Stratford-upon-Avon

-- pictures from Stratford-upon-Avon --

I finally ventured off on my own for a few days: I spend thursday evening, friday, and saturday morning in Shakespeare-land. One of the first things I realised about the town is that it would be indistinguishable from any other small English town, if not for the influence of a certain bard.

Anyways, I got there thursday after a few minor mishaps, including nearly getting lost in Birmingham (had to walk from one train station to another, and the signs managed to mislead me). I wandered a bit, but mostly just made my way to the hostel. It was very nice -- an old converted mansion, supposedly. Luckily for me, I was the only person in my room (the floors creaked all the time, so no late-night visitors was a boon). I made friends with a family from Brighton, who were visiting the nearby Warwick castle for Halloween, and talked to the staff about how the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre works

A side note about that -- the RSC has been doing three productions for awhile now: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and Love's Labours Lost. The latter two both feature a British actor, David Tennant, who is relatively unknown in the US... he plays Doctor Who at the moment, if that rings any bells. He's an enormous star over here (perhaps I could say he's an English Brad Pitt, or a Christian Bale who never made any big Hollywood films, or something). Because of his popularity, tickets for those two shows sold out as soon as they became available (about a year ago). I came to Stratford with no real hope of seeing anything -- and Love's Labours Lost was the only one I had the opportunity to see at all, because of timing

So yeah, I talked to the staff at the hostel, and discovered how to stand a chance at getting a ticket. If someone bought one who could no longer attend, they can sell the ticket back to the RSC, and these 'returns' are made available. If I was willing to queue up early friday morning, I could just maybe get lucky

And that's what I did... I went to bed early early thursday (10-ish), and found myself awake at 4:30am. A bit earlier than planned, but I was awake. I talked to the night security guard for awhile, had some tea, and bundled up for the walk. Yeah... the hostel is two miles from the edge of town. It was barely light out. I walked it.

When I got to the theatre, there was one girl who was the first one to queue for tickets. She told me something exceedingly helpful -- for every performance, the RSC holds 10 tickets for 16 to 25-year-olds who show up the morning of the show. Tickets that cost 5 pounds (they're normally 30 or more). Suddenly, being second in the queue, I was guaranteed a seat. All that was left was to wait for the box office to open at 9:30...

Anyways, I got my ticket, spent the afternoon wandering through town (and eventually taking a nap back at the hostel), and made my way to the theatre at about 6:30. The show was absolutely fantastic. Love's Labours Lost is one of the lesser-done Shakespeare plays, because the language is even more daunting than usual, but the actors were just so superb that the audience was falling off their seats laughing. I really just can't describe how amazing it was...

Then, to top it all off, that night was a special performance -- after, the actors changed out of costume and came back out on stage to answer questions. We got to find out some neat stuff, like who played the bear (a brief dance by someone in a bear costume), and how in one part David Tennant tosses a hat onto a tree branch (during our performance, it didn't fall off, and apparently that was only the second time it didn't fall)

So after that I took the bus back to the hostel (it just doesn't run early in the morning), passed out, and then spent saturday getting back to Nottingham. It was basically 3 hours by the train, and I met some more interesting people along the way... an easy ride.

From having no expectation of seeing anything, to seeing an absolutely fantastic RSC production... I don't think it gets much better.