My Motley Meanderings

I took the day off work yesterday and drove down to Birmingham to meet emmzzi and see Our House, the musical based on the songs of Madness. It was the first time I had ever driven into the centre of Birmingham, and I left the motorway at bang on 5PM. Luckily nearly all of the traffic was heading out rather than in, but working out which lane I needed to be in at each junction/roundabout wasn't easy. I miraculously reached the car park behind the theatre without getting lost, parked up, and wandered off in search of food and a public toilet. The latter proved rather difficult to find - I came across one in a shopping mall that was locked, then I found my way to the railway station because I was sure there was one in there, only to discover that the toilets are on the concourse and you need a valid travel ticket to get to it. While I was in the station I decided to grab some takeaway food from Burger King, then carried on up the escalators and through the huge mall, eventually finding some toilets about another ten minutes walk away. The place was strangely laid out, and it took me another five minutes to work out how to get outside (passing a second Burger King on the way), where I sat down near some interesting buildings and water features to eat my now-cold burger.

emmzzi had arrived at the theatre by this time so I set off back, taking a detour on the way to buy a new parking ticket (it costs £2.50 from 6PM to midnight, but I had arrived at 5:30PM so was forced to buy a more expensive ticket that didn't allow me to park for as long). I encountered three Big Issue sellers, two of them very bouncy and charismatic compared to the ones we get in Nelson (but still not enough to make me buy a copy). Even though emmzzi had texted me to say she was in the bar, I still wandered twice around all the public areas of the theatre without spotting her before phoning to discover she was sitting at a table a few metres away.

The musical itself was really very good. It's a fairly simple morality tale about a lad who takes a girl out on his 16th birthday and breaks into an empty flat to get out of the rain, wrongly thinking this will impress her. The police arrive and the story splits off in two directions, one where he runs and gets away, and the other where he stays to face the punishment for his crime. Musically the songs were good and fit the plot fairly well. We discussed during the interval how they might be going to fit Night Boat to Cairo in, and the link was... inspired. The hero had a rather harsh singing voice but his girlfriend sung beautifully. The cast were all very young and athletic apart from the hero's parents, and the choreography really took advantage of this. Of course the real star of the show was the knackered white Morris Minor convertible the hero buys at one point for £80 to take his girlfriend out in (It says Morris on the door, the GPO owned it before). We had a good time and I would definitely recommend going to see it if you enjoy Madness songs.

There was another incident of lorry-rage on the way home. Entering a single-lane 50MPH section of roadworks on the motorway, the van in front of me slowed down to 50 so I did likewise, maintaining a sensible stopping distance in front of me. The HGV behind me kept on going until he was literally inches from my bumper. If I had braked at all at that point, he would have clipped me. After a few seconds he dropped back perhaps ten yards (still much too close to safely follow someone at 50MPH) and maintained that distance all the way through the roadworks. It's not as if I could have gone very far if I had accelerated as he seemed to want me to do, because I was simply following the van in front of me. Upon reaching the end of the restricted area, the van quickly accelerated up to 70 and so did I. The HGV pulled into the next lane as if meaning to overtake me, only to see me rapidly getting away. This really ticked him off, so he pulled back into my lane and gave me a long blast on his main-beam headlights and spotlights.

On Saturday I drove down to Stratford upon Avon. I saw several traffic jams and accidents on the way, luckily all heading the other way to me. I went straight to the Youth Hostel, oddly having more difficulty finding it than the first time I stayed there (I think the problem was that the address says Alveston but it's not actually in the village). I grabbed a bit of lunch, then set off walking to Stratford (about four miles from the hostel). I'd gone about 2.5 miles when I realised I had forgotten the piece of paper with my theatre booking reference number on it, so I walked all the way back to the car to get it. Having wasted a lot of time already I thought I would drive into town instead, which I did, only to find that it was incredibly busy and there was nowhere suitable to park. The car parks were all full, short-stay, due to lock up early (before the end of the play), or some combination of the three. So I drove back to the hostel and did what in hindsight I should have done to begin with: caught a bus into town from the stop across the road.

