London Theatre Week

The Best Beloved and I have been trying to work towards a three holidays per year pattern since retirement. It mainly means avoiding school holidays so the summer is spent here at home. We will try to maintain the pattern until the government punishes us baby boomers for the collapse of world finance. How does that work, by the way, we taxpayers lend the banking bastards millions if not billions and yet we have to pay for the privilege while they still continue exactly where they left off? All the political parties leap on the same bandwagon of swingeing cuts. Not one of them talks about demanding our money back or that big word "investment", which is different from sinking our money down a rotting mine shaft called world banking.

In the Autumn Best Beloved and I have to get through the Literary Festival Season and then we can consider an autumn break before the half term at the end of October. This year we have organised a London Theatre Week.

We go up by train on Monday afternoon (www.megatrain.com) and arrive at a hotel near Covent Garden. We then make our way (using our bus passes on London Transport) to the National Theatre for a backstage tour at about teatime. We stay on at the National Theatre to hear John Lithgow talk give a one man performance about storytelling, in which he performs two short stories.

On Tuesday we walk to Smithfield's for breakfast and spend most of the morning at the British Museum. The Best Beloved has never been and it has been some time since I have been there. The afternoon is available for undecided activities but possibly Imax cinema or more museum visits such as the War Museum in preparation for our evening entertainment. In the evening we are going to see "War Horse". I love the book and the author, who we were both met at an English teachers' conference.

On Wednesday probably the V&A museum, which neither have been to but we heard a great deal about recently on Radio 4 (our daytime companion). In the afternoon we are going to a matinee of "Speaking in Tongues" by the Australian playwright, Andrew Bovell. It stars John Simms and Ian Harte, two of my favourite actors. In the evening we are off to the Young Vic (where we have never been) to see and hear Jane Horrocks in "Annie Get Your Gun". I love musicals! This one has some great standards in it!

Our last day we are seeing a matinee of "Life's a Dream" at the Donmar starring Malcolm Storry, with whom the best Beloved went to College. The show also stars Dominic West (McNulty in "The Wire"), who is vying with Hugh Laurie as my favourite TV actor of the moment. Apparently Lucy has heard him speak and he is a typical RSC sounding actor which makes his performance as the Baltimore policeman all the more remarkable. In the evening we will wend our weary way home via the Corrigan restaurant in Upper Grosvenor Street.

Theatrically and gastronomically replete, we will return to a storytelling session by the Tale Tellers on the Saturday morning. The Best Beloved is telling the story of "Red Shoes". We put this one in the programme with insufficient research. Boy is it Hans Christian Anderson outdoing the Grimm Brothers! We have found that Ingy-Thingy (her Tale Teller name) is better than Guppy (my Tale Teller name) at getting the kids settled and happy to hear stories, which is why I usually tell the headline story. However this coming Saturday roles are reversed.

We are also then into the "Books Down" stage of "What the Butler Saw". This is always a frustrating stage as you build a good head of steam with books in hand. Lines going in isn't the difficulty but lines coming out on demand and in response to the correct cue is. The movement and pace gradually built up over previous rehearsals goes into hibernation but hopefully returns as lines become more secure. Stage management is fully employed during rehearsals providing the actors with the lines which are on the tips of tongues but never quite emerging from between the lips. ASMs become quite skilled at seeing the light of recognition and memory fade in an actor's eyes and know a prompt is probably overdue. Love and dependency grows between cast and crew.

The Guide Award Night clashes with a dress rehearsal for "What the Butler Saw" which is a pain but we only get four rehearsals on the set before first night and so that Monday night is too precious to be squandered on ego massage (pleasant though the latter is!)

I will use my blog to review the London Theatre Week over the next few weeks while planning our Winter Sun holiday in February 2010.