers. An over earnest young boy plays the son of Christine and while he sang in tune it was all a bit forced like most childhood singing is. The only time I've seen really natural extraordinary children in live musicals is in billy Elliot in Sydney. The other performers were exceptional. The cast didn't need to be propped up by talentless celebrities - this is London- the people on stage really do know how to do musical theatre and I did get goosebumps several times.
The storyline is simplistic and not where you wanted to see the characters end up and is a big disappointment if you loved the story and characters of phantom.
There are some great moments with the use of animated puppets and projected images are used a lot to create the scenery. It's interesting to see how new technology has been used to effect in live theatre.
So I wouldn't say a complete disaster but I can't see this show going down in history as one of the great musicals. I'll be very surprised if it comes to Australia. I do wish I could have had more time in London and gone to see les mis. Even though I've seen it twice it would be so good to see it in London.

London 4

I got going a little earlier to get to liecester square where the discount theatre ticket booths are. I couldn't go to London without seeing a west end musical, seeing as seeing live musicals is one of my favorite things. So I got a discounted ticket to love never dies which is the sequel to phantom of the opera. I'll do a bit of a mini review in another post.
After I got my ticket sorted i headed to St pauls cathedral. I walked most of the way past the royal courts of justice, BBC bush house and a few other nice old buildings. I paid to go inside St pauls. It's worth going in. It's really beautiful inside and you can go up to the top of the dome for a great city aerial view. I spent a couple of hours in there altogether looking around and climbing millions of steps.

London 3

Day 3 I just started off wandering around and got to the national portrait gallery which was awesome. It contains portraits painted in the 1500s which were really interesting to see. The British portrait awards were also on display. Then I walked around some more and then got on a bus to see where I'd end up and got off when I saw a camper store and got a pair of shoes which would cost twice the price in Australia. Then it was time for a nap before heading to the proms again. I couldn't resist! It was the London philharmonic playing a program of Russian composers. Loved it. Especially the Prokofiev symphony no3. And no I didn't stand up. I paid the extra money for a seat in a fancy box. Still cheap tho. Not every day you get see the London phil.

London 2

Day 2 in London I did the obligatory sightseeing of the places of royalty and parliament. I saw the horse guards then the police with guns guarding the start of Downing St. Then i walked down to the houses of parliament where big Ben is. It is quite beautiful with all that gold trim. Then saw Westminster abbey and then walked around to Buckingham palace and saw lots of squirrels in the park along the way. Then it was time for a nap before heading to royal albert hall for a Bach organ recital for the BBC proms. The proms are cool. They were started so that concerts could be accessible to the common person. So for £5 you can go in and stand in the stalls like the Shakespeare globe. But this is under cover. I was going to do that but a scalper sold me a £10 seated ticket for £5. I was a little nervous the ticket might be a fake but it was worth the risk. It was a good ticket so I got to sit down.

London

This was my last stop before heading home. In my first 24 hours I mastered the tube and caught buses as well. London public transport is so cool. It was raining so I thought I'd take cover in the Tate modern. I got on a bus but missed the stop so decided to go and see the tower bridge and discovered there is a big castle right near it. I've never seen pictures of this tower of London. But I've seen millions of pictures of tower bridge so I always assumed that the tower was one of the towers on the bridge. But it's not. Then I got on the bus back towards Tate and decided to stop in at burrough markets because I'd been told there is good coffee there. It must be good because the cue was so long I couldn't be bothered waiting. Then I went to Tate modern to see some Andy Warhol and picasso and other whackies. I really liked the series of photos of the new York subway by Bruce davidson. Then I thought I may as well call in on shakespeares globe theatre seeing as it's right next door. I ended up going in for a tour which was worth it because rehearsals were happening for the merry wives of Windsor and we were allowed in to watch. It was a nice little taste of the theater experience without having to sit or stand through a whole production. Yes they have kept it authentic with open air standing room in front of the stage with seating in the round. Performances still go ahead if it rains and umbrellas are not allowed.
Then later on I met a friend from SMADD days long ago and had dinner before he started playing his piano bar gig.

Stonehenge

Bath

I'm in bath now. I really like it here. I could stay longer. I've been on a free guided walking tour which was good for pointing out interesting architectural things such as the dunny hole in the back garden wall (not what they called it) and how the fronts of buildings all had to fit the style but the back could be whatever they wanted. So the backs of the apartment blocks are really varied and messy looking while the fronts are all uniform. I've walked around in the rain too. I went to the roman baths of course. They're definitely worth seeing. The whole town is worth seeing. It's like nowhere I've been before and seems like you are not in England. Not having been to many places i can't say what it's like but it doesn't seem englandy.
And I went on a bus trip to stone henge so I've been the ultimate tourist. They are a nice bunch of stones. I was relieved to see that they are bigger than the ones on Spinal Tap. I also saw Salisbury Hill. This is significant if you like Peter Gabriel.