Upon finally reaching Stratford, the first thing I did was to locate the cinema and buy a ticket for Iron Man. I had some time to kill before the showing so I went and got an ice cream from a street seller, then wandered around gawking at the huge number of tourists and shops selling Shakespeare-related tat (what must it be like to live and work in a tourist town?). The film was fairly good, only spoiled slightly by the very uncomfortable seat and the inane running commentary from the people sat behind me. I'm not sure it was worth sitting through the very long end credits to see the brief post-credits scene everyone has been raving about though.

Next I walked down to the theatre to pick up my ticket, only to discover that I had somehow lost the bit of paper with my booking reference on it (the one I went back to the car for earlier), probably when I took it out of my pocket in the cinema to double-check the start time. Luckily the box office let me have my ticket anyway after taking my name and swiping my credit card. It was after dinnertime by this point so I went off to find food and ended up in a fish and chip shop near the river before returning to the theatre in time for the play.

The play was a performance of The Taming of the Shrew by The Royal Shakespeare Company at The Courtyard Theatre. It was really very good; easier to follow than Henry V (the last play I saw there) and surprisingly funny. The star of the show was the brilliant Michelle Gomez as Kate (the shrew). The other actor I recognised was William Beck as Grumio. The most confusing aspect of the play was the framing device. A drunk passes out in the street and a noblewoman finds him and decides to play a practical joke by making him think he is a lord. One of the things she does is to arrange for a play to be performed for his benefit - which turns out to be the 'real' play. After a few scenes the fake lord in the outer play suddenly starts playing one of the main characters (also a lord) in the inner play. The main subject matter of the play is pretty controversial now but I think they handled it rather well. I like the theatre (though I didn't get as good a view from the seat I was in this time), the acting was polished, and the scenery and costumes were impressive. I would highly recommend going to see it, but it appears that I went to the last show and they are starting on A Midsummer Night's Dream this week. ETA: They are doing A Midsummer Night's Dream and A Merchant of Venice for the next few weeks but Taming of the Shrew returns on Tuesday the 27th.

I walked back to the hostel afterwards. The room I was in this time didn't have the noisy wooden bunks but I still seemed to sleep very lightly and woke up frequently. When it reached 6:30AM I decided to get up and have a shower before breakfast. The Stratford hostel is one of those where breakfast is included in the price (you don't get a choice about this unfortunately). Afterwards I made some sandwiches for lunch and headed off to Kenilworth Castle where people from the Morris Minor Owners' Club web forum had agreed to meet up.

I arrived before they had even opened the car park so I had to go away and park in the village for half an hour before returning. The rally seemed to go fairly well. Three travellers and two saloons turned up, plus three more people in modern cars. There was a mediaeval reenactment event going on at the castle which was rather interesting. One of the things I saw was a demonstration of mediaeval court dancing, most of which looked very dull, but they also threw in a country dance that I recognised from having done it at a ceilidh recently (albeit at about twice the speed with five times as many couples in the circle). After Kenilworth Castle we left in convoy to drive around the area but it was a bit of a shambles as we got split up two or three times. We visited an unusual windmill on a hilltop, then a very old church, before finishing up at the JLH Morris Minor garage to have a look at the customised cars they are working on.

The bank holiday Monday I mostly spent catching up with little bits and pieces of things and not getting very much of note done. I am making good progress with my route plans for the AIR and we may have picked up another participant.

Anyone fancy going to see the Lord of the Rings stage show with me in London's West End at 2PM next Thursday? The cheapest seats are £16 each. ETA: Tickets booked!

I just read in the newspaper that it's only running until July and it sounds like a really impressive production. They're having to move out of the theatre early to make way for the new Oliver production that is going to be cast via a BBC reality show.

( What I did this weekend... )