We had seats booked for How The Whale Became, a 'family opera' at the Royal opera House in Covent Garden. the performance was not until 5pm. So we had a slow start to the morning, during which there was a terrific thunder storm with several lightning flashes close by. As the rain poured down we hoped that it would pass over before it was time to leave for the station!
Indeed it did but there were plenty of puddles still to dry out. As it is about half hour walk to the station - not a problem going but not so good late evening on the way back - we opted to take the car, with Mike expecting to drop the ladies at the station so that they could buy train tickets whilst he went and parked in a car park about five minutes walk away.
As it happened, there were a couple of spaces in the very small station car park - cheaper as well!
Trains are frequent and they were soon on board for the run into Paddington. Here they sought the Underground and back to the same Bakerloo Line that Mike and Jess used a few days ago. This time, it was a change at Piccadilly Circus onto the Piccadilly Line for another couple of stops. Covent Garden station is unusual as it still has lifts to the surface rather than escalators.
The first task was to locate the theatre and pick up the tickets which Christine had ordered on line before Christmas. Then time to look around Covent Garden Piazza. Once an important fruit and vegetable market, it has been a popular tourist magnet for the past thirty years since the market moved to larger premises at Nine Elms in 1974. As well as lots of shops (Ellie enjoys coming here for clothes!) and eating places, there are always several street entertainers, often excellent classical musicians eking out their otherwise precarious income!
First, Alice and Jess watched Captain Franko's Flea Circus. Of course, the fleas were in the audience's imagination but it was highly amusing, including one that jumped from a high wire into a pool of Lucozade! Needless to say, two chosen you members of the audience who were asked to stand close to witness the event, ended up splashed!
We continued to walk around - the Christmas decorations were still in place: outside there was a large reindeer (after the show when it was dark we saw its red nose brightly lit) and inside giant baubles hung over the open spaces.
Down below, an enormous paella dish was being served to a keen queue of customers.
In the other lower area an operatic tenor was singing arias from popular audiences.
Finally, Jess wanted to take time to watch the juggler who had by now replaced Captain Franko. At first he juggled with metal knives and later with yo-yo's and a large diabolo. How did he manage to catch it every time it went up in the air, almost as high as the roof?
We had been told that we would be able to find tea at the Opera House but when we went back we discovered that they were not serving today so we went back into the piazza and had some marvellous cakes at the Boulangerie Cafe.
Time then to find our seats in the Linbury Studio Theatre inside the Royal Opera House. we left out coats in the cloakroom and then, as we went down we realised that the whole of this theatre space is below ground level! Not as large as the main theatre and open in a modern style, it was just right for this performance.
Obviously we could not take photos whilst the performance was taking place but we did sneak a shot of the stage set before it started.
The story was based on writings by Ted Hughes and is about the way in which animals were made by God - who sometimes tried experiments that did not always work out as expected!
The production was very intricate - the stage set was just the start. Innumerable props came and went at great speed - the whale went off in a bath taxi! Flashes, bangs, smoke and confetti everywhere . . .
The musicians also wandered around, sometimes on one side of the stage and then moments later somewhere else. The percussionist seemed to have an amazing collection of tins, flower pots, trays and bells!
During the interval the girls had ice cream - of course but then back to our seats for the second half.
The music was a modern composition, specially for this production and the five singers (two girls and three men) played many different parts with amazingly quick costume changes. No sooner had they gone through one door then they came back out from the central Making Machine in something totally different!
the end of the show was greeted with enthusiastic applause but it was time to wend our way back to the Underground and the journey to west Drayton station, the same way we came.
At least with the car just outside the station entrance we were back on the boat much sooner than originally expected. Nevertheless, it was just as well that Mike had prepared the bolognaise sauce in the morning!
An interesting footnote and coincidence: reading about Covent Garden via the internet, Wikipedia (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covent_Garden) says that in the 1920's the Covent Garden estate was managed by Beechams Pills, the same company that took over from Thomas Holloway (see Thursday's blog)
