'Jekyll & Hyde' at The Old Vic

Drew McOnie's new dance show, 'Jekyll & Hyde' opened at The Old Vic last week so what better way to round off my 'Horror Week' (after seeing 'Frankenstein' and 'Doctor Faustus') than to see this creepy old tale. It's only playing for another few performances so you'd better get along quick if you want to see it. It's quite special in its own way since it's the first dance production at The Old Vic in over a decade and The Old Vic was the previous home of Sadler's Wells, London's dance capital. It was also the home of the National Theatre but this isn't a history lesson.

The Robert Louis Stevenson tale is re-imaged so that Dr Jekyll now runs a florists shop with his botanical laboratory in the back room where he experiments with growth potions. One day in the late 1950s a beautiful woman comes in to buy some flowers and he's smitten. Luckily Dahlia forgets her handbag so he chases her over London to give it back. He finds her working in a gym where the local hard man appears to think he owns her and he becomes Jekyll's nemesis. They also go to a dance club with young people dancing to the latest cool jazz sounds where he's humiliated by gym-guy. That's it, so he drinks his own growth potion strengthened by his blood and voila, Mr Hyde is born and he beats several shades out of the gym bullies.

Hyde becomes habit-forming for Jekyll and he also becomes more vicious, eventually starting to kill people. So we see love blossom between Jekyll and Dahlia while Hyde begins to lose control. Scenes alternate between the dance club and the shop but eventually Dahlia sees the truth and that's when Jekyll and Hyde take the stage together to struggle for supremacy. I won't tell you the end in case you're going to see it but it's a shocker.

It's a great production, joyful one moment and scary the next, keeping you on the edge of your seat for what might happen next. Of course, we all know that Jekyll and Hyde are the sane person so to see them struggle on stage together was a bit spectacular. The story-telling is excellent and takes you on a journey of love and its consequences. The dancing is, of course, excellent and I loved the Gene Kelly moments of Jekyll and Dahlia dancing side by side.

There's an incredibly athletic segment in the gym where the bully takes on all-comers with loud power-chord guitar to make a break from the cool jazz of most of the show. This is sort of reprised later in the show when the trendy folks become enslaved to the smell of flowers (a sub-plot) and dance around in their underwear. Such is the power of drug addiction. Part of me loves the idea than an addiction is to flowers! It's so much more civilised than being addicted to booze or drugs.

The set was great fun, with the dancers moving it round under their own power, swinging the big panels around to create a new room and space and the lighting was great too, very atmospheric. With any show like this, it stands or falls by the quality of the dancers and there are some excellent dancers in this production. The most fluid and bendy Daniel Collins plays Jekyll, from solo athletic and balletic dances to lovely sequences dancing like Gene Kelly with Rachel Muldoon as Dahlia. They're both really good. I've seen Daniel in Matthew Bourne's New Adventures productions over the years and most recently as the song and dance man in 'Show Boat'. It's about time we had a new dance star and that star could well be his for the taking.

It's a great show and if you can nab a ticket then I urge you to do so. It's been getting such a great reception that I'd be surprised if it wasn't transferred somewhere later in the year - it certainly deserves a wider audience. Five stars from me!

'Doctor Faustus' at the Duke of York

Last week I made a trip to see the new production of 'Doctor Faustus' by Christopher Marlowe at the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End. It stars Kit Harington from 'Game of Thrones' and is obviously meant as a 'star vehicle'. I booked tickets because it's one of my favourite plays and it features Jenna Russell as Mephistopheles, the dark angel and demon that helps Faustus create his own doom. I've avoided seeing photos and reviews because I wanted to see it afresh. It's a Jamie Lloyd Company production but what I didn't notice in any of the blurbs was that it was written by Kit Marlowe and by Colin Teevan. Um, who? And why?

I think I can answer the 'why' question. It's clearly a 'star vehicle' for Kit Harington and 'Faustus' is a good one for a lead man so why not? It was also obvious when the cast came on that none of them are meant to be in his 'league' looks-wise, either because they aren't or because they're all in their underwear for the whole thing. He's the only one fully dressed for most of the play, emphasising the contrast and, when he eventually does strip to his pants it's more to show off than for any dramatic reason. What's more, Kit gets to wear glasses to show that he's a serious academic and can translate Latin on a whim. This was definitely a one-man show pretending to be an ensemble piece.

I'm always in two minds about these 'star vehicle' productions that pop up every so often with a big name from telly or films doing 'real acting' on the stage for us all to gawp at and marvel at. I've seen a few good productions, like those with Kim Cattrall, Jude Law and Gillian Anderson, but I've seen some less good ones (no names mentioned). With this one, I don't really know how to assess Kit Harington since the play was so overlaidened by the production itself and it didn't really let him loose to do acting and prove his credentials (which is presumably why he's in the West End).

The thing I came away with is thinking that the production was really quite ugly and dirty-looking. For someone like Faustus to have his level of education there must be money in the family somewhere (whether 400 years ago or today) and yet he lives in a shabby bedsit. As soon as I saw the set my heart sank. And then an actress came on stage to hoover while the audience sat down, and then Faustus emerges from the toilet and sits on the bed with bile dripping from his mouth for no obvious reason. Bile keeps featuring - in different shades of vomit - throughout the play with different characters. I have a lot of sympathy for the cleaners who have to clean that mess up every night.

