Friday, May 17, 2019

Two Theatres



Hello, everyone! I'm Michela "Mikie" Peterson, an English and Catholic Studies double major with Honors, and a Medieval and Renaissance Studies/Philosophy double minor. For our first Friday in London, we visited two theaters: The Old Vic Theatre near Waterloo for a tour, and London County Hall for the play Witness for the Prosecution. The middle of the day was a bit slower - it was raining, and we students had a good deal of down time between the morning tour and the evening show. The break was far from enough to render our day "boring," however.



We started the day with a tour of the Old Vic, formerly the "New Victoria Theatre," the "Royal Victoria Palace Theater," and the "Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tower," among other names. After passing through the outside "loo" tunnel, lined with art like the painting above by Nathan Bowen, we entered the stage doors. Unfortunately, none of us felt anything magical, and perhaps that was due to the fact that we were a group of college students passing into what was once a college setting, because alongside the in-depth history of the theater itself, we learned a section of the history of the Morley College that once resided in the building with the stage and stands. The presence of the school caused many inconveniences for the theater until the college left in 1923, forcing the removal of the wooden stage and the flytower, among other things, and in doing so taking space from the theater itself to make space for more classrooms and a gymnasium.

After a day of R&R from a long week, I was excited for to see Witness for the Prosecution, not least of all because of its basis in one of Agatha Christie's works. I've enjoyed several of her "Hercule Poirot" novels in the past. Witness, being the first of her stories outside of that series that I have experienced, did not disappoint in the slightest. Interactive storytelling and a fascinating plot combine with the West End debut of Lewis Cope for an enjoyable end to our first calendar week in London.

3 comments:

  1. Mikie this is an awesome recap of our tour! It was truly awesome to tour the old Vic and learn more about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was amazing getting to tour The Old Vic! The amount of history embedded in every building we have seen or toured still blows my mind.
    (This is Kendra by the way)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It was amazing getting to tour The Old Vic! The amount of history embedded in every building we have seen or toured still blows my mind.
    (This is Kendra by the way)

    ReplyDelete