Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report NeoPatrick's 10 Days in London Trip Report

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Let me say, for June the weather couldn't have been much worse. It rained. Then it rained. Then it rained some more.
I suppose if this had been our first trip we would have been sorely disappointed. But when you're spending up to 5 or 6 hours a day inside theatres and another 5 or so hours a day in restaurants (my partner, Lee, has Alzheimer's and is a VERY slow eater), I guess it really didn't affect us that much!

Our AA daytime flight in Business class (FF freebies) from JFK to Heathrow was delightful. We had spent the night before at the Marriott Courtyard at JFK since we spent a couple days out on Long Island. We were very happy with the hotel (especially since it was free with a Marriott certificate from taking their credit card). The shuttle service was great (they picked us up the night before at the rental car return, and delivered us right on time in the morning for our flight.)

Arrival at Heathrow was swift, and our luggage retrieval was almost instant -- that was a real surprise. I think that was another advantage of arriving at Heathrow at 8:30 PM instead of in the early morning with the hundreds of other international flights. We headed to the Underground station as our flat is just a block from Covent Garden tube and we've found that taking the tube is the easiest, cheapest, and quickest way to our flat from Heathrow. OOOOPPPPS. Not this time. It was Saturday, June 16. The Underground line from Heathrow was closed for the weekend. So after buying our Oyster Cards and being told that, we tried to find how to get the "substitute" bus instead. We were told there were NO busses to replace the line since it was the weekend. And that it would be nearly impossible to make a connection to the tube by taking regular busses. On the other hand, all we'd have to do is show our Oyster cards and the Heathrow Express was FREE as the alternative. So that's what we did. The connections to the tube (two connections in fact) to get to Covent Garden was a little involved and there were far more steps than I'd have liked, but we eventually made it to our flat (in the rain of course).

We stayed for 10 nights before flying on to Rome. Rather than a day by day -- I think I'll simply list the shows and the restaurants -- that's mainly what we did. But first a word about a few attractions we did:

The Sir John Soane museum at Lincoln Inn Fields was new to us. Very interesting restored house filled with artifacts and artictectural details from this famous 19th Century architect.

Leighton House in Hollald Park was another "new to us" and interesting place. This beautiful old house is more an art museum that a house museum, but the Ilam tiles throughout the downstairs rooms were very impressive.

On the weekend was a fun "Lot Valley" festival at Covent Garden featuring various products and travel information from the Lot Valley in France. This was a lot of fun, and we sampled and bought some wonderful cheeses as well as other foods.

THEATRE: This is what we go to London for, and frankly the options this trip seemed a little more disappointing than usual. The West End is SO much recycled shows and Broadway transfers, and we even found fewer fringe shows that interested us than usual (I tend to think they options are fewer during the summer for fringe than during the winter).
Most of our tickets we bought at TKTS and never stood in line more than 10 or 15 minutes. The guys got to know me, and each day would ask how I liked the show the day or night before. We had bought advance tickets for the huge production of KISMET at the English National Opera for the first preview which was to be our last night in London. But we got an email that the production was delayed so we took the tickets to get a refund. I was very disappointed, but then I saw the reviews -- HORRIBLE -- after it opened, so that certainly soothed the pain, and I was glad to have gotten our nearly $300 back!

BLUE MAN GROUP -- Surprisingly we had never seen this show, but it was the only option on a Sunday -- half price -- so decided "why not?" Enjoyed it more than I expected, but I'm still amazed that some people think it's the greatest theatre experience they've ever done. I'd hardly call it theatre at all, in fact -- just fun.

GASLIGHT: The Victorian thriller in a very good production at The Old Vic. It was well done, and I'm very familiar with the show, but it mainly reminded me that the show really doesn't hold up that well, and there is little suspence or "thriller" to it.

THE PHILISTINES: The pre Russian revolution play by Gorky in a stunning and totally real production. I found it fascinating, although at the end was a strangely out of place monolog by the woman "stealing" the son from the father. She uses the F word about 50 times in the speech and it just seemed so totally out of character for the period and the characters. Oddly enough, a few days later a review appeared in Time Out (hardly a conservative viewpoint, usually) which stated the same reaction I had.

THE 39 STEPS: This send-up of the Hitchcock movie was great fun. All the roles are played by three very talented actors and it really was funny. I was glad I had Netflixed the oiginal just a couple weeks earlier, as I think much of the humor was lost on those who hadn't seen or didn't remember the film.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF: Henry Goodman was wonderful in the role, and this production was stunning. I loved that the set didn't follow the usual more theatrical flair, but was all dull and weathered wood frames of buildings. Only the lighting added color to a very drab background -- rather appropriate for the show. And then it snowed at the end when they leave for America -- no dry eyes here!

