Flâner in London

Saturday March 31 started with a bit of rain, but it cleared for the afternoon and we even had a bit of sun.  There was a brief shower in the early evening, but it cleared up again.  High of only about 6C.

We started out by having a coffee and some avocado toast at All Press-- the coffee is very good.

Alain at All Press
We stopped at a cool clothing store that also served coffee and had a great sign outside-- "Procaffeinating- the tendency not to start until you've had a cup of coffee"
Alain "Procaffeinating"-- just loved the sign
We passed some people installing a new graffiti on one of the walls.

New graffiti in the hood
We stopped at a store called We Admire, that has amazing graphic T-shirts.  They have artists design the Ts and tell them: "Content before commerce; topic before aesthetic; and authenticity."  Two years ago, we both bought Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" T-shirts.  For some reason, they only do the men's versions as short sleeved and the women's versions as long-sleeved.  This year we both are getting Herbie Hancock Ts.  The owner is a real character and had a great story about trying to bring a Hancock T-shirt to a performance he did in London last year.  He will have our shirts printed for Tuesday.  His store is rather chaotic, but the T-shirt designs are very unique.

Alain in the back room of We Admire

Some of the Ts
We walked to Liverpool Station and took the tube to Bond Street where we started to meander up to Marylebone High Street.  Definitely a lot of French stores and bakeries on Marylebone.  It had stopped raining and we had a lovely walk, checking out the stores and stopping for treats along the way.   Since the pound is stronger against our dollar again, there were no major purchases.

We then walked along Oxford Street to the Theatre District.

We had seen a smaller version of this old sign in Valletta earlier in the trip

Marimekko meets Uniqlo on Oxford Street
We went to the Gielgud Theatre to see The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth, directed by Sam Mendes.

Firstly, the theatre itself has a lot of history.  It opened in December 1906.  It was first called the Hicks Theatre, and then renamed the Globe Theatre in 1909.   In 1994, the theatre was renamed the Gielgud Theatre in honour of John Gielgud.  Another refurbishment was completed in 2008.

Outside of the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftestbury Avenue

Portrait of John Gielgud in the lobby

Bust of John Gielgud
Looking up in the lobby


Stage just before play started
The play was fantastic.  Three hours and 15 minutes, that went by very fast.  It takes place in rural Northern Ireland in 1981.  The Carney farmhouse is preparing for the annual harvest.   In the opening scene, there is a meeting on a back street of Derry (the opening set) where a country priest has been summoned for a meeting with Mr. Muldoon, an IRA leader.   A dead man's corpse has been found in a bog-- he had been missing for a decade and is the brother of Quinn Carney, who had left the IRA a number of years before, to farm.  Muldoon wants the priest to bring the news to Quinn Carney.

The rest of the play shifts to a farmhouse full of Carneys (Quinn and his bedridden wife have seven children) and other farm workers bringing in the harvest.  Without going into details, there are family secrets, (Quinn is in love with the wife of his brother who has lived with them since the brother's disappearance); lots of politics (an elderly aunt, who as a girl witnessed the death of her brother during the Easter Rebellion).  This all takes place with the background of the hunger strikes of the IRA prisoners in the Maze prison.  Muldoon wants to make sure that no one raises the fact that the brother was killed by the IRA for maybe being an informer.  Lots of issues and complexity about the psychological impact of the Troubles.  The acting was superb and the play had lots of food for thought.

After the play, we went for a light dinner at Palomar, another wonderful middle eastern restaurant only 1/2 block from the theatre.  It was buzzy and the food excellent.

Alain and I sat at the corner of the bar and had a great view of the kitchen

Gorgeous cured trout served with plums

Falafel with a tahini, mango sauce
I forgot to take a photo- we were hungry- of the gorgeous fattoush salad we also shared.  Add on a lovely glass of wine for a perfect post theatre meal.

We walked up to Tottenham Court tube station so that we wouldn't have to transfer lines.  We passed the theatre where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was playing.  It looked terrific at night.


We got back to the apartment just after midnight.  Another great day exploring London and going to superb theatre.

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