Theatre Trip: Wicked (#14)

WICKED

Apollo Victoria Theatre

Date: 21 January 2023 (Saturday), 7:30pm

Seats: Stalls B 25-26

(Seen with Richard!)

Notes: I had been muttering about seeing a show around my birthday - either Wicked or &Juliet, thinking I’d be doing Rush tickets and being perfectly happy with that. And then on my birthday morning, when opening my birthday card, inside was a piece of paper and a note. Richard had gotten us seats to Wicked on the second row in the stalls and a reservation for a Japanese BBQ restaurant! I’m so spoiled.

So on Saturday we popped into the city early for a bit of a wander before our dinner. Dinner was really great (one of those Japanese places where you order everything raw and cook it ourself on the grill), and we made it over to the theatre in plenty of time. We both thought that the cast change had just happened, but actually it doesn’t happen for a few more months so I was pleased to see no understudies and the full current cast.

Of course I know the plot and songs in Wicked super well, so I’m there for the nostalgia and to see the cast! We only had one substitution, which wasn’t listed in the theatre anywhere that I could see but I saw on the West End Understudies twitter page. Rhidian Marc played three roles in one show! He was the Witch’s Father in the beginning, then he was Doctor Dillamond (he’s the first cover for that role), then he was the Wonderful Wizard as well! He is the second cover for that part. I’ve never seen anything like it! He was also an amazing Wizard, with a lovely tone of voice and I thought he balanced the silliness of the Wizard quite well with the serious parts of his roles.

My favourite performers of the night were the three main ladies. Carina Gillespie as Nessarose was really powerful and I thought her acting was really good as well. Her learning to walk was really good and believable which I think could be hard, and while Nessa is only a small part it is mighty. If I was in Wicked I’d love to play her.

Helen Woolf was a beautiful G(a)linda! Her tone was clear as a bell and her top notes really rang true. There was no sliding which others have done in the past, intentional or otherwise. Just bang, top note! Perfection. She and Elphaba clearly know each other well and are friends in real life. Speaking of, I was totally chuffed to be able to watch Lucie Jones as Elphaba! I’ve seen her in several things before, notably Waitress and she is amazing. Beautiful tone and she did a couple of awesome riffs which had me in chills. She did look like she may be pregnant but vocally she blew me away. I’m so glad that I got to see her in this role!

I will need to go and see it again after the cast change - after this it will be the first time ever that all three leads will be played by black performers, and more people that I know and like or haven’t had a chance to see yet! But that will be for the second half of the year.

BIRTHDAY Weekend Away: Leeds Castle Day 2

The next morning we took the biggest sleep in we could. We met for breakfast at 9:30 in the morning. I had slept very well and was ready for a fun day! After a really lovely breakfast of eggs on toast we went back to the room, packed our things, left them in the car in the courtyard and headed to the castle.

The castle had been built of different parts from the 13th and the 15th century. Part of it had been destroyed when there was a fire, when it was a monastery. Lots of bits had been rebuilt on top of old bits and there was a very rich history. However, because there is are a lot of rooms available to rent and they host weddings and other events in the castle, you cannot actually see that many of the rooms. The rooms you could see were very interesting, and there was a lot of historical information available to read and find out. Particularly interesting to me was that this year, 2020, was actually the 500th anniversary of King Henry VIII’s visit to Leeds Castle. He visited on his way back from meeting a French king in Calais, and he was believed to have stayed with his retinue for at least one night. So as I’m very interested in Tudor history, that was of particular interest to me. Unfortunately, the room that Catherine of Aragon was believed to have stayed in with closed for renovation. So was Lady Baillie’s room which was right next door. It seems that that would’ve been the main attraction of the rooms of the castle, however they all seem to be closed for renovation which was a bit disappointing.

Overall, as far as the castle itself goes I think I was a little bit underwhelmed? Certainly, there was a lot of things we couldn’t see that I would’ve liked to have seen and it took us a lot less than expected to go through the rooms and come out at the front of the castle.

After doing the trip through the castle, we of course stopped to check out the gift shop. They had a really lovely range of bits from books, to mugs, to lots of swans. The Black Swan is actually the emblem of Leeds Castle, as black swans were introduced to the castle grounds in the 1920s by Lady Baillie. Before that black swans literally only lived in Australia and she actually imported them herself. So they had a lot of swans on souvenirs. The other thing I had that I was really excited about was their own gin. I had bought one at Highclere Castle last weekend as a souvenir and it was very lovely, so I was excited to be able to get another gin as a souvenir. Despite it being only just midday we sampled a few drinks and ended up buying the special Leeds Castle gin and also a bottle of honey flavoured mead. I also got a book that has a short history of every king and queen of England, and we bought some birdseed to feed the ducks and swans on the grounds with for just a pound.

After that we went back onto the grounds, wandered around and make sure that we had walked every path. This eventually lead us through some of the planned Gardens, and out the back to an area where they have the children’s activities. This includes the bird centre, as they have birds of prey which you can visit and wish to shows most days even in the winter, a café and children’s playground, and the maze. I was definitely excited about going into the maze, as I had read that on its opening in 1988 even the designer and creator of the maze managed to get lost in it.

There was a sign at the entrance that said that on average it took seven minutes for people to find the centre of the maze, so I look made a point of looking at my watch before we went in to try and make sure that I could be faster than that. Initially the husband and I went in together but after just a few turns, I decided to make a break for it and go and find my own way. This was proving unsuccessful when I bumped into my brother, who had entered just in front of us but had taken a different path right from the beginning. We decided to band together as clearly neither of us really knew what we were doing and we continued on. Only a few turns later we found my husband and we continued on together. Just after this we started finding the clues. There are four clues within the maze that tell you up to certain points whether to go left or right, and we listened to them. Not long after that we think we actually worked out how the maze was designed and very quickly after that we found the centre. After looking at my watch we had managed to solve it in only four minutes which is faster than average. So I was pretty happy about that.

