The first thing that I noticed when we walked down the steps of our plane at Luton Airport was how pleasantly cool was the midnight air - so much cooler than Bordeaux! Our plane was an hour late when we arrived at our airport hotel, just a short walk away from the terminal, we dived straight into bed.
The temperature today at Bletchley Park was 26 degrees, which I used to think was very warm but at 10 degrees cooler than Bordeaux it felt really refreshing! There was a nice gentle breeze too. We went to Bletchley on our way to Stratford-upon-Avon and the huts with exhibitions about all the secret code-breaking during the war are really interesting and the grounds are beautiful. James was fascinated by all of the code-breaking machines and the history of the place. We continued to Stratford and checked in to the Swan’s Nest hotel, a pleasant and very central hotel right beside the river. Dinner was at our favourite, the Rooftop Restaurant at the RSC, and then we went downstairs to watch our play.
The aristocracy in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard are so frustrating. They don’t want to lose the estate, including the cherry orchard, but they are not willing to do anything at all to save it. There was an extremely strong cast. Kenneth Branagh was energetic as Lopakhin, who tried and failed to motivate the estate owners with practical suggestions but was himself paralysed with indecision when it came to proposing marriage to Varya. Helen Hunt was the feckless matriarch Ranyevskaya and Bill Pullman was her idle brother Gaev. The younger members of the cast were also very good and their characters proved equally as incapable of helping themselves or each other. Michael Elwyn, who is 83, played the aged and loyal retainer, ultimately forgotten by the family, who shuffled around the stage muttering to himself. I really enjoyed it but James said that it’s the second worst play that I have ever taken him to (after Long Day’s Journey into Night!) I reminded him about Waiting for Godot but he said that didn’t count because that time he left at the interval!
I saw Summerfolk in March this year at the National Theatre, which Gorky wrote as a response to The Cherry Orchard. So it was interesting to compare the two. Chekhov seems to sympathise with the melancholy and fading aristocracy who are losing their heritage and their way of life. However Gorky portrays his bourgeois characters as brash and stupid and unaware that the peasants will soon overthrow them in their turn.
We strolled back across the bridge to our hotel for a drink in the bar on this last night of our holiday.
The temperature today at Bletchley Park was 26 degrees, which I used to think was very warm but at 10 degrees cooler than Bordeaux it felt really refreshing! There was a nice gentle breeze too. We went to Bletchley on our way to Stratford-upon-Avon and the huts with exhibitions about all the secret code-breaking during the war are really interesting and the grounds are beautiful. James was fascinated by all of the code-breaking machines and the history of the place. We continued to Stratford and checked in to the Swan’s Nest hotel, a pleasant and very central hotel right beside the river. Dinner was at our favourite, the Rooftop Restaurant at the RSC, and then we went downstairs to watch our play.
The aristocracy in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard are so frustrating. They don’t want to lose the estate, including the cherry orchard, but they are not willing to do anything at all to save it. There was an extremely strong cast. Kenneth Branagh was energetic as Lopakhin, who tried and failed to motivate the estate owners with practical suggestions but was himself paralysed with indecision when it came to proposing marriage to Varya. Helen Hunt was the feckless matriarch Ranyevskaya and Bill Pullman was her idle brother Gaev. The younger members of the cast were also very good and their characters proved equally as incapable of helping themselves or each other. Michael Elwyn, who is 83, played the aged and loyal retainer, ultimately forgotten by the family, who shuffled around the stage muttering to himself. I really enjoyed it but James said that it’s the second worst play that I have ever taken him to (after Long Day’s Journey into Night!) I reminded him about Waiting for Godot but he said that didn’t count because that time he left at the interval!
I saw Summerfolk in March this year at the National Theatre, which Gorky wrote as a response to The Cherry Orchard. So it was interesting to compare the two. Chekhov seems to sympathise with the melancholy and fading aristocracy who are losing their heritage and their way of life. However Gorky portrays his bourgeois characters as brash and stupid and unaware that the peasants will soon overthrow them in their turn.
We strolled back across the bridge to our hotel for a drink in the bar on this last night of our holiday.
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