One of the things I wanted to do while we were in London was maybe catch a show, if I could get my paws on a cheap matinee ticket. I checked at a couple of “half price musical tickets” places, and well, their half price tickets still hovered around 50 pounds. Which is about 30-35 pounds more than I was willing to dish out. Thankfully, the pub in which we spent most of our off time drinking had a poster on the wall for a play called The Children’s Hour, though I only noticed it because Keira Knightley and Elisabeth Moss’s floating heads were staring down at me from a black background. At any rate, I thought, “Well, I don’t know ANYTHING about this play, but I like Elisabeth Moss and Keira Knightley is really famous, so WHY NOT?!”
After the Doctor Who Experience, I figured I’d go check out the box office, scope out how to get there and ask about cheap matinee tickets. Which I did and then left. And promptly realized I was just in time to catch that day’s matinee. So I turned myself around, waited in line AGAIN, and asked they still had any of the 10 pound tickets left. And they did! And the show was great! Keira was very … Keira-ly! It’s about two young women who run a boarding school together in the 30’s (or so) who are accused by a pathological lying 12 year old of being lesbian lovers. They lose EVERYTHING, and in the end (SPOILERS) Elisabeth Moss admits that she IS totally in love with Keira Knightley and then kills herself. Happy fun times, FOR SURE. Elisabeth Moss was SUPER moving. It also starred Miracle Max’s wife and Hey It’s That Lady!, plus some other people I’ve never really heard of.
I’d also seen signs all over London for In a Forest Dark and Deep with Foxy and Olivia William, who was AWESOME in Dollhouse (WATCH IT, start with episode 5), and I decided that I’d really like to see THAT too! But did I have time?! Or money?! I did when I saw The Children’s Hour after Dr Who for 10 pounds! So the next week, Feller and I headed to the theater to see if we could get the 15 pound matinee tickets for this show. And we did! They were in the front row! We were like 10 feet away from Foxy and his giant, grey goatee! Some guy got whacked in the head when Olivia Williams accidentally threw her phone off the stage! They were the only two characters ever present in the show, and they totally rocked it. It’s about a brother who comes to help his sister move out of a vacation cottage, in the process of which he discovers she’s been having an affair with one of her college students. Then there’s a really awkward moment where I’m not sure Foxy loves his sister like a brother or LOVES his sister. And then! MORE SECRETS ARE REVEALED. Feller and I walked out of the show all, “WHOA. That was … intense. I … liked it?”
While in London, I also went to the Tower of London, because my g’ma and I had managed to miss that when we went to the UK together when I was 16, and I made it over to the Natural History Museum for their Sexual Nature exhibit. They had posters for that things ALL OVER EVERYWHERE, which is how I knew about it and why I went to the museum, so I guess their marketing plan worked. And it was TOTALLY my kind of museum exhibit, and I just wish that I had had someone to share it with (Feller was working). They had some awesome displays of insects and animals caught in the act and really beautiful portraits of various animals doing it, and stations where Isabella Rossellini performed short videos about different creatures’ sexual habits, called Green Porno and Seduce Me (GO WATCH some of those videos, seriously, they’re AMAZING. Beautiful and informative and HILARIOUS). Bought the Green Porno book/DVD combo they had for sale and made Feller sit and watch it with me. SO GREAT. BEST THING EVER.
The Alluring Danger of Dilettantism 