To London, to see The Marriage of Figaro at the Royal Opera House. The first time we went to the ROH was 22nd July 2023, and it was this David McVicar production of Figaro that we saw that day. I really liked the staging, and it would be good to see it again - albeit with a different cast.
A straightforward run down on the 15.04, and then a cab to the junction of Long Acre and Bow Street, just a few yards from a branch of Pizza Express. To a large extent we have stopped frequenting Pizza Express - apart from the Jazz Club in Soho, which somehow seems to manage to elevate itself to a different league, quite independent of the music on offer.
Truth be told, in the early days PE could be relied on for good food at a modest price, but these days the latter is definitely no longer true. On this occasion, however, we had a "two for one" voucher, and the proximity to the ROH (perhaps 70m to the main door) made it an obvious choice for pre-opera dining.
From the moment we arrived, the service was - to be kind - relaxed, and it was almost amusing to see so many grown men engaged in so much "busyness" with so relatively little to show for it. At one point one of our (several) waiters exclaimed "Sorry - I nearly forgot about you!", which was probably an accurate summary of our experience. Around 10 minutes before we left, a large (30+?) group of young people came in and were shown to a backroom which was obviously being kept clear for them. Since there appeared to be no additional staff to deal with them I was quite relieved that our reliance on any kind of service was coming to an end. Even more of a relief was the discovery that, having signed up for the "two for one" offer, I was now entitled to request and pay for our bill online, which at least obviated the need to distract any of the waiters from their "busyness" elsewhere...
A Salad Nicoise, La Reine pizza and salad:
Biscoff Cheesecake and a flat white:
Lemon & raspberry cheesecake with raspberry coulis and vanilla gelato:
Out, to walk the short distance to the ROH, to sit and people watch in the main foyer. Then up to our seats in the Donald Gordon Grand Tier:
As anticipated, we thoroughly enjoyed the performance, with the magificent sets as impressive as I had remembered them and excellent performances from Alex Esposito as Figaro and Louise Alder as Susanna.
Interval drinks in the Paul Hamlyn Hall, and then back to our seats to people watch before Acts 3 and 4. Amanda leaned forward to check out the people in the stalls and announced "That's Michael Portillo down there!". I glanced down and opined, "Nah - he's too young and too blond". "It is!", she responded. I took another look and saw that the man in question was clearly "with" the lady in the green to his left. I Googled "Michael Portillo's wife", looked at a few photos and conceded that it was indeed the Portillos:
Figaro is a fairly long opera, and even with the earlier-than-usual start, by the time it ended I was keen to make our way back to St Pancras as promptly as possible - if only to make sure I could pick up my habitual "large Earl Grey tea" before we got on board.
Out onto the street, where we enacted my plan of turning
right (in the opposite direction to St Pancras) and starting to walk down to
Aldwych, from where I knew we were more likely to catch a cab. We hadn't gone more than about 80 - 100m when
I saw one in a side street, so immediately hailed it. The cabbie acknowledged
me and we waited for him to turn into Bow Street - which was tricky as there
was a lot of stationary traffic. While
we waited, I was conscious of someone coming up fast on my left, rushing across
the road and heading towards "our" cab, arm in the air...
I have always found London cabbies to be quite fair and
honourable, in the sense that once they have achnowledged you and switched off their "For Hire" light they will stick
with you, even if another customer gets to them first and tries to hijack them. For that reason, I was relaxed and happy to stand on the pavement and wait to
be picked up when the traffic cleared and the cabbie could make a right turn. My dear wife, on the other hand, always
finds it impossible to bow to my routine exhortations to "just bloody let me be in
charge of getting the cab - you always confuse matters" and so - little
terrier that she is - she started running across the road to "stake our
claim". As the gentleman that I
usually try to be, I then felt obliged to follow her and jump into the cab - all the while planning on acquiring both a muzzle and handcuffs to avoid any
such problems in the future (I'm begining to suspect that when she promised, 35 years ago, to "love, honour and obey" me she had at least some of her fingers crossed...).
Upon quizzing Amanda as to why, once again, she had found it
impossible to simply stand and wait with me, she blurted out that our
competitor for the cab was Portillo, and that she was determined not to let him have
it... She then apologised to the cabbie for
denying him a celebrity fare, to which he replied, "I don't mind - I wasn't that
keen on him...". And you tell it to kids these days and they say
"Who's Michael Portillo?"...
A straightforward run home on the 23.35 and bed by about 02.00. I still think I need to buy a muzzle.
