Navigating the Underground.

It's been two and a half weeks and I have hit a new milestone: NAVIGATING THE UNDERGROUND BY MYSELF.
Up until last night I have been quite the public transportation follower. But last night no one wanted to accompany me to the play Gutted at the Royal Stratford East Theatre and so I was forced to figure it out on my own...and I did it with only minor mistakes. I was super impressed with myself.
I also made friends with a baby on the tube. She was really sad when she had to leave and I couldn't go with.

ANYWAY, last night I went to see my first non West End show. Technically it is considered off-West End. However it was SO far away from West End theatre that I just want to call it fringe.
The play was called Gutted. It was incredibly intense and experimental in many ways. Basically it's about a dysfunctional family...and when I say dysfunctional, I mean it --- think incest.
FABULOUS.
I laughed. I cried. Intense.

Today we got a tour of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. It was nice to get a better view of the stage since my last view was of the column in front of me. The crew was in transition mode after closing The Tempest last night and opening Midsummer Night's Dream tonight, which I always find interesting to see. So that was all very exciting. 



And tonight a couple of us went to see Spamalot at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End. So interesting...SO different from the three times I've seen it in the US. They changed the lyrics of 'you can't succeed on Broadway if you don't have any Jews' to 'you can't succeed in the West End if you haven't got a star'...I have to say I wasn't a big fan of that.
The whole production was very cartoonish, and instead of the big, traditional foot of God descending from the sky like I've seen in past productions, there was a projection of Eric Idle dressed as God...
SO FUNNY but also really kind of weird.
I'm not sure how I feel about it.
But I mean...it's Monty Python. It's Spamalot. These things NEVER get old for me and I was amazed that I still remembered all of the lyrics (except for the ones they changed...SHAMEFUL).
Monty Python can do no wrong for me, so yes, I enjoyed myself.
I also FINALLY got ice cream at the interval. That's a thing here in London...not entirely sure why it's a thing, but I won't complain. It was a good time.

cheerio