January 3, 2025

Dateline – London, England

It is midnight local time. I have three hours remaining before I have to start on the return journey. 3 AM is not my favorite time of day but when you have a 6 AM flight to Copenhagen prior to coming back across the pond, needs must. Especially when you have paid a tour company to deal with things like airport transfers so you don’t have to do so. Therefore, this is the last entry in the current travelogue. So far there are no solid travel plans for 2025 in the offing other than a quick jaunt to Seattle to check up on my now 92 year old father but I’m sure that will change based on whims, opportunities, and various geopolitical situations.

Today was a lovely sunny day, cold but clear. Perfect walking weather so Frank Thompson and I began the day with a long amble from the hotel in Fitzrovia to Knightsbridge for a pilgrimage to Harrods. Harrods is a lovely institution, bursting with luxury goods that us mere mortals cannot possibly afford and coiffed and manicured shop assistants that can tell I do not belong to the moneyed classes and am not about to drop $8,000 on an Armani suit for $350,000 on a golden piano shaped like a solar disc. Harrods exists for us ordinary folk to gawk at, for corporate expense accounts to order hampers, and for the world’s rich who have London residences to have their staff shop for them.

On the way, we passed Hyde Park barracks and the memorial plaque to my Great Great Uncle Matthew Fontaine Maury Meiklejohn who was killed on the spot in an act of heroism back in 1913. I’ve recounted that story before so if you want more details, you can check his Wikipedia Page. As he died some fifty years before I was born, I never met him. Just another oddball family connection of which I have many, as do most of you if you go digging around in your family history.

Next it was off to Southwark to see The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary, a hysterical farcical adaptation of Flaubert in which four very skilled comic actors send up 19th century fiction, mores, and everything else they can get their hands on. I haven’t laughed so hard in a theater in some time. I enjoy a good Theater of the Ridiculous presentation and this one reminded me a lot of Medea: The Musical that was a huge hit in the SF Bay Area in the 90s. (Sara James – it’s a perfect THEATRE DOWNTOWN show – I bought a copy of the script which you can peruse). This was followed by a walk up to the Thames near Tower Bridge for dinner at The Ivy (the one at Tower Bridge, not the one in Los Angeles for those of you who might be confused) where I had shepherd’s pie. I asked the waiter if I might have it peppered with actual shepherd on top. He looked confused. I don’t think Sondheim was his first language.

After dinner, next door to The Bridge Theatre for their stupendous production of Guys and Dolls. I had seen it before a year and a half ago when I was in London with Vickie Rozell and the ASO Chorus for our concert at Southward Cathedral and I was eager to revisit it. It’s closing soon (to be replaced by a revival of Richard II starring Jonathan Bailey – get those tickets now after the success of Wicked) so I’m glad I was in time to catch it once more before it goes off to theatrical heaven (it’s unlikely to be brought to the US for various logistical and financial reasons.) It really is one of the best productions of a classic American musical I have ever seen with the immersive staging in the round, the constantly moving levels of the set, the three hundred standees on the floor becoming part of the action as the crowds of Times Square. Even though I knew exactly what to expect, it made me cry tears of emotional joy a couple of times. Frank, Kathy McMullen, and Bill McMullen had not seen it before (in fact Kathy had never seen a production of Guys and Dolls before and didn’t even know the plot going in) and they were all thoroughly blown away. It definitely ended London theater week on a high note.

I’m not bothering to go to bed. I shall just watch TV or something until I have to drag my suitcase downstairs. There’s no point. I can sleep on the plane.