This one had plenty of interesting objects as well as technical demonstrations (how is plywood made? why can it be formed into so many shapes? why does it make such good chairs?). With the right glues, it can be waterproof; it’s light, formable, and strong; we saw boats, car parts, suitcases, a bookbinding (the Shackleton exhibition brought a printing press to Antarctica and printed books using their plywood packing crates as hardbacks). Disposable lightweight airplane gas tanks:
Eames (yes, he of the sleekly curved and modern molded plywood chair) apparently did his war work making sleekly curved and modern molded plywood leg splints:
Having finished that, we picked galleries that both of us were interested in (so I probably saw something quite different than I would have had I gone alone. We stuck to the rooms labeled “Techniques and Materials,” and started with the enormous collection of cast iron and wrought iron.
I appreciated the building itself very much. It lacked the maze of cubical white rooms that’s so common, and is made instead of courts and wide, high halls, many of them visible from above by means of galleries on the upper floors. They display many large pieces that way. The smaller galleries that run alongside often contain explanatory material or smaller pieces that are related to the massive works in the middle. It is very grand and lovely.
We spent two hours there. Sadly, the temporary exhibit of Pink Floyd artifacts was sold out when we tried to buy tickets.
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The day itself was relatively pretty, and I suggested for the afternoon we take the three smaller children to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. We would have lunch there from the food stand, and then stay and play. The promise of food brought the teen boys too, but once we got to the gardens they decided they’d rather explore. So I gave them money and off they went.
The two little boys, on seeing the playground, refused to eat until they had been allowed in to play.
I fed the 11yo first (chicken nuggets for her; caprese panini for me) while Mark went in with them, then came in and gave him a chance to go eat (stone-baked Parma ham and rocket pizza). My daughter volunteered to run around playing with the 3yo, and my 7yo was already making friends, so I felt free to walk around and explore the place myself.
The playground is entirely fenced in, with one entrance by the food stand (it has one counter inside and one counter outside, and there are picnic tables on either side of the gate). To get in, you push a panel and, if you are an adult accompanying children under 12, a guardian buzzes you in. You must also be buzzed in to leave. So, while technically parents are supposed to supervise their children, once inside the playground children can run freely through numerous outdoor “rooms.”
The playground has a Peter Pan theme. The pirate ship is glorious, with smaller rowboats on the side, some stable, some mounted on springs so they can be made to rock hard left and right. The Lost Boys’ house is a clearing encircled by a wooden fort, with slides and log bridges:
The lagoon looks like it might be a fountain in the summer, and even now there are fountains that send water in when children work them. Tantalizing shapes and objects are embedded in the concrete to look like prints in the sand: the mark of a rope, planks washed ashore, rocks arranged in the form of a crocodile. Plus shells and other small treasures.
Read the final paragraph on the explanatory board: “It is now recognized that risk taking is an important element of play and physical development.
Bravo! I guess the Queen is just not all that worried about being sued if a child breaks her arm. Take another look at that pirate ship:
While we were there, a girl of about seven climbed the ropes to the topmost horizontal crossbar and worked her way out to the end. She clearly knew what she was doing. It was a joy to watch.
After a while, the teen boys came back, having explored the vast grounds of Kensington Gardens and then gone to Tesco for the £3 lunch special.
My 13yo son was SO pained that he was technically too much grown to play in this playground. I could see his eyes sparkling when they lit on the pirate ship.
We let him go in as “accompaniment” to the 3yo, with a careful admonition not to get in the way of younger children. And bought more food (the 3yo polished off nearly all of a New York Style Hot Dog with mustard, and ice cream novelties were had). And stayed still longer.
I think maybe we were there about two and a half hours? And it was one of the more fun playground afternoons I have had.
I don’t know why American playgrounds have not adopted the very, very sensible European practice of putting a fence around playgrounds and having only one exit. Even if you don’t have a guardian buzzing kids in and out, this makes it so much easier to safely supervise multiple kids: park yourself where you can see the exit, and you can watch in peace. Unless you have the sort of child who will climb the fence against strict instructions (and I know some of us do, true, but for most a fence can be a hard boundary), a one-exit fence is the kind of safety precaution that allows for more freedom and independent risk-taking for the children inside it.
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Mark and the 17yo walked to get carryout from Nando’s for dinner: piles of wings and fries, and some salad and corn on the cob.
“One of the things that’s great about British food,” says my 17yo, “is that you never have to worry, when you look at a menu, about whether you should get medium spicy, hot, or extra hot. Wings, vindaloo, whatever. Just order the hottest level always. You never have to worry that it will be too hot. Hottest is generally just right here.”
So far, this has turned out to be correct.
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After dinner, Mark and I headed out with our tickets for Young Frankenstein at the Garrick Theatre, a building which was financed by W. S. Gilbert.
This show is a retooling of Mel Brooks’ original Broadway production, clearly an attempt to do something similar to what he managed with The Producers. It got mixed reviews in NY and has been tightened up from three hours to two. The monster is played here by the same actor who played him on Broadway.
Poster outside the theatre:
Theatre selfie:
About the show itself: The audience around us appeared to eat it up, but I have to wonder what proportion of Brits are the sort of people who have seen the Mel Brooks movie often enough to quote it from start to finish. Because when you’re steeped in the movie, like we are, it is a standard that no adaptation can live up to. Every departure from it, however necessary for the stage, is a step down.
It’s also a good deal bawdier than the film. “What knockers!”/”Thank you, doctor” is positively understated compared to the new Brooks-authored musical numbers. You know how people say that Brooks could never make Blazing Saddles today? He couldn’t put these musical numbers on the big screen, I think. They’re not obscene, and they’re not unfunny, but they’re also not inoffensive and may cross lines that
would make too many people uncomfortable. One song plays physical domestic abuse for laughs, for example. And some of it just works a little too hard, expecting bawdiness to stand in for actual humor. There were a couple moments where I cringed a little for the actors.
Still: The six cast members were all talented, with good strong voices. Igor’s physical comedy was very effective. Inga’s role called for an impressive display of both gymnastics and yodeling. The actors in the roles of Frau Blucher, Hermit/Kemp, and Monster inhabited the demeanor of the movie characters pretty well. The fiancé wasn’t really anything like Madeline Kahn (more rich bimbo) but her demeanor was funny in its own way. And the sheer impossibility of filling the shoes of Gene Wilder had me rooting for the American-accented star, who was game for the challenge and, I think, did a fine job.
The ensemble sounded good. The dancing could have been a little more tightly executed, but I have high standards and maybe they were going for a rougher look. There were a few new one-liners tossed in that worked very well. All in all, I did have fun. But I am glad I didn’t spend money on a ticket—though they were not unreasonably priced, both together cost us less than £100—for either teenage boy.
And if I was looking for an ordinary London experience, I thought, as we exited the theater onto Charing Cross still alive with light from the windows of pubs, and walked past the line of black cabs there to be hailed from the curb, I had certainly had one.
We stopped at a pub on the way home for one quick pint (Fuller’s HSB for me, Red Fox for Mark), long enough to agree that the Sam Smith’s are much superior, and walked back through Covent Garden, the bricks gleaming in the streetlight, the streets still relatively crowded at 10:30 p.m. on a Monday.
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