To London, for our second trip to the Bridge Theatre - this time to see the Nicholas Hytner production of Lucinda Coxon's play "Alys, Always" - itself based on the novel by Harriet Lane.
We always book "Advance" rail tickets, and usually pick them up from the machine at the station some time in advance of our planned travel date. On this occasion we hadn't bothered, and therefore intended to get to the station in plenty of time to pick them up before the 16.13 to London.
At 14.30, fresh out of the shower and dressed in nothing more than a towel, I glanced at the local news website and saw "Leicester - London rail travel heavily disrupted by incident at Wellingborough"... A quick check - the 16.13 was already cancelled, but tickets would be valid on any other service, by any other route. Another couple of minutes checking web sites convinced us that, whatever happened, we would be well advised to get to the station ASAP - which we did...
I'm still not sure exactly how we managed it, but we made it to the station, parked, collected our tickets and found ourselves on the platform *just* in time to make the 15.08. As we settled, across the aisle from each other, into the last two seats available in the leading first-class carriage we heard an announcement that there were now no other seats available on the train, which would itself probably be delayed... We resigned ourselves to a slow journey, which would almost certainly still get us into London in plenty of time to make curtain up, and concentrated on being entertained by the toddler travelling with her parents at the adjacent table. She was, I would guess, around 18-24 months - but was already exhibiting a facility with her father's smartphone that was genuinely impressive, and which led to her father and me exchanging broad grins as she manipulated her cartoons in various ways.
As it happened, after a relatively slow start we made excellent time and arrived in London at around 16.20 - that is, about seven minutes after we should have been leaving Leicester on our booked train.
A quick ride on the Northern line to London Bridge underground station. The surrounding streets always afford a great view of The Shard:
A quick walk along Tooley Street to visit The Riverside Bookshop, where we spent a short while browsing, before making our way into Hays Galleria. We grabbed a couple of "salt beef melts" from the Bagel Factory stand and had a picnic on one of the public benches while watching the world go by:
A little more walking around and then to the Tooley street branch of Pret A Manger for tea and cake and then finishing the short walk to the theatre:
Inside we bought a programme:
checked our coats and made our way to our seats - J43 and 44 in Gallery 1. Since the excellent seats in the stalls that we had occupied for Alan Bennett's Allelujah! were not available for this play (the auditorium having been reconfigured to accommodate a thrust stage) we had opted for these seats in the front row of the lowest gallery as 'the next best thing'. I suspect that, in reality, we would have been better off in the last row of the stalls; somewhat surprisingly, the difference in height between those seats and the row in front of them appeared to be greater than that between them and our seats, meaning that we were forced to look between the heads of those in front of us. In the event this was not too much of an issue (the chap in front of me appearing to be in danger of falling into the aisle for much of the play), but it was worth remembering for future visits.
Obligatory selfie:
No photos of the stage set (even if we had been able to grab them under the watchful eyes of the FOH staff) because there was almost literally nothing to see.
And so what of the play?
I lack the critical gifts to give a full analysis, but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it - though I was not blind to its faults. A quick flick through the links below will find reviews that run the gamut from adulatory to caustic, and scores from 4/5 to 1/5. I guess if pushed I would give it a solid 3.5; it wasn't Shakespeare, but then it never pretended to be.
Joanne Froggatt (Anna Bates from "Downton Abbey") was barely off stage throughout the two hours of performance time, and gave a good account of her character's transformation from mouse to minx. Robert Glennister (con man Ash Morgan from "Hustle") was a solid and reliable, if slightly unbelievable, lothario. My first recollection of Sylvestra Le Touzel was her appearance, en déshabillé, as Neil Pearson's girlfriend in the 90s police corruption series "Between the Lines". She had some of the best lines of the night (“I hate hot-desking. It's like The Hunger Games but with Post-it Notes”).
Out at 22.00, and a quick walk back to Tower Bridge underground station and thence by tube to St Pancras. Tea and cakes collected from the station Pret A Manger and up to the platform, where the train was already boarding. After so many really late nights when we had been obliged to catch the 00.15 we were grateful to have been able to book seats on the 23.08.
Amanda seemed to have enjoyed herself:
Home at around 01.15.
