Tag Archives: Theatre

London Theatre Pietro Place Peter Jones

THEATRE

The uniqueness of London Theater is renowned worldwide. The quality of the performances, the affordability of the seats, the sheer madness of quantity of theater within inner London.  Modern auditoriums like the Bridge Theatre, the National and the Barbican in addition to the intensity of theatres on St. Martins Lane and Shaftesbury Avenue makes London the Theater capital of the world. And then there are the rituals of the Theatre visit itself. The glass of wine before the performance and the reserved glass prepaid for the intermission. But there is something else about London Theatre that I find utterly irresistible.  Ice cream!  

Ice cream during the intermission is an old tradition. Usually, the ice cream is made by Loseley. The ice cream company that seems to have served ice cream, to theatregoers since I was a child growing up in London. I find it a welcome pick-me up during a long play. Think “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (aptly named) and think of two intermissions and think ICE CREAM!

But why and where did it come from.  For sure it doesn’t exist on Broadway.  In old theatres where air conditioning is not part of the service, ice cream melts fast and gets messy.  So what is the derivation. Could it be that it was a Victorian tradition? Maybe beginning at seaside resorts where Punch and Judy shows and music halls on Victorian piers provided children with fun and….ice cream!  Pantomimes are children’s events so ice cream would obviously be around, but Pantomime is a Christmas tradition. And Christmas is hardly the time for an ice cream! Likely there is an Italian connection. 19th century immigrants bringing their ice cream traditions to outside shows and then inside as theaters became more weather existent.  In Shakespeare’s time it certainly was not ice cream that kept the crowd on its feet.  It was alcohol.  Lots of it. Usually, beer or some ghastly form of it  

 I will be content with my glass of white wine at the intermission and a tub of Loseley to keep me alert for the second half!!  Incidentally, vanilla is the most consumed of all the flavors. 

London Theatre Pietro Place Peter Jones

London Theatre

Every time that I go to London, I try to see a play.  Last time I was there, I went to The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the indoor Globe theatre.  I saw Shakespeare’s Cymbeline . It is still playing actually.  At the Wanamaker, there is no electrical lighting inside of the theatre and only candles and candelabras on pulleys.  It is classic London Theatere: good old Elizabethan fare served up on bare sets with traditional music in the background. Catch any performance there if you can.  It is like no experience I have experienced.

This time, I was invited by a friend of mine, Lee Curran, to go see a play at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square.  Lee is the lighting director; a “creative artistic type” that lights up much of London and Stratford with his art.  The play was Linda, a play by Penelope Skinner and starring Noma Dumezweni.  She plays an award-winning business woman promoting beauty products while facing the hypocrisy of how beauty is marketed to women.  This was a play originally starring Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City fame but she pulled out with just a week to go before preview.  Noma stepped in out of the blue, out of nowhere really, and pulled off one of the greatest tour de forces in acting.  Talk about a crash course in learning lines. She was amazing, as was the play.

For me the real buzz was that I got to sit in the tech box with Lee high above the performance and watch the play through his critical eye.  That was a first.  It felt a bit like being in the cockpit of an airplane next to the pilot.  We saw the next to last performance of the play.  I got to meet the star and even got to grab an Indian meal afterwards.  A truly perfect night in London.

London Theatre Pietro Place Peter Jones