It was another difficult morning for John, and we simply spent most of it looking out the window at the drizzle while we waited until it was safe for him to get up and about. I confess to being a little disappointed as I wanted to go to the Solemn Latin Mass at the Brompton Road Oratory. But the most important thing to me is to be with him and make sure that he is doing as well as he can.
By early afternoon, John was feeling strong enough for us to go out. I had promised John yesterday a trip to the National Gallery, and that was the first stop of the afternoon.
I have been to this museum at least a half dozen times, and walking through the wonderful collection was like seeing old friends. There is one gallery devoted only to pictures of Venice, and Canaletto’s Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day is a favorite. On this day each year the Doge would toss a gold ring from his enormous barge into the sea. It was a symbol of the “marriage” of this seafaring city state with the ocean.
I have always been enchanted with Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway since high school when it was the cover of my Norton Anthology of English Poetry. I have to admit, though, my deep disappointment when I took the actual railroad some years ago. It was scarcely more romantic than Metrolink.
John was a big fan of Georges Seurat even before Sondheim wrote Sunday in the Park with George. While the famous painting that is the subject of that musical hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery has the Bathers at Asnières.
This summer, hearing all about how dangerous it still is to swim in the Seine, I wanted to yell at them, “Get out! Get out!”
Not that long ago all London theaters were dark on Sundays. I suppose it was the last vestiges of the Victorian Sabbath. So John was quite surprised when I showed him an extensive list of shows that we could go to today. Again, he rather surprised me. He picked Back to the Future: The Musical. It is playing at the Adelphi Theatre on The Strand, so it was easy to walk from the National Gallery to the play.
A little to my surprise, I really liked the show. It’s just a lot of fun. The show generally follows the plot of the 1985 movie, but a few plot points have been changed to make it work better on the stage. Some of the dialogue is almost the same, though they have added a lot of jokes about the eighties. The songs are not all that memorable, though I did like Doc’s dream sequence about “Living in the Twenty-First Century.” But the writers and composers know better than to tinker with the important stuff like the DeLorean.
There are all kind of special lighting and sound effects that extend from beyond the proscenium into the auditorium including having the car fly over the audience at the end.
But the night was still young, as they say, and John was up for final piece of theater before we leave London tomorrow. We picked The Play that Goes Wrong. I saw this play at the Cabaret in Ashland. It was one of the best performances I had ever seen there, and Sandra King and I laughed our heads off. I cannot quite remember why John could not come that day, and he was always curious to see it after I told him what a good time I’d had. The piece had started here in London at the Duchess Theatre ten years ago, and I figured we might as well see it right where it started.
So we strolled down The Strand until we reached Catherine Street. The Duchess Theatre is a modest place, just steps from the very grand Theatre Royal Drury Lane. We asked about tickets at the box office as I had not bothered to buy any online. The very helpful people there offer John a wheelchair spot and said that I would only be charged for my companion seat. I was not about to turn down that offer. They did tell us that while the stalls were not accessible by life—they are on the basement level—they did have a machine.that would safely get him to his seat.
This thing was amazing. It had belts and rollers underneath it like a tank, and it slowly and quite smoothly took him down the stairs.
I am surprised yet happy to report, Ashlanders, that I think our local production was better. The cast was good, but you could tell that they had been doing it for a long time and it was just missing the manic edge I loved at the Cabaret. The set here in London was great, but in a way it was almost too elegant. The play is supposed to be the work of. fourth-rate community theater, after all.
So tomorrow morning we pack up and leave for Southampton where we will start our Norway cruise. Despite a few rough patches, we had a great time in London as we usually do. And despite all the time we have been here there are still many things we still need to see and do. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” Doctor Johnson famously said. Well, I am not tired of London, and I give thanks to God that John is not tired of life.
Traveling Johns 