Before leaving Cleveland I went on line and bought tickets for Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, at the Duke of Yorks Theater (West End), starring Matthew MacFadyen, Stephen Mangan, and Mark Hadfield. The reviews were excellent, the start-time early, (7:30 pm) and the subject matter light. Perfect for young adults.
M&M's World, the largest candy store in the world. It struck us as so bizarre, so surreal, its bright lights and primary colors like a window into another daylight dimension, that we entered the store. We couldn't believe the floor after floor of M&M merchandise. Music everywhere, bright lights and those M&M colors.
picture taken from http://www.jeevesandwoosterplay.com
And it fit the bill, so to speak. The Duke of Yorks is a smallish theater, selling programs, champagne and Cadbury chocolates in the lobby, and we weren't too far from the stage. However, just to be safe we rented ancient looking red opera glasses for 1£ out of a dispenser on the chair in front of us.
I am a long time P. G. Wodehouse fan, and once we tried watching the BBC television series with the kids when they were young but they were utterly bored. It was time to try again.
The play was extremely well done. Last summer Irad, Yuval and I had been in London and seen the 39 Steps (excellent!) which featured a small group of actors playing hundreds of roles. This was a little similar—MacFadyen plays Bertie Wooster but the other two gents inhabit every other role that comes up in the story, sometimes needing to be two people in the same scene simultaneously with some hilarious results and very clever stage and set gymnastics.
picture taken from http://www.jeevesandwoosterplay.com
The premise is that Wooster comes out on the bare stage to recount the goings on of recent events (the usual instructions from a formidable Aunt, stay at some country castle, avoidance of some engagement for marriage, and the requisite stolen property and run-in with the law), and quickly finds he needs the help of Jeeves (Mangan). Jeeves has handily prepared a stage set which he wheels out, and as the play goes on the sets become more and more elaborate. They are joined by Aunt Dahlia's butler, (Hadfield).
It is clever, creative, non-stop hilarity and the usual cavorting and hi-jinx associated with Jeeves & Wooster. The use of the stage and the sets, the impersonations of multiple characters, are all wonderful. My only negative was that it is all rather one-level - non-stop hilarity and one madcap crisis after another so that at some point I was looking at my watch. The curtain call entailed a wonderful dance number by the three stars. I was amused to learn that the kids remembered everything about the BBC version we had watched and asked if we could watch it again when we get home.
picture taken from http://www.jeevesandwoosterplay.com
But, as in the Sanderson Lobby experience, you never know what kids will find interesting, and the real take-away of the play experience for the kids was the audience reactions and a sense that British humor is VERY different from ours. From the moment Bertie Wooster walked out on stage and said "Hello" the audience was in stitches. And I don't mean polite little titters and giggles. I mean howls and guffaws and shrieks of delight. Non-stop for 2 hours. The kids couldn't stop laughing because of the colorful laughs around us, and they spent the rest of the evening marveling at the English sense of humor. Our sense was that if the play had been performed in the States, though it may have garnered the occasional chuckle, most of it would have been greeted in silence which would have greatly reduced the atmosphere of the romp.
We wandered out into Liecester Square (pronounced Lester Squaw) and were amazed at the hordes of people out in the streets on a cold rainy night. We walked briskly, trying to hug the storefronts with overhangs, and suddenly we came upon...
M&M's World, the largest candy store in the world. It struck us as so bizarre, so surreal, its bright lights and primary colors like a window into another daylight dimension, that we entered the store. We couldn't believe the floor after floor of M&M merchandise. Music everywhere, bright lights and those M&M colors.
Four floors down into the bowels of the earth, like a psychadelic trip in Willy Wonka's world, we perused an endless variety of M&M themes merchandise, characters and candies. Who knew?
Though we entered just to goggle and spectate, we couldn't help filling one bag of dark chocolate peanut M&M's from the dispensers, and we may have picked up a pair of bright yellow M&M socks for Amnon, but wouldn't you? (to paraphrase William Boroughs.)
From high art to high consumerism, first night in London.
in which she describes her house, including, a private "mock" shopping mall in her basement to house all her tchotchkes and collections.
