London trip (November 2012)

London trip (November 2012)

I love going back to London, there is always so much going on.

Katy and I fancied seeing the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Britain, so decided to treat ourselves and include a visit to the theatre to see War Horse.

We set off on the train, and arrived at the Imperial Hotel around lunch time. The hotel was surprisingly good, and had fabulous views over Russell Square to the Post Office Tower.

Getting to the Tate was a nightmare. Although it was only seven stops on the underground, what with the tube changes and the walking from Pimlico to the gallery, we spent another hour travelling around the city, just to get across London. We had a timed ticket, so as we arrived with time to spare we searched out the Tate’s café. Although it was a Tuesday in November, the café was packed. We had to queue for our food, and then wait for a table. Not impressed.

At three o’clock we were allowed in to see the artworks. As we had paid £12 each for timed tickets, I was looking forward to a leisurely stroll around the paintings, but rather like the café, it was packed! Each painting had around twenty people stood in front of it, so I either had to push my way in, or wait for a gap to appear. After struggling to see anything, or read the accompanying text, I began to get a headache. Now I never get headaches, but I got a real ding dong of a headache here, which got worse, as I got jostled around the milling crowd. Eventually I had to give up and went to sit down in an area of the Tate which is free to enter. Oddly, there was no one in here, even though the art was almost as good! Katy was also feeling tired, so we decided to abandon the Tate, and head to Covent Garden for our theatre treat. I couldn’t face the underground again, so we found one bus that took us back to Oxford Circus, and another bus which got us to Holborn. This turned out to be a smart move, as the first bus went up Regent Street, and we were able to see the splendid Christmas lights.

We arrived in Covent Garden, and found a nice pub with food to while away the time before curtain up. Still suffering with my headache, I went for a salmon tagliatelle and a glass of chardonnay. Unfortunately, my salmon was covered in black pepper with fought with the wine, and made my headache even worse. I had to abandon both and set off in search of a chemist selling anadins!

My headache had just about abated as we settled down to watch War Horse, which was an incredible production. (See separate review).

After the show we walked back to our room at the hotel, and enjoyed the fabulous views of the capital at night.

Breakfast at the hotel was good, and after a leisurely morning, we headed home. Our train to York was running late, so we missed our connection home, and were delayed by an hour. C’est la vie!

War Horse theatre review (London)

War Horse theatre review (London)

 I have heard so many good things about this show that it’s been on my wish list for the last five years. I finally made the effort to secure a ticket and was blown away by the sheer theatricality of the event. Theatre is a magical place where imagination quickly replaces reality so within minutes of Joey the foal appearing on stage, I was mesmerised. Although Joey is no more than a puppet controlled by three girls, everyone in the New London Theatre believed that he was a real horse.

Later when Joey appears as a full grown stallion and reared up on his hind legs, I was awe-struck at such an amazing sight. I was sitting in the third row, and so close to the action, that Joey seemed to be twenty feet tall! Joey was now controlled by three men who were just brilliant at conveying Joey’s heart and soul.

Joey, of course, goes to war and this is where the story begins. He fights, he swaps sides, he gets hurt, and we, the audience believe everything thanks to brilliant acting, wonderful storytelling, and fabulous staging.

When the show ends, everyone in the audience was on their feet, with tears pouring down their face.

If you love theatre, you must see War Horse, and as it’s touring in 2013, you’ve no reason not to.

See it, you’ll love it!

10/10

Blackpool (Sept 2012)

Blackpool (Sept 2012)

I waited 64 years before my first visit to Blackpool. People said “You should go, you’ll enjoy it”. So I did, and I didn’t!

The hotel was disappointing, and about three miles from the main attractions, and the weather was awful. Strong winds, sleeting rain and bitterly cold.

As we’d never been to Blackpool before, we asked for a map at the hotel, and were bluntly told “we don’t have any”.

