London, Act V: Comedy of Eras

A leisurely stroll across the Thames this morning took us to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.

This Globe is not the original—in fact, it was completed in 1997. It turns out those pesky Puritans in the mid-1600s had the actual Globe dismantled when they decided theater was vulgar. (That wasn’t the original either—it had been a rebuilt version after fire ravaged the first one some time after Shakespeare’s death.) Puritans caused a lot of problems for theater, it turns out—during Shakespeare’s time, the Lord Mayor of London was a Puritan, and to avoid his wrath the Globe’s players actually had to physically take apart and move the theater piece by piece from its original location to (roughly) where it stands now. That’s when they named it ‘The Globe’—prior to that, it had simply been ‘the theater’ because it was the only one. What would eventually be the globe was actually the first building in England dedicated solely to theater; before that, players just performed their plays in inns.

But, I digress. London had apparently kind of forgotten all about Shakespeare’s presence in the city until the late 1940s, when an American filmmaker named Wannemaker, apparently a Shakespeare superfan, had come over to find Shakespeare stuff and was super mad that there wasn’t any. After decades of insisting to the Brits that this needed to be done, Wannemaker finally convinced them to build a replica of the theater from scratch. His daughter would go on to play Madam Hooch in the Harry Potter films.

Anyway, they built the theater as close to spec as possible. Thanks to the exhaustive notes of one particular Swiss tourist from the early 1600s, they were able to recreate not only the theater and its seating (or lack thereof, if you were so poor that you had to stand) but even had record of the customs of the performers, like ending every performance with the cast dancing a jig for the audience.

The stage was adorned with astrological signs. Back in the day, these were in deference to Queen Elizabeth I’s love of astrology, which I had no idea was a thing. Apparently, she even had a court magician, actually a scientist named Dr. John Dee. Dee would advise her on all kinds of stuff, like when to declare war and, as our tour guide put it, “when to pretend she was getting married”.

Not that Queen Elizabeth I ever attended, back in the day. If she wanted to see a play, she’d just make them come to her. But Queen Elizabeth II did attend the very first performance at the newly rebuilt Globe, which is an actual working theater. The actress playing Queen Elizabeth I rode out on a white horse to give the dedication, and was instructed to bow to the queen in her box seat when she finished. To everyone’s astonishment, Queen Elizabeth II bowed back.

At the end of the tour, there was a surviving copy of the First Folio, the first print collection of Shakespeare’s plays, on display, as well as a replica of the actual coronation chair. And, of course, a gift shop.

We ate lunch at a little old pub called Blackfriars, with a really cool mosaic ceiling decorated around with reliefs of, well, friars.

Then, we split up. We were supposed to go to the British Museum today, but it closed because apparently all the workers went on strike, so instead, we did some stuff we didn’t think we’d have time to do. Dad went birdwatching, while Mom and I went exploring. Our first stop was to attempt to visit Platform 9 ¾. King’s Cross Station actually acknowledges its roll in the Harry Potter lore with a Harry Potter store and a luggage trolley halfway through a wall. Alas, the line to get into the store wound around the station, and the line to get your picture with the luggage trolley looked about 20 minutes long. I waited in more than enough lines at Star Wars Celebration, so we decided we didn’t need to do this.

Instead, we went to Cecil Court, a little alley in Covent Garden full of antiques dealers, including several purveyors of antique books.

We weren’t really sure what we were looking for. I had it in my head that it would be cool to find an old, British hardcover of one of my favorite authors. Mom was looking for a vintage copy of a famous children’s book, like Paddington Bear, to give to my little nephew.

What we learned is that shopping for vintage books is a little overwhelming. In some of the shops, there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the books were arranged. Sometimes, it was roughly alphabetical, sometimes by topic or genre, and other times by how expensive they were. In some shops, the prices were clearly labeled, and in others, you had to ask. One of the shops had loads of signed first editions—some of them, very old. There were a few that caught my eye—a hardcover of The Hobbit for 100 pounds, several copies of Pride and Prejudice varying in price from 50 to 135 pounds—but ultimately, we decided that we weren’t the type of people to own rare books, because the point of having a book was to read it. Instead, we stopped at Foyle’s (the British equivalent of Barnes and Noble, near as I could tell) and bought some lovely British editions there that we wouldn’t be afraid to touch.

For dinner tonight, we headed to Rules, the oldest restaurant in London, established in 1798. It’s sort of a staple in any media set in Britain, having appeared in everything from James Bond films to Downton Abbey.

Rules’s menu features a lot of game, like rabbit, venison, and pheasant (when it’s in season). Their most famous dish is the steak and kidney pudding, which Dad ventured to try, while Mom had a chicken pie and I ordered duck. For dessert, we went with Rules’s two most famous desserts: the sticky toffee pudding (I will have sticky toffee pudding every night of my London trip if at all possible and never, ever be sorry) and the golden syrup sponge cake. Everything was incredibly delicious. Also, true to the game hunting theme, they use antlers in all of their decorating.

Tomorrow is a packed day, so I think I’ll delve into my pile of new books for a bit.