In the centre of the maze was a viewing platform which we still on and waved to my mum and dad who were waiting outside the maze for us admiring the view. Then we headed back down and into the grotto which is the way out. As this is very modern, and clearly designed for children, we found it a little bit tacky. It was certainly designed to be atmospheric and interesting, but we didn’t really feel that so much. He did have good lighting design though.

After emerging from the grotto, we decided that we had done all we wanted to do at Leeds Castle and that we would start heading home. We had a look at some local pubs on a map and decided to go to one in particular that was quite close by. However, when we got there it was very full for Sunday lunch and they didn’t have a table for five. Fair enough, so we went along to the next nice looking pub. Same story. Just as we were about to change our mind and go back to London for lunch, I noticed a pub just near where we were – in fact it could be seen from the car park of the second pub that we tried. We drove just down the road to this third pub and they had one table. Perfect!

So we had a really nice, long, leisurely pub lunch. I had a gin and tonic (of course) and a very nice serving of fish and chips, which I hadn’t heard yet since coming back from Germany. We took a few hours over lunch, before we headed back the hour or so drive to London. All in all, a lovely relaxed weekend especially after how busy Germany was, and the fact that I am spending the evenings with my family while also still working during the day. It is quite tiring although I wouldn’t have it any other way.

BIRTHDAY Weekend Away: Leeds Castle Day 1

The morning after my birthday, we had a leisurely start and all left the flat in the car around 11am. Our plan was to check out Hever Castle first before heading on to our main destination for the weeks, Leeds Castle. We arrived at Hever Castle about an hour later, only to find that it was closed entirely until the 8th of February! So that was rather disappointing, and to add the the initial disappointment, when we arrived my phone fell out of my pocket and it broke. The home button cracked and now it doesn't work! On the plus side, there is a work around and I can still use it just fine.

Instead, we went into the small church near the carpark. It turned out to be the church where Sir Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father was buried! So that was very interesting to see anyway, and we can go back to Hever another time. We also stopped for lunch then at the nearby pub (appropriately called Henry VIII), where we had amazing baked camembert and I had a toasted baguette which was delicious. It ended up being a rather long lunch and we really took our time.

After we had finished lunch, we drive the other hour or so through the country lanes to Leeds Castle. Not actually in Leeds (it is in the south of England rather than north!), the castle is gorgeous, and we were staying there! We stayed in the Courtyard B&B, which was the old courtyard and servants quarters which had been converted to bedrooms and also included a restaurant and a few other bits that were open to the public in the daytime.

All the rooms are named after famous people who stayed in the castle when it was owned by Lady Baillie in the 20th century. We were in the David Niven room, and it was a lovely homey room with a huge bathroom and free fudge as well as biscuits! After we arrived we dropped off our stuff and headed straight back out for a quick walk before it got dark. The castle is beautiful and while it was closed to go in, we wandered around the grounds and explored a little. Then we headed back to the rooms to chill for a little while before our dinner reservation.

While we hardly needed a lot of food, we had a dinner reservation in the Castle Restaurant. The walk over to the restaurant took us past the view towards to the castle where the lights were shining and it looked really beautiful. For dinner I had a pumpkin risotto and a really delicious plum tart tatin! The whole meal we had a beautiful view of the lit up castle, and I was even sung to (something which doesn't happen at a fancy restaurant like Heston's)! Then we headed to bed nice and early to curl up in our big hotel beds.

Birthday Treat - Dinner @ Hestons

I recently celebrated my 30th birthday (gosh, I'm old!), and to celebrate, we went to a very fancy restaurant. Dinner @ Hestons is inside the Mandarin Oriental restaurant in Knightsbridge. It's a very fancy hotel (we actually Googled it and rooms go for from £800 a night at least!) and therefore a very fancy restaurant!

The theme of the restaurant is historical. They have taken recipes from historical sources and updated the recipes or added modern ingredients. They describe it as "Our menu offers modern dishes, inspired by historic British gastronomy." The whole dinner is an experience. Everything is synchronised - all of the dishes in each course arrive at the same time around the table (delivered by a team of people), you get up and go to the bathroom and they fold your napkin while you're gone!

We started our evening with drinks. I started with a gin and tonic, of course (I can't remember which gin, though) and looking at the menu. I love the historical aspect of it. For entree, I chose the Earl Grey Tea Cured Salmon, which came with pickled lemon salad, gentlemen's relish and sorrel. Mum had the same, and the three boys had the Plum Meat Fruit. This is a chicken liver pate that is presented to look like a plum, and it really does! The salmon is really delicate and delicious and the other bits complement it perfectly. The salmon is from a cookbook circa 1730.

For main, I couldn't have chosen what I had last time again, because it's off the menu now! I picked the same as my brother, the Duck and Turnip with buttered black turnip, turnip cream, truffle and civet of duck. This meant a little fillet of duck and really well coordinated turnip related sides. It was a recipe from ad. 79, the oldest in the whole menu! I found that appealing too, that I was eating something that had such solid and defined historical roots. I also had my second G&T with this course!



And for dessert, I had already ordered. It is a repeat from last time after the deliciousness it caused!!! A recipe from circa 1810, and the most delicious thing I've ever eaten... Tipsy cake! Served with spit roast pineapple, it's a brioche cooked fresh to order (you have to order it when you order entree so that they can make it in time!) in a alcoholic custard sauce, with a hunk of caramelised roasted pineapple on the side. Honestly... Everyone deserves this in their lives. It's truly the best.



I also had the recommended dessert wine with it, which was perfect to go with it, of course. And truthfully, this is the best place for a special dinner. (If you have the budget.)