So we headed to the Tourist Information opposite the Tower. It was closed. The rain was so heavy we decided to take shelter in a hotel in the hope of a pot of tea. The hotel we went in was even worse than our own, with tables full of dirty plates and long queues for the café. The bad weather seemed a better prospect, so we set off again. Our next stop was a seedy bar, where we were told we could only enter if we handed over £6. We declined, and went back out into the rain. Next stop was Blackpool’s iconic Tower. What a dive! Dirty, shabby, sticky, dark and dingy and overpriced. The only saving grace was the ballroom, which looked rather good (no doubt, because they film Strictly Come Dancing there).

We knew of an art gallery nearby, and decided to go there next. We got lost several times, and got colder and wetter. When we finally found the gallery, it was closed!

So, we set off back to the hotel for a cup of stew. (We ordered tea, but it was more like stew!).

We decided to cheer ourselves up with a tour of the lights after dinner on a tour bus. The traffic was awful, so our driver took us round all the back streets, and by the time he got to the illuminations, the bus windows had all steamed up. What little bit of the lights we did see were nothing special, although the Bispham tableaux weren’t too bad.

The following day was better, as the rain finally relented, still cold though!

We went back to the Grundy art gallery, which was a treat, and the highlight of the weekend. There had installed a nine hole crazy golf in the gallery, with different statues on each hole. Hitler was there, Saddam Hussein, builder’s bums, grave stones, desert islands and more. The most fun I’ve ever had in an art gallery and highly recommended. We later went to the Winter Gardens for a coffee, another venue well worth a visit.

The tram system in Blackpool is great, once you get the hang of it, and free to over 60’s.

Maybe if the weather had been better, Blackpool may have appealed more, but I don’t think I’ll be rushing back anytime soon.

Martin.

Norbreck Castle Hotel (Blackpool)

 

Norbreck Castle Hotel (Blackpool)

This hotel looks quite impressive from the outside, but sadly the interior is really rather shabby.

As the largest hotel in Blackpool, I understand that coach parties are the only way forward for such a hotel, but with volume, comes lack of service. Queues to check in, overcrowding, and poor service are the norm. Our room was tiny, cold and unwelcoming. The windows were frosted, so we had no view, and the heating only came on between 6pm and 8pm. The bed was hard, and facilities were poor.

In the bar/café area, everywhere was sticky and grubby, with lots of uncleared tables. The carpets and chairs were threadbare, and our cup of tea was stewed and undrinkable.

Toilets in the public areas were best avoided.

We upgraded to a dinner in the Boston restaurant, and to be fair, the food was good, and so was the service.

Breakfast was fair, but the plates were cold, even though the sign advised caution: hot plates!

Checking out was a nightmare as several coach parties all crammed into the reception area, so there was nowhere left to sit and wait.

4/10

Phantom of the opera review (Leeds)

Phantom of the opera review (Leeds)

The problem with seeing a big show in The West End or Broadway is that you will never be satisfied with anything less.

I saw Phantom on Broadway in 2004 and it simply blew me away. Unfortunately, the production in Leeds was never going to get close to that incredible evening in New York.

Of course, Phantom is really about the music and the singing and orchestration was spot on. The disappointment was with the staging, which was sometimes good, but sometimes average. The emotion of the piece was also lacking in parts, and only really got going in the last ten minutes.

However if you’ve never seen Phantom, it’s well worth a visit, but if you’ve already seen this masterpiece, then give this version a miss.

7/10

Martin.

Funny Peculiar review (Cheltenham)

Funny Peculiar is about as funny as toothache. What the producers were thinking when they resurrected this old dinosaur, I have no idea. If you get a laugh out of gay vicars, or young people with special needs, or frustrated old ladies, then you might enjoy it, otherwise give this one a wide swerve.

There is even a custard pie scene in this grim offering, which would not be out of place in a Chuckle Brothers pantomime!

Laugh? I thought I’d never start. I didn’t.

A hard days night in Liverpool.

A Hard Day’s Night in Liverpool.

Having just spent a couple of days in this fab city, thanks to a recent competition win, I now know what The Beatles meant, when they sang about a hard day’s night!

My entry was picked out from over 1,200 entries, and I won an overnight stay at The Beatles themed hotel, with free tickets to Tate Liverpool’s latest exhibition.

