Notes from Around the Sundial: London
Created | Updated Jul 8, 2012
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!
Not for me the beach holiday. I tend to pack a lot into my time away from home. It's all about value for money - it costs a fair bit getting to foreign places, so I try and absorb as much of the local ambience as possible in the time available.
In my recent four day/three night stay in London, I managed to pack in two shows and three museums as well as a number of decent meals, lots of stops for coffee and some shops that we don't get back home in Dublin. These included:
- Sir John Soane's Museum
- The Victoria and Albert Museum
- The Science Museum (a short visit)
- Mamma Mia (the Musical)
- A Comedy of Errors by W Shakespeare at the Roundhouse
- Camden Market
- HMV - biggest CD shop in the world
- The Early Music Shop - specialist in recorders and viols
- Chappell's - biggest sheet music shop in the world
Of course, I didn't go alone. My two daughters, El and Iz came too, although El had double-booked, and had to head off to Venice for another holiday after two days.
I could talk for a long time about any one of these. John Soane's Museum is already described in the Guide, and many people have been to the Science Museum. In fact, we had a h2g2 Meet there many years ago. The Roundhouse is an old converted railway turntable shed in Camden, made into a circular theatre, with the seats around three sides of the central stage. This perfectly suits Shakespeare, as he wrote his plays for a roughly similar set-up. The Shakespearian stage was very deep and the audience were on three sides of it. The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare's ultimate ridiculous plot, based on two sets of identical twins, each separated at birth and suddenly for the first time brought together. An additional complication is that the each of the twins bears the same name as the other, for reasons which were explained but I didn't quite grasp. This allows for two hours of people being mistaken for each other in every possible combination. It may sound lame but it was absolutely hilarious.
What I really want to talk about, though, is that amazing treasure house of art and design, the Victoria and Albert Museum. Iz is interested in art and design, and the V&A is a great introduction to it in all its forms. This is not just a gallery full of paintings. There is sculpture, carpets, decorative tiles, clothing, teapots, wrought iron gates, and everything else you can think of where the design goes beyond basic function and strays into the aesthetical.
We saw so many things that it is hard to list them all. Highlights included:
the Cast Courts, a giant room with plaster casts of art works from around Europe - the gable wall of a Spanish Cathedral; Trajan's Column, that huge pillar in Rome with a graphic depiction of the life and achievements of the Roman Emperor Trajan (admittedly in two halfs so that it would fit in the room); the tombs of Henry II, king of England and France, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine; and so on.
examples of the 'Lolita' fashion style from Japan, where teenagers dress in an elaborate fairy-tale style inspired by 'Hello Kitty' and influenced by European Goth and Punk styles.
Costumes from film and the world of shows and music, including Adam Ant's 'Prince Charming' costume and those of Scar and Sarabi from the Lion King.
a fruit bowl made of metal in the shape of the skeleton of a leaf.
Islamic wall tiles in non-representational patterns, to avoid the depiction of any living thing.
Admission to the museum was free, but they suggested a donation if we thought the cause was worth supporting, and there were some exhibitions within the museum that required additional quite pricy tickets - £12 to see the 'British Design' exhibition, for example. We didn't pay for any of these extra exhibitions, but still saw quite a lot of British Design, although not of the modern variety - I was particularly impressed with the William Morris 'Arts and Crafts Movement' designs for wallpaper.
The central court of the museum has been converted into a very pleasant garden with a paddling pool - many small children were getting completely soaked in the shallow water, which didn't matter because of the heat of the day and the strong sun. We had a very pleasant lunch by the pool.
You could spend a lot of time in Victoria and Albert. We spent a long morning, and only scratched the surface of the treasures on display.