BOEING, BOEING: I had done this French farce many years ago in summer stock, and it was fun to see again in a really excellent production. Patricia Hodge as the maid nearly stole the show, but who does door slamming farce better than the Brits?

THE LETTER: This Somerset Maugham story is brought to life on stage in a stunning production with Singapore and China as backdrops. Very slow paced, but some outstanding acting.

DROWSY CHAPERONE: Good production, rivaling the Broadway original. Elaine Paige is wonderful as the chaperone -- and it seemed funny for her to get top billing as it is far from being the lead. But I think the part might have been "padded" for her, as I really don't remember the chaperone playing that big a part in the original. And while the lead girl was good, she was NO Sutton Foster!!!!

THE ROSE TATOO: This production of Tennessee Williams' classic was very well done, with the wonderful Zoe Wannamaker in the lead. It brought back memories of the wonderful Broadway production I saw many years with Maureen Stapleton and Maria Tucci. And as usual the staging at the National (a revolving set) was wonderful.

CABARET: The revival of this show a few years ago by the Donmar and brought to Studio 54 in New York took the show to a new "gritty, dirty, and bawdy" level. This production made that one look like Mary Poppins. There was considerable full frontal nudity, rampant sex and drug use portrayed very realistically on stage throughout, and some real surprises. I liked it very much, and there was little separation between the Cabaret scenes and the "real" life scenes. In other words --all of life then was a cabaret! Some of the Kit Kat girls were clearly boys and some were -- well, who knows?
Near the end, there are giant cut out thick letters sitting on stage spelling out KABARET (yes, with a K), and as the various actors reprise bits of their musical numbers as if in a dream, a Nazi soldier crosses the stage and knocks over the letters one at a time. As he knocked the first one over there is a huge thud as it hits the stage. Lee broke the spell of the stunned audience by shouting out in surprise "Jesus Christ!" when it hit the stage. It was his most "ill behaved" moment of the trip, but really kind of funny when I thought about it later.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS: Again, more recycled Broadway. Nothing terribly exciting or new about this production and nowhere near as effective plants as the recent New York production, but still fun to see.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS: This was a staged reading -- part of the Lost Musicals series at the smaller theatre at Sadler's Wells. Loved it -- they get a very talented group of actors and singers to do these shows for a few performances each, and I always feel lucky when our trip coincides with one of them.

AVENUE Q; Again, more recycled Broadway. I actually enjoyed this production more than the original in New York. For one thing I never understood the girl pretending to be Gary Coleman in NYC, but here it was a guy who sort of looked like him and sort of imitated him, so somehow I thought the "joke" made a lot more sense. The show suffered from sound problems however, with a couple of them so over amlified that it was impossible to understand the words.

EATING:
Mostly we did breakfast in the flat -- as it takes Lee a long time to get going in the morning, and my diabetic diet requires food right away. Cereal and fruit became the standard -- although I usually went out and brought my morning coffee or latte from a near by Pret. One morning Lee was up and going early so we did a proper English breakfast at Farmer Browns.

Lunches at: Wagamamma; Belgo Centraal; Anchor and Hope on the Southbank -- a great gastro pub; Boulevard, an excellent sort of French brasserie; The Friar's Inn near Victoria for Fish and Chips -- a new favorite for those; DaMario for pizza on Gloucester Road -- excellent place; dim sum in ChinaTown, my former favorite E Capital was gone, and I'm not even sure of the name where we ended up; The Blue Elephant at Fulham Broadway for the spectacular Sunday Thai brunch; tried to go to Fox and Anchor at Smithfield Market only to find it is closed and gone, but found the wonderful multi-level Smith's of Smithfield instead;

Dinners (mostly post theatre)at: Maggie Jones, an old favorite; Salieri on The Strand; the Wolesley -- seems so pricey, but really good and I love the "buzz" of the place late at night; Covent Garden Grill -- where we are treated like old friends by two different waiters, one an actor and the other an artist who always recognize us and come chat freely; Bank -- our last dinner there as it was closing the following week; Joe Allen, just like NYC and we always go; Pasta Brown's -- reliable and inexpensive; Boheme in Soho; The Forge (formerly Le Estiminet) -- a really nice meal and highly recommended -- this place is at the corner of Floral Street and Garrick in Covent Garden.

Oh and the link to our flat we've now rented about 10 times?
www.farnum-christ.com Click "one bedroom flats" then click Floral Street. As usual we worried a bit in advance about lack of AC, but as usual NO problem. In fact, I was almost thinking of turning on the heat a couple of mornings.