Started off at the stand at Grant Road East in the usual way and headed up Lavender Hill and on to the Lost Theatre, a theatre built at the front of the recent redevelopment of a branch of Lambeth College. It appeared to be inactive, as it more or less always has done, but inspection of their web site today reveals that they are doing a family musical. Maybe we shall take a look. On to break the journey at Vauxhall Cross and walking past the spy house wondered whether their security guards had been privatised, like the ones at the Treasury (and one result of which has been that what has replaced the Treasury Guard, a civilian formation which was of approximately company strength, is a good deal more diverse than the Guard ever was). Thinking it a bit tactless to ask, decided not to. Then picked up another Bullingdon at the Albert Embankment to pass another large lump of construction steel, not on a lorry from Severfield Rowen (see reference 1). On round St. Thomas's and over Waterloo Bridge, to find that I was unable to park up at Houghton Street, so I had to push on up Kingsway to Sardinia Street where there were a few free slots. From there back to the Caffe Amici where I made the mistake of having a ham salad roll which was not up to much - while, judging by what other people were having, they probably would have done a perfectly respectable bacon sandwich, à la Whitecross Street, had I been less impatient.
And so to the Shaw Library, a place in the depths of the Anthropology Department, which I had rarely used when a student and which was now, as I think it was then, a cross between a rather relaxed library and a lounge, including a very grand and presumably very unused fireplace. I dare say one was allowed to smoke there in the old days. We were given Haydn Op.20 No.2 and Beethoven Op.74 by the Wu quartet, young but effective. There was a retiring collection, but I was impressed that LSE could put on such frequent & regular concerts on this basis. Perhaps they have done well out of the foreign postgraduate market. See reference 2 for the quartet and reference 3 for future concerts.
Needing refreshment afterwards, we eschewed the house bar, the 'Three Tuns', and thought instead to try the 'Nell of Old Drury' in Catherine Street, a watering hole with theatrical associations but which turned out to be old-style-boozer enough to have the temerity to be shutting at 1430. Must be an old-style-tenancy rather than a managed house; a chain would not tolerate the loss of our business, even such as it was. The not-bar. So off to the 'Coach and Horses' of Wellington Street, which was open and came complete with a modest number of rugby types, whiling away their busy afternoon. And while there was food it was fairly unobtrusive and the not very big bar area had not been colonised with tables on which holiday makers could take their luncheon. So fairly old-style-boozer too.
Back down Wellington Street to spot the flat beamer illustrated. Back across Waterloo Bridge to find the second not-theatre, and this time it really was not. I had noticed some time ago (see reference 4) that the Ballet Rambert were up to something on a vacant site next to the National Theatre, and it now turns out that the something is not a theatre for them at all, rather an administration building containing some rehearsal space. Presumably the ballet is up and running OK, but not to the extent of being able to justify their own theatre in London, not even one in the middle of the art hub of the south bank. Which all goes to show that all those theatrical administrators who are alleged to be so much keener on building theatres than on paying actors & actresses to put on shows in them, do not have it all their own way. (It should also be said in their defense, that government bean counters are traditionally much more relaxed about capital beans than current beans - with buildings coming out of the former pot and actors & actresses out of the latter).
Finished off in the wine bar above Platform 1 at Waterloo where I took a perfectly decent glass of gewürztraminer, despite the waitress not having a clue what I wanted until I found the place on the wine list for her, and where I noticed that despite it being quite a superior sort of wine bar, a good deal more beer was being drunk than wine. So what chance for a wine bar in Ewell? See reference 5.
For once in a while, an older & burbling drunk on the train home. We all looked the other way and did nothing, but he was a bit of a pain for the young lady alongside whom he has sat himself down with his plastic bag full of tinnies.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/first-luke.html.
Reference 2: http://wuquartet.com/.
Reference 3: http://www.lse.ac.uk/intranet/LSESocial/artsAndMusic/musicAtLSE/musicLentTerm2015.aspx.
Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=rambert.
Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/trolley-15a.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment