just another morning here

Wonderful Wednesday

As promised here’s the long version. We stayed with friends on Tuesday night, so that we could have a relaxed day on Wednesday – neither Steve nor I have ever really ‘done’ London much so we didn’t want to be in a rush! The same wonderful friends looked after Josiah for the day which was fab, as he’s a bit little yet to cope with a whole day out in London, never mind a 3 hour theatre performance.

We were pleasantly surprised at how easy it all was – we parked for the day at Hillingdon at got on the tube from there – and again we were surprised that a family all-day tube/bus ticket was only ?7.50 – bargain! I was expecting it to be much more expensive.

We went and found Hamleys, just for the sake of it – and all four of us had great fun looking around and playing with toys. It’s not quite as big as I remember it being (when I was about 10!) but still fairly impressive.

After that we went to Covent Garden and had lunch outside the market …

efore going off to find the Lyceum Theatre. We all really enjoyed the performance. We had been big fans of the film before, it has to be said, and in some ways I was expecting it to simply be a glorified version – but there was enough ‘extra’ material there to hold my interest, and the production was simply magnificent. We especially enjoyed the animals who walked down the aisles to the stage, we were almost close enough to touch them. I also enjoyed the extra African bias in the show, there was a lot more African cultural influence prevalent both in the music and the costumes, compared to the film.

After the show, because we’d gone as part of a Home Educators’ group visit, we were lucky enough to be taken to the Theatre Museum for a talk from some of the people involved in the production. We saw the young performers (children who play young Simba and Nala) and heard a bit from them. We then heard from one of the understudies – a man who can play three different parts if need be, so it was really informative. All through these talks there was space to ask questions and it was really interesting. We were shown some of the puppets and costumes used in the show, and it was the icing on the cake to have this extra insight into the production.

My photos of this bit haven’t come out very well, because I turned the flash off so I wouldn’t disturb the talk – I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to take photos or not at this point … so sorry about the red tinge, but it’s better than nothing!

Timon the meerkat – was a puppet with an actor operating him rather than being dressed up

This is Mufasa’s mask – again not a great pic but you get the idea.

br />There is stacks more info and all sorts on the website - and if the same opportunity comes up next year, as I think it will, it’s well worth the effort to go on the trip. Steve and I got a taste for London while we were there, too – not a good thing really as we can’t afford the sort of trip we’d like to do (including a show, meals out, and some good shopping!!).

We got back to Bicester around 8pm, exhausted but happy – especially because Liz had cooked us dinner! What a fantastic hostess. We stayed the night again and came back to Exeter this morning. So all in all we had a great time – I must thank Liz and Nigel again for having us to stay, we couldn’t have done it without them. Now, am I forgiven for the gap in blogging?!