it hurts that he's still shaking from those secrets that were told

last week ended with a couple of cultural evenst that were perhaps more enjoyable for their context than their content but fun nonetheless: on Thursday an unprecedented gaggle of us went to the see Edward II at the Rose Theatre (which in fact translates to being three rows of chairs in front of a roughly similar area of floorboards overlooking the archaelogical site of the Elizabethan theatre round the corner from the Globe.) We just about made it in time, having failed to take into account the half term rush at Pizza Express (as had the staff, it seems,) and the play was performed straight through at a breakneck speed, which certainly stopped attention from wandering as actors rushed on and off with pages of script tumbling from their mouths (much as years of action were pithily zipped through within those pages) which occasionally gave the performance a bit of a Reduced Shakespeare feel about it! The production was well-presented with an effective and stylish simplicity of costumes and props; the performances themselves seemed similarly pared back, which occasionally worked quite well (Edward's controlled expressions of sorrow struck me as more affective than a more overblown bewailing would have been) but became more detrimental when they verged towards the deadpan- the otherwise stylish and swashbuckling Isabella seemed unfortunately most prone to this. Still, all in all, well worth a tenner!

Frday night (rather more expensively) I had my first Secret Cinema experience: despite the run being over now, I feel oddly compelled not to say too much, but suffice to say that hundreds of punters descended on Wapping tube station, dressed in the suggested 40s garb (excellent timing given LA Confidential costuming!) in anticipation of seeing a film we hadn't been told the identity of. We were led of in a sea of fedoras to a dockland warehouse completely transformed via a bewildering variety of studios, shops, installations and performers seeded amongst the punters, all in keeping with the milieu of the film: there was a couple of hours of wandering about before the screening which was a fairly bemused and passive experience but the feel and attention to detail of everything was amazing, as well as the brilliant ambiguity between audience and performer (not least because the paying customers had put so much effort into looking the part as well.) Some aspects of our experience were non-ideal (food choice and a restless audience once the film started in particular) but in terms of cool random things going on in London it ranked pretty highly.

Saturday morning I dragged myself up and out to head down to Devon for the weekend: a bunch of us were spending it at the Boathouse that Ralph's family own on the River Dart* to celebrate his birthday. It's a beautiful location, we had some great weather (with only short intervals of less-great weather) and was gloriously relaxed: walking into the village and back seemed a great exertion (possibly because so much of it was uphill) deserving of many hours of sitting around reading as a reward. Children were an inevitable addition in comparison to past trips, and mostly a pleasant and entertaining one: as ever made me glad I don't have to try to keep one entertained on a full-time basis though! There were games played, food enjoyed, crabs caught off the jetty, late-night political arguments, the revelation of known unknowns, ukeleles strummed, crosswords completed, sofas slept on (my traditional berth,) scones made, stars seen in all their light-pollution-free glory and a Monday spent pleasantly meandering back to London [and straight to Food Not Bombs] rather than at work.

*scene of the fabled Cthulu Live game many of you have heard of . . .