http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/venice-canaletto-and-his-rivals
which is all about the craze, in the days of the Grand Tour, for acquiring souvenir scene paintings of Venice. If you were a wealthy English aristocrat, instead of sending postcards, you placed an order for some workshop to paint you a few of the major scenes, with plenty of sunshine in them, and you had them sent back to your estate. Naturally.
In January, in London, sunshine is something that hardly anyone can remember seeing, so there was quite a crush to see the paintings. Before our ticket time, I had found us a related lecture to go to, given by one of the curators and one of the dance faculty from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, on the significance of carnival and dance in the paintings. Basically this means going to hear unbelievably clever people talk about unbelievably specialized knowledge - for free! Free! And there were several dance demonstrations, given in costume. Free!
Then we needed carbohydrates, and had tea in the restaurant upstairs. I shared my scone with JY only because it was his birthday. My generosity was so astounding that I forgot to take a picture.
We had an excellent view of the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square, which presently has this on it:
Went to Chalk Farm to have dinner at the Made in Camden restaurant at the Roundhouse Theatre before a performance of Julius Caesar by the RSC, which is in residence at the Roundhouse for the winter. Happy birthday, dad, beware the Ides of March! (Certain Reader: JY had roasted yam, onion and grape salad followed by roasted grey mullet with potatoes dauphinoise, and I had creamed cauliflower soup with truffle oil followed by a venison ragout. Yes: Venison. And it was delicious.)
I had never been to the Roundhouse for a performance before, and found it delightful viewing. We were in the front row of the Circle, for an excellent view of, in this case, stabbing and screaming. Sam Troughton was especially good, I thought, as Brutus, but John Mackay needed some help, as Cassius, with his verse-speaking. Maybe just an off night. Maybe the slippy-ness of the stage, with all the blood, threw him off. (It is the job of one of the stage crew, at the interval, to come out with a rag and wipe up the floor.)
The set was minimal, with extensive use of a film screen upstage, divided into about six moveable panels through which the cast enter and exit. The screen is used primarily to project films representing the crowds listening to the orators, and the soldiers in battle.
Special theatre dorkage note: Harriet Walter (newly Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, if you please), Richard McCabe, and Simon Williams were in the audience.
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