To Stratford to see Middlemarch - Part 1 in the Swan Theatre. We fancied staying over and found a relatively good deal on a room and breakfast at the Crowne Plaza, which is new to us.
A straightforward run over, to find the Crowne Plaza car park absolutely heaving - we quickly found that the hotel was playing host to a significant number of events in the Stratford Literary Festival. That was bad enough, but when we arrived at the Reception Desk to check in we were met by both long queues and large signs like this one:
This did not bode well - and my misgivings were well founded. The claim that the new management system would "enhance (my) experience" seemed unlikely to be true then or, indeed, ever. While we waited for 35 minutes to get checked in I reflected that:
- There were four reception terminals available but only two were staffed.
- The processes which were "taking longer" involved each member of staff stepping away from their station for each new arrival to search by hand through a sheaf of printed reservations.
- There was no member of senior staff anywhere to be seen with whom we might reasonably have remonstrated.
- If I had, at any time in my career, launched of a piece of buggy software at the same time that its usage would be put under exceptional strain by massively increased visitor numbers I would have been invited to an "interesting" chat in a corner office...
Ho hum.
Our key-cards collected, we made our way up to our room. This was the first of two seemingly interminable corridors along the way. When we got to the far end and realised that our room was a good way along another identical corridor at right angles to the one through which we had just passed, I confess I started to giggle at the thought of the opening sequence to the 1960s comedy spy program Get Smart. The next morning Amanda checked her Fitbit before we went down to breakfast and again after we had returned, and announced that we'd already got more than a thousand steps under our belt...
To the Swan Theatre, where this rather impressive roof structure hung from the auditorium ceiling:
over a bare stage:
Impressively, at times during the performance a variety of hatches in the stage floor opened and closed to accommodate the appearance of various items of furniture, including (occupied) beds and (fully laid) dining tables.
Happy bunnies:
Amanda has read Middlemarch, but I have not, so I was reliant on both the synopsis I got off the internet, and this family tree included in the programme, to familiarise myself with the many intertwining storylines:
Condensing the ~900 page novel down to a play of some 5 hours (tonight's production was just the first half) clearly required some significant editing by Nina Raine, who created this version for the stage. Some evidence of just what that entailed can be seen from the number of characters that appear in the tree without any colour block to accompany their names - these characters do not appear in the play.
So what of it? I really enjoyed it - which was a major relief after the recent "As You Like It" debacle. To carry some of the necessary long passages of exposition, Raine employed the interesting idea of having "George Elliot" (played by the lovely Amanda Root) on stage and narrating for much of the running time. On the night that we saw it, the actor who normally plays the part of "Mayor Vincy", "Bambridge" and "Thesiger" was indisposed, so Steven Dykes (who normally plays "Dr Wrench") took on those roles and Mackensie Heynes (who normally plays "Joshua Rigg" and "Mr Hawley"), gamely also took on the more demanding role of Dr Wrench by (at times) "reading from the book". Both are newcomers to the RSC and it was really good to see the rest of the cast pay tribute to their efforts by encouraging extra applause for them during the curtain calls. I'm looking forward to seeing Part 2 in a week's time.
Back to the hotel, which was surprisingly quiet, given how busy it had been just a few hours earlier. A good night's sleep, followed by a disappointingly weak shower, and then down to breakfast - eventually. At the weekend, breakfast is served from 07.30 - 10.30, and we arrived at 09.30 to find a queue. Fortunately we did not have to wait too long for a table, and the (self-service) hot buffet was quite acceptable. We asked one of the staff if the Festival was responsible for how busy the hotel was, and she replied that this was "normal"...
The car packed, we moved it to our usual car park to avoid having to trek back to the hotel, and went for a stroll around town. On the way back to the car we passed a slight, bespectacled figure walking intently towards the theatre. We looked at each other and both agreed that it was Amanda Root - clearly on her way to the Saturday matinee performance.
Another straightforward run home - where we both spent much of the remaining part of the afternoon dozing and recovering from our adventures.
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