"The Mousetrap" and "The Tempest"

First of all, happy, happy birthday to my wonderful little sister, Allison!! I love you so much, Allie!

Today was another very fantastic day (I don't think I'll ever have a bad day in London!) though it didn't start out fantastic. At 4:00 AM, an absolutely horrible blaring sound started, waking us all up. At first I was just annoyed by it, until I realized it was the fire alarm. All of us hurried out of the building, but were called back in before we even reached the meeting point. It was someone burning toast.






So I went back to sleep, not getting up until about 10:00. I had a slow morning, doing homework (this is a study abroad) and writing a bit, before going out to see The Mousetrap with Patrick, one of the guys in the programme. I'd bought tickets for next Tuesday, but it turns out Tuesday's going to be pretty crammed, so we decided to get them switched to today.











We thought the show started at 3:00, but it actually started at 4:00, so we went to Chinatown! It was Patrick's first time there, and we wandered around the shops, which I hadn't been in much before. I bought a couple of cheap souvenirs, and we ate at a small (but very tasty) restaurant. I got hot and sour soup (I'm slightly obsessed with the stuff) and chicken fried rice. Both were delicious, and the price was very nice.

Interior of the St. Martins Theatre

So then we got to the show. Mousetrap plays at the St. Martin's theatre just off Shaftesbury Avenue, and it is the longest running play in the history of plays; it's been showing in London for 59 years now! It was written by Agatha Christie, the Dame of crime novels and one of my idols. As always in her stories, I was kept guessing who the murderer was all the way to the end, not really knowing what to expect. Actually, during intermission, I was talking to Patrick and I ventured a wild guess at who it would be and turned out to be right! I didn't actually expect that, and when the murderer was revealed, everyone in the theatre gasped. It was a fantastic show and we could see everything from our seats in the Upper Circle!




From there, Patrick and I hurried to Little Angel's Theatre, which is tucked away in a tiny side street that we almost missed. It's a ways away from St. Martins, and we were worried we were going to be late, but we made it in plenty of time. Our entire programme was meeting together to see a children's theatre performance of The Tempest, the last play Shakespeare ever wrote and the first one we're studying as a class. The theatre we went to was actually a puppet theatre, so none of us knew exactly what to expect. It was absolutely fantastic! Only some of the characters were puppets, and the costuming and puppetry were really quite brilliant. I'd always understood the story of the play, but it was really enlightening to see it performed. The acting was impressive, especially since almost every actor played multiple characters in the show, and most people in the audience didn't even realize that until the curtain.
 

Shot of Dagmar Passage, the cute little alley where the theatre is located

Anyway, now I have to finish reading All's Well That Ends Well for class, write a response for that, and write a short review on The Tempest, all before church tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!