Read Day 0, 1 here
Day 9
There is a road in London called Exhibition Road. Proximal to this road there are 3 museums: Natural History Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Science Museum. We visited the former 2 museums on the same day.
We headed to the Natural History Museum first. This sort of museum isn't really Mum's cup of tea, but Rachel & I insisted on going there because dinosaurs! and you can't miss out on seeing dinosaurs right? Apparently it's like all the other natural history museums in other countries, but such museums don't exist in Singapore so I think my excitement was founded.
Cast assessment:
Day 9
There is a road in London called Exhibition Road. Proximal to this road there are 3 museums: Natural History Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, and Science Museum. We visited the former 2 museums on the same day.
We headed to the Natural History Museum first. This sort of museum isn't really Mum's cup of tea, but Rachel & I insisted on going there because dinosaurs! and you can't miss out on seeing dinosaurs right? Apparently it's like all the other natural history museums in other countries, but such museums don't exist in Singapore so I think my excitement was founded.
If you didn't already know, I have always liked dinosaurs. From those days when Walking With Dinosaurs showed on tv and I'd watch it with Dad and Dan. I used to be able to tell you all sorts of cool dinosaur trivia like the difference between a Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus and Apatosaurus (yes, I was am a nerdy kid), but that phase sorta passed and my memory now needs a little jogging. The Stegosaurus had a walnut sized brain. That I remember.
Anyway, I found out new dino trivia at this exhibit too, like: if a T-rex tripped while running, the fall would probably have killed it. Because its hands aren't long enough to protect its head from hitting the ground first. Hahahaha. Poor shorthanded fellas.
After lunch at the museum, we headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum (otherwise known as the V&A). I think it's something like a British history museum. It just so happened that a free tour was starting when we wandered in, so we joined in:) The guide really knew her stuff, and we learnt more about people like Elizabeth I, Charles I & II, Mary Queen of Scott's. (I wrote some random fun facts about them on my phone but I lost all that when my phone had to be rebooted and I lost a whole bunch of information, sadly.)
There was this Great Bed of Wale on which 6 bakers and their wives once slept together. Imagine 12 people on that one bed! Everyone had to leave their mark on the bed after they slept on it so there was centuries-old graffiti on the bed. I was reading the graffiti and noticed that someone named Ted slept on it a few hundred years ago (his carved name was really obvious). Alternatively some modern guy named Ted might have secretly managed to carve his name beside the centuries-old graffiti.
We also saw Raphael's tapestries. I really admire the tapestry weavers of those times because how does anyone have the patience to do things like that?
There was also an ongoing fashion exhibit from the 1900s to modern times which was pretty cool.
Whose bright idea it was to make women wear dresses like these back in the time? This fashion didn't last long for obvious reasons (women constantly had to walk sideways through doors). Can you imagine all those poor women shimmying their way around the place?
The embroidery is beautiful though.
We went to Harrods after, where Mum bought tea and chocolates and then went to look for lipstick. As she was choosing a colour and I was holding her stuff, Rachel came to me with various lipstick colours and tried them on my lips (inclusive of white and black, which look like frozen frosty lips and very dirty lips; the colour payoff was rather sheer.) Then I glanced in the mirror and realised she'd put the most garish bright Barbie pink lipstick on my lower lip. To my horror, this colour refused to come off so I had to go hunt for a suitable shade to mask the colour so I wouldn't have to walk around with stupid bright pink lips. Anyway, there were cool things like Earl Grey chocolate being sold, but Harrods is really expensive so we didn't buy a lot.
We also found the Diana & Dodi shrine which says innocent victims but Aunty LK insists it said they were murdered when she first saw it. Well.
Anyway, then we went to watch Wicked and we were late cos Mum had lingered around Harrods till 7.15pm and obviously one can't catch a 7.30pm show like that.
They let us in after What is This Feeling.
Before that, we stood outside watching the cast on the tiny tv while I groaned in anguish because I cannot believe I was late for a West End show.
We got the cheapest seats for Wicked too but instead of getting the faraway cheap seats, we decided to try the close to the stage but restricted view cheap seats.
Verdict: I might prefer faraway cheap seats (like what we got for Matilda) because most of the time, my view was blocked by this staircase, and I had to strain my head to the right.
Of course, there are advantages to getting seats really near the stage, like getting to see the actors' faces up close. Fiyero was pretty cute.
Glinda (Savannah Stevenson) the strongest singer in this cast. Also, she was so pretty; she looked so much like Amy Adams on stage. (If you googled her now, she doesn't bear a strong resemblance though. Maybe it was the makeup.)
I enjoyed Elphaba (Willemijn Verkaik) a lot too.
Fiyero wasn't great though. His voice wasn't strong at all (he spoke significantly louder and better than he sang) so he was obviously outsung by Elphaba in As Long As You're Mine.
I'm not sure who was playing him. Jeremy Taylor normally plays Fiyero but I just googled him and if my memory serves me correctly, it wasn't him I saw that night. Anyway, I distinctly disliked the voice of whoever I saw that night.
Boq (Sam Lupton) was pretty good.
All in all, while I enjoyed the visuals and costumes (though frankly I don't think any show is as visually stunning as Phantom), I wasn't overfond of Wicked. Perhaps it's because I still think Les Mis songs are 989281927819x better (plus I was blessed with the chance to get to watch a pretty amazing cast for Les Mis). It was also probably because Fiyero's voice was so very disappointing (and being cute doesn't make up for not having a strong voice in a West End show). Also, factors like restricted view actually affect a theatre experience more than I thought it would. So somehow, this experience didn't hold a candle to the previous 3 shows.
Nevertheless, getting to watch anything on West End is pretty amazing in itself and I'm so very happy that I got to watch 4 West End shows during this trip:)
All in all, while I enjoyed the visuals and costumes (though frankly I don't think any show is as visually stunning as Phantom), I wasn't overfond of Wicked. Perhaps it's because I still think Les Mis songs are 989281927819x better (plus I was blessed with the chance to get to watch a pretty amazing cast for Les Mis). It was also probably because Fiyero's voice was so very disappointing (and being cute doesn't make up for not having a strong voice in a West End show). Also, factors like restricted view actually affect a theatre experience more than I thought it would. So somehow, this experience didn't hold a candle to the previous 3 shows.
Nevertheless, getting to watch anything on West End is pretty amazing in itself and I'm so very happy that I got to watch 4 West End shows during this trip:)
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