The quite important scenes with royalty and with rustics in the play are replaced here with meeting rock stars and presidents and that's ok to a degree - there's no harm in updating a play so long as it's done well. This wasn't. Do rock stars in 2016 still end every sentence with the word 'maaan' and act like zombie druggies or was the writer stuck in some kind of '70s induced drug-fuelled coma? Now, I don't know any rock stars personally, but come on. If you're going to change something, do it for the better. In this case, all Faustus did was change the genitals of the rock star and the groupie and then the groupie chased the rock star round with a hard-on under her slip like an old Benny Hill sketch from the '70s. All that was missing was the chase music Benny always used.

And speaking of music - invisible air guitar '80s power chords. Really?  Every now and then Faustus got his invisible guitar out and was in power chord heaven and that just left me baffled.

But the thing that went beyond the pale is Faustus mouthing the 'Helen' speech (y'know the one, 'Is this the face that launched a thousand ships...'), one of the most beautiful bits of poetry in any play to rival Shakespeare, to a scene of him stabbing and viciously raping his pupil. Ugly doesn't even come close. He chases his student and supposed love around the bedsit and, when he fails to catch her, he stabs her in the back, throws her on the bed and rapes her while mouthing the 'Helen' speech. She dies. You've lost me there Jamie Lloyd. That's just not on.

The only saving grace for the dratted thing was Jenna Russell as Mephistopheles, the devils' ambassador. Even she has to wear an ugly night gown that gets progressively dirtier as the bile and play goes on. It's her job to bring Faustus closer to the gates of hell as the play progresses and this she does most admirably. My favourite bit with Jenna was the half-time interval when she took to the stage to give a mini-concert by singing songs from Kylie, Cliff Richard and Meatloaf on the themes of the devil and hell, obviously. Now that, that was inspired. Well done Jenna, when does the album come out?

I think I've said enough really. I won't be going back for second helpings.

'Frankenstein' at the Royal Opera House

Last week we went to see the brand new full-length ballet 'Frankenstein' by Liam Scarlett, performed by the Royal Ballet. I've never seen any of his work before so this was an introduction. Rather than use the popular version of the Frankenstein story as shown in the films, this ballet goes back to the source material of Mary Shelley's book and takes its story from there. It takes a few liberties with purist story but it can't show the whole story and that's what makes the plot work.

The ballet opens with a child finding a new home with the Frankenstein's and growing up in that house with Victor, dancing all over the place it seems. The day comes for Victor to go to university to become a doctor like his father when his mother dies giving birth to his younger brother. Before he goes he pledges to marry Elizabeth. At the university he's a serious scholar, determined to find a way to prolong, and even create, life. The professor shows his students the power of electricity to re-animate an arm but Victor takes it one step forward and, in a spectacular scene, brings a corpse back to life and the Creature is made!

Realising what he's done, Victor flees back to his family home in a deep depression without realising that his creation has followed him and is hiding in the woods around the family home. Victor and the Creature meet and Victor rejects him. That's it for the Creature, rejection by his creator is more than he could bear so he takes revenge and kills, well, almost everyone. Finally, Victor and the Creature have a dance off and Victor isn't strong enough and commits suicide. The ballet ends with the Creature walking to the back of the stage dragging his creator's body behind him as the family home burns.

I really enjoyed this production, only the fifth time the ballet has been performed at Covent Garden. The story-telling was excellent, a nice flowing narrative, the costumes and staging were good and the music seemed to be just right, helping the flow of the story without getting in the way. My only slight criticism is that the choreography wasn't always as big, bold and dynamic as it could have been, such as the final dance between Victor and the Creature. Something a bit more athletic and vigorous would have suited the moment better. In any case, I liked Tristan Dyer as Victor, Sarah Lamb as Elizabeth and Ryoichi Hirano as the Creature. It was lovely to see Itziar Mendizabal as the Frankensteins' housekeeper but she didn't get much dancing, mainly stern striding and pointing.

'Krishna in the Gardens of Assam' at the British Museum

There's a nice little exhibition at the British Museum called 'Krishna in the Gardens of Assam' and is all about an Assamese devotional textile called the 'Vrindavani Vastra'. The main exhibit is a 9 metre silk textile made up of 12 inticately woven strips that were sewn together in Tibet and a border was added so the textile could be hung up to be admired. It was given to the British Museum in 1905 by a journalist with The Times but it's not known how he acquired it from a Buddhist monastry in Tibet. It's also not known how it moved from northern India to Tibet in the first place but it's likely that it was used to wrap books or other objects sacred to Krishna and these would have been welcomed in Tibet since Lord Buddha was Indian.

Each of the strips of silk weave depict different tales about Krishna, many reflect his early life asa  cowherd. For those of who can't read the symbols (ie me) there's a series of explanations as you walk along the immesne textile so you can recognise what's going on. Whether he is banishing the king of the serpents or defeating demons he's always got time for enjoyment and the scenes I liked most are of him hiding the clothes of the local girls while they bathe so he can enjoy the sight.

My favourite piece, however, was a most wonderful coat with a silk brocade outside and this amazing cloth used as a lining. It looks to be padded so will be lovely and warm to survive the snows of Tibet. I'm in a definite state of 'want' with this coat.

The exhibition is up on the fourth floor of the Museum and the signage isn't great to find it, but I'm sure you'll enjoy looking for it! There's so much to see in that museum...

'Russia and the Arts' at the National Portrait Gallery

There's a lovely little exhibition on at the