Bath

The view from my window.

Oxford

I got to have another train trip and went to oxford. I was feeling a bit lazy and didn't really find out much about what I was seeing. I just walked around and took photos. It's a nice looking town with all the old colleges and churches everywhere. I went up a tower hoping to get some good aerial views but they weren't so good. It just wasn't that good a location to see any of the significant buildings close enough or high enough.

Oxford

Sheffield

I spent a couple of days just hanging around Sheffield relaxing and enjoying the company. The local main street has some nice little shops. The butcher has DVDs in his front window along with meat and also some old medals. I also enjoyed looking in the gallery of a Sheffield artist Pete McKee .
On Wednesday n and her friend took me to clumber park for a picnic. We didn't really have picnic because it had been raining but we ate our sandwiches and went for a walk. We accidentally walked for 2 1/2 hours. By the time we realized how far our walk was we were already half way and couldn't cut through to shorten it because there was a lake in the way. It was a really nice walk though. Clumber park is part of Sherwood forest and is where the dukes of newcastle used to hang out. It's nice going on forest walks in other parts of the world because there are so many types of greenery that we just don't have in Australia. I saw squirrels for the first time too. And mole holes. And real holly. We ate raspberries and blackberries off the bush along the way too.
On Thursday N and I caught the train up to York for the day. York is an old walled city with lots of interesting little buildings. Lots of them are very crooked. I climbed up the tower of the minster cathedral which is about 275 winding steps.

Fish therapy

The fishes nibble the dead skin off your feet. It felt funny and nice.

My highlights of Ireland

- the scenery and the live music and the pub and street in Doolin
- beating the fog at Slieve League to see the most amazing view ever
- climbing on Ballycarbury Castle on the Ring of Kerry
- visiting Belfast
- having a Guinness in Temple Bar area in Dublin
- lots of the scenery

Sheffield

I've left Ireland and am now in Sheffield in the north of England staying with my friends R and N.  And Felix.   It's so good to see them.

Ballymeena

We left our b&b in enniskillen and headed to to ballymeena just north of Belfast where kg's friend's parent's house is. We got there for lunch with them. Kg and her friend k went off sightseeing while I stayed back at the house for a rest and a went for a late afternoon walk and talked to the cows It was a nice relaxed day.
The next day after a full ulster grill for brekky at midday we made our way into Belfast. We got on a city sight seeing bus which we had all to ourselves. It was a good tour for about an hour and a half. It took us through the area of town when huge fences had been erected to separate the Catholics and Protestants and there were heaps of murals to do with the tensions and different peoples alliances. Really interesting.
One thing really noticeable about northern Ireland is the number of union jacks flying everywhere. There weren't very many Irish flags flying in the republic. Bit you very quickly know you have crossed the border onto northern ireland because of the union jacks. And because the speed limits all seemed really slow. We didn't realize for a while that they were in miles per hour and everyone had good reason to be overtaking us. There is quite a different look with the buildings too. In the republic there seemed to be a lot of painting of homes and shops in bright colours or white. But it seemed to me that in the north most houses were grey. And Guinness didn't taste so nice.

Enniskillen

We left claremorris and headed the extra long way round to enniskillen to see if we could make it to see slieve league. We headed up to Sligo where there is a huge tableland called benbulben. We saw the bottom of it. The rest of it was covered in fog. We were starting to think we were going to miss all of the speccy views because of fog but kept going anyway. We drove through donegal and finally saw what we had imagined as the rolling green hills of Ireland. We stopped at some lookouts where you were supposed do be able to see slieve league from across the water of donegal bay but all you could see was fog. But we kept going anyway. We got onto the coast heading towards slieve league and went down a little peninsula called St johns point and saw some nice coastal views but the cliffs of slieve league were foggy. But we kept going. Slieve league is sheer mountainside cliffs going into the water. They're not vertical but pretty steep and about 600 meters high. The road going up was really steep and windy. We got to the top car park and could actually see the cliffs. There was cloud up the very top so couldn't see them in all their glory but we got a pretty decent view. It has to be the most breathtaking view I have ever seen. You could walk higher up the mountain past the viewing area and higher than where they had built the protective fences. It was a fun climb up into the fog and higher views. The fog came down really fast so we walked back to the viewing area and the view was completely gone. If we'd been 15 minutes later we would have completely missed it.
We then doubled back to donegal and headed to enniskillen which is in northern Ireland. It was a long day but really worth it. Enniskillen is quite a big town but in a really beautiful green area. A nice place to be.