My wife, Katy, and I hit the ground running, literally scampering across the road from busy Lime Street Station to St George’s hall opposite. We were keen to see the 30,000 Minton tiles which cover the floor, and are protected for most of the time and only unveiled every ten years or so. We were lucky that they had just been uncovered, at a cost of £18,000, just five days earlier! This was an amazing sight, which would easily match anything you could see anywhere in Europe. Jaw dropping, and then some! The tiles, every one hand crafted, feature incredible patterns, boys on dolphins, sea nymphs, Liver birds, and much more. A truly spectacular start to the holiday.

After getting our breath back in the café, we walked round the corner to The World Museum. This is one of my favourite museums anywhere in the country, and I was looking forward to seeing the “Age of the Dinosaur” exhibition. This incredible show features six animatronic dinosaurs, which are very lifelike, and a little scary! Fab fun though, and well worth the visit.

A short walk took us to our hotel, The Hard Day’s Night hotel, the only Beatles themed hotel in the world! We were escorted to our room, and shown how all the high tech gismos worked. The room was terrific, although having a larger than life size picture of Ringo staring down at us was rather disconcerting! I put on the TV, only to hear that famous suspended G7 chord twang out, the most famous chord in rock and roll history, followed by John Lennon singing “It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog”. Terrific. I listened to the song three times before I put it off. Interestingly if you look at the chord notation for this infamous chord, it looks like the Beatles on stage! Check it out on www.harddaysnighthotel.com if you don’t believe me!

Refreshed, we made our way to the Albert Docks and Tate Liverpool. Our prize included free tickets for the “Alice in Wonderland” exhibition. It was incredible to see Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for this classic book, and all the prehistory was fascinating. The early pictures were astonishing, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the exhibition. The second half which was much more surreal, and not to our taste, but overall, we felt enriched by our visit. Running late we scooted round the rest of the Tate, as it was almost closing time.

We headed to Liverpool One, the largest city centre regeneration in Europe, which Katy was delighted to discover was open till 8pm. I was dropped off in the husband crèche, while Mrs Dove went shopping.

Ready for some food we made our way upstairs to a fabulous Thai restaurant, Yee Rah. We treated ourselves to a fine bottle of Chardonnay and some excellent food. A couple of local students at the next table ordered a mixed grill to share, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was served vertically, and must have been eighteen inches high. The students were equally amazed, and took loads of photographs to show to their friends. I commented that it looked better than some of the installations at the Tate!

Slightly tipsy after the wine, we headed to Matthew Street for the highlight of day one, The Cavern Club. We were lucky to get seats right at the front, and stayed for nearly three hours. We knew every song that that the Lennon lookalike sang, and we sang our hearts out along with him throughout the night. There was a great atmosphere in the club, was full of Americans. One guy, from Chicago, requested a song, and ended up singing on stage. When the artiste asked for the gentleman’s name, he answered “Dick”. “Can I call you Richard?” our man enquired. “Well you can if you like, but I prefer Dick!” Katy and I found this hilarious, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. The highlight of my wife’s night was when the singer sang “When I’m 64” just for me. (My age this year).

Luckily our hotel was nearby, as we were tired out, and were in danger of losing our voices.

The following morning, we both felt worse for wear, and tucked into a proper English breakfast, with lots of cups of tea. We had a busy day planned, but decided to just concentrate on the one outing, which was somewhere we have always wanted to visit, Port Sunlight. This pretty village is situated on the other side of The River Mersey, so we took advantage of the speedy Merseyrail to get there.

The weather was fantastic for January, and we were able to explore the whole village with the aid of a tourist map, purchased from the local museum, which was fascinating. The highlight of the day was looking round the Lady Lever art gallery, one of the best galleries I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been in plenty. Many of my favourite artists have their work on display here, including Waterhouse, Millais and Holman Hunt. My favourite paintings were “Bubbles”, with its links to the soap industry and Lord Lever, and “The Scapegoat”, which is such a haunting image.

Having enjoyed afternoon tea at the gallery, we made our way back to the city centre exhausted, and with aching feet. We had planned all sorts for the afternoon, but ended up back at the hotel resting in the lobby.

And then it was time to go home. A hard day’s night was had by both of us, and we loved every single minute!