So
this was a busy week for me. In addition to it being my second week of
full-time work, I actually had stuff to do. First up was Antony and Cleopatra on Tuesday night. After enjoying seeing Julius Caesar last month with Britbound,
I figured this was a safe (and relatively inexpensive) bet. We were set to meet
at 6:45pm and I worked until 5:00pm, so there was no point or time going home.
But I also had very limited money. I took the bus to London Bridge and grabbed
a bite to eat at Nando’s, where I had
accumulated enough points to get a free half chicken. I read my book and ate
chicken like a loner and still had forty-five minutes to kill.
We
were set to meet at The Anchor, so I
popped in and grabbed a glass of wine and kept reading until it was time. Here’s
the problem with meeting places: you don’t know anybody so when the one person
you do know shows up (the Britbound host) you realize that all of you have been
sitting a few people away from one another, completely oblivious. Once
Marie-Clare gathered the group together we made random smalltalk before heading
to The Globe. There were no huge Shakespeare buffs there besides me but it was
an impressive group. It takes a certain kind of person to not really like
Shakespeare but want to see one of his plays, and Antony and Cleopatra is hardly one of the better-known ones.
In
some ways this group was better than the last one, while in other ways they
weren’t. Really, it was just because at the last one I met a girl from Canada,
Mina, and she and I spent the whole night together talking and whatnot. So
there was nobody this time that I got along with that well, but at least they
all stuck together. Part of the reason I got to know Mina so well last time was
because everyone basically split up and she was the only person still around. This
time, everyone did a good job of keeping together. They were also a pretty
friendly group, unlike last time. So it’s hard to say which I preferred. It
definitely didn’t turn me off going to more events like this.
I
was a little nervous about seeing Antony
and Cleopatra, especially since Julius
Caesar was just phenomenal. In a way, it would have been better to see this
one first, because there would not have been so high a bar set. But I knew this
and I was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t match Caesar but it did a very good job trying. The combination of humor
and drama was excellent and the cast were all quite good. I always love their
dances which come out of nowhere (like when the men are drunk on a boat). They
add such a unique feeling to the play. The actress who played Cleopatra was quite
good. She looked so much like Gemma Teller from Sons of Anarchy and reminded me of her, too, which was actually
really appropriate in a way. I don’t think it was a deliberate choice, but that
would have been cool.
After
the show was over I high-tailed out of there because I had to work in the
morning, and I’m still not used to consistently getting up at 7am every day.
Wednesday was a normal day and then Thursday I did yet another thing! This is
unusual for me. I usually do stuff once every two weeks, not twice in one week!
I’m trying to get out more, so this is a good start. Up Thursday night was
movie night with Sarah. There’s a summer cinema set up in Regent’s Place Plaza
that shows two or three movies a week for free. I’d heard of it because people
were talking about a screening of Cool
Runnings they were doing on Saturday. That’s what Sarah and I were going to
see initially, but her work schedule changed so we couldn’t. However, I noticed
on Thursday they were showing one of the greatest movies of all time: Clueluess. I know, I know, Sarah and I
have both seen Clueless at least a
million times. Whatever, that movie is great. And it got us out of the house.
Thursday
happened to be Sarah’s day off which is why it worked out so well. And the night
thing was the screening began at 6:30, so it wasn’t going to be a late night
for me. And it was FREE! I met Sarah after work and we walked to the plaza,
which was really nice. I’m a sucker for attractive concrete parks with no
actual green space. It was a really nice setup. The entire area had lots of
concrete steps that I assume businesspeople eat lunch on. Sarah and I sat on
one of those really close to the screen. Had we been earlier we may have been
able to snag one of the fifty or so beach chairs they had set up or the dozen bean
bags. Oh well, at least we weren’t sitting on the concrete floor, like we
thought we would be. Clueless was
excellent, as per usual. We were both really glad we had gone. It put us in an
excellent mood for the rest of the day. Summer isn’t over yet, hopefully I can
make it to another one of these.
