![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I meant to update my blog while I was overseas, and never really got the chance. I've been busy working on a massive update for my website about this latest trip.
For those of you who don't know, the BBC is doing a new Robin Hood TV series. And as is customary with such things, they are preparing a documentary to say how great the legend is and how vital it is that you catch their new show. The documentary crew paid for my flight over so that they could have a talking head with a North American accent. I doubt that I'll be in more than 30 seconds of the documentary, but it was a nice experience. (Although I think the format hampered my contributions, as there was stuff I didn't get around to saying that probably would have been helpful.)
Anyway, I attended the 2006 Robin Hood Festival, which was fun. I'll write more about that on my site. In London, I did some touristy things like tour the Tower of London (which I did in 1993) and the Houses of Parliament. Pretty buildings, but looking at the gilded walls of the House of Lords and the opulence of the crown jewels really brought out my socialist tendencies. How many poor could have been fed and clothed if they said "hmmm, maybe a bit less gold on that wall"?
I saw some London theatre. The best thing in seeing Antony and Cleopatra at "Shakespeare's" Globe was the whole groundling experience - standing just a few feet from the stage. Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George was excellent, and the staging was really effective. The National Theatre's production of Brecht's The Life of Galileo with Simon Russell Beale was also very good, although not as dark and strange as I'd understood Brecht to be. But then, maybe I'm just dark and strange.
I thought Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus were the most happening places to be at night, as the rest of the country seems to like going to bed early. It means that the drunken morons you expect to see at 1 am in Toronto start turning up at 9pm in England. But the West End was still buzzing with mostly sober folks at midnight.
Canterbury was a beautiful break away, although I wasn't keen that I had to go back a second time to pick up my lost glasses. The beauty of their cathedral didn't bring out the same socialistic reaction that the gaudiness of the London splendour did.
I didn't stay in Nottingham this time, but rather Edwinstowe, the small village outside of Sherwood. It was a nice place, but I'm clearly a city mouse. After a while, the provincialism of villages begin to bother me. It made me think a lot about the damning limits we impose on ourselves.
More pictures soon, but:
(These pictures might not work if you're viewing this entry from a "Friends" page, but they should work from my actual journal.)
The Black Swan in Edwinstowe, where I stayed in RH Country:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06edw-blsw.jpg
Me at the Major Oak, the old tree in Sherwood Forest that people claim - with more idealism than historical logic - was Robin Hood's headquarters.
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06sher-memajor.jpg
Sherwood Forest "about the break of day":
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06sher-dawn7.jpg
The rainy joust at the Festival:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06fest-joust1.jpg
Some of the many re-enactors:
The Alchemist, John Green:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06fest-jgreene.jpg
The Ratcatcher and His Wife:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06fest-ratc1.jpg
The medieval style puppet show, adapting the Gisborne ballad:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06puppeteer.jpg
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06puppets1.jpg
And finally, me with some very dear friends outside the British Museum:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06meandali.jpg
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06meandkir.jpg
More on this later.
Allen
For those of you who don't know, the BBC is doing a new Robin Hood TV series. And as is customary with such things, they are preparing a documentary to say how great the legend is and how vital it is that you catch their new show. The documentary crew paid for my flight over so that they could have a talking head with a North American accent. I doubt that I'll be in more than 30 seconds of the documentary, but it was a nice experience. (Although I think the format hampered my contributions, as there was stuff I didn't get around to saying that probably would have been helpful.)
Anyway, I attended the 2006 Robin Hood Festival, which was fun. I'll write more about that on my site. In London, I did some touristy things like tour the Tower of London (which I did in 1993) and the Houses of Parliament. Pretty buildings, but looking at the gilded walls of the House of Lords and the opulence of the crown jewels really brought out my socialist tendencies. How many poor could have been fed and clothed if they said "hmmm, maybe a bit less gold on that wall"?
I saw some London theatre. The best thing in seeing Antony and Cleopatra at "Shakespeare's" Globe was the whole groundling experience - standing just a few feet from the stage. Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George was excellent, and the staging was really effective. The National Theatre's production of Brecht's The Life of Galileo with Simon Russell Beale was also very good, although not as dark and strange as I'd understood Brecht to be. But then, maybe I'm just dark and strange.
I thought Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus were the most happening places to be at night, as the rest of the country seems to like going to bed early. It means that the drunken morons you expect to see at 1 am in Toronto start turning up at 9pm in England. But the West End was still buzzing with mostly sober folks at midnight.
Canterbury was a beautiful break away, although I wasn't keen that I had to go back a second time to pick up my lost glasses. The beauty of their cathedral didn't bring out the same socialistic reaction that the gaudiness of the London splendour did.
I didn't stay in Nottingham this time, but rather Edwinstowe, the small village outside of Sherwood. It was a nice place, but I'm clearly a city mouse. After a while, the provincialism of villages begin to bother me. It made me think a lot about the damning limits we impose on ourselves.
More pictures soon, but:
(These pictures might not work if you're viewing this entry from a "Friends" page, but they should work from my actual journal.)
The Black Swan in Edwinstowe, where I stayed in RH Country:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06edw-blsw.jpg
Me at the Major Oak, the old tree in Sherwood Forest that people claim - with more idealism than historical logic - was Robin Hood's headquarters.
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06sher-memajor.jpg
Sherwood Forest "about the break of day":
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06sher-dawn7.jpg
The rainy joust at the Festival:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06fest-joust1.jpg
Some of the many re-enactors:
The Alchemist, John Green:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06fest-jgreene.jpg
The Ratcatcher and His Wife:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06fest-ratc1.jpg
The medieval style puppet show, adapting the Gisborne ballad:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06puppeteer.jpg
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06puppets1.jpg
And finally, me with some very dear friends outside the British Museum:
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06meandali.jpg
http://www.boldoutlaw.com/images/06meandkir.jpg
Allen
