Tuesday, January 11, 2011

9st January 2011

No - I'm not insane and that isn't a typo (at least not my typo) it will be explained in a bit. So, contrary to Shelley's statements at the end of the last blog that she wrote, here I am writing about our Cirque du Soleil adventure! Unlike most of our trips to London we were actually organised and ready with plenty of time! Which meant that when we got to the train station and saw buses; we didn't freak out! Thankfully though the buses were actually for another line and the train to London from Horsham was running. However, as we sat on the platform waiting for it (us being all so super organised we were early), we noticed that the screens which were showing the planned engineering works stated the date as being Sunday the 9st January, I found it so amusing that it just had to go in here!! (hence the title). ANYWAY, as Dan had never been to Patisserie Valerie (a delicious french cafe in London that does delicious cake) before, we actually went in early to eat cake before the show. We then discovered that we'd been so organised that we had a spare hour to kill before we needed to get to the Royal Albert Hall. The cafe wasn't far from Covent Garden so we wandered down to there and then around for a bit and then we saw a GIGANTIC Apple shop that was in a really pretty building, apparently we didn't take any photos of it so here are some from the internet:
They were perfectly ok with people wandering in and "trying out the merchandise" (ie, playing with the toys!). So we wasted a little time in there before continuing on our journey.

As per usual - Shelley's memory really amused me as we walked toward the venue and she reacted as if it was the first time she'd seen the Prince Albert Memorial even though we'd walked past the exact same place last year.

This year the Cirque du Soleil production we went to is a brand new one called Totem. So brand new that it's world premiere was only four days before we went to see it!!! Last year we saw Varekai which opened in 2002. Varekai was a fluid storytelling piece whereas Totem seemed much more disjointed but no less fantastic for being so. It was still an 'eyegasm' with fantastic costumes, breathtaking acts and heart-in-mouth feats of acrobatics! It also begged the question, if you had a stage which could move, expand, grow and evolve with your performance; what would you do? The stage in Totem seems to have a life of it's own. It was fluid and animal-like, with a curling tail, reaching hand and ever evolving video-scapes and at times was like an extra character. I have not the words to describe fully the experience of seeing such an amazing piece of theatre. All I can do is to say thank you to my wonderful wife for buying me the tickets and leave you with some photos from our night (some of which were taken illicitly inside the theatre, naughty us - copyright belongs to Cirque du Soleil and the intention is not to infringe on anyones rights!) The next post will be from Shelley as our next big adventure will be Chocolate Making in London which was bought by me for her for our anniversary!!! Photos:

Drinkies beforehand

The stage (the bit to the front is just a cloth covering over a fantastic climbing framie thing and the bit towards the back is the one which comes alive)

Ceiling tile thingies. . .

Looking across the hall to the other side. . .

Us in our seats

Poster on the outside of the hall

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I AM SOOO GUNA CONVINCE POPPA SMURF WE NEED TO GO THE NEXT TIME THEY COME TO KIWI LAND!!!!!

Anonymous said...

she can but try. T looks Like you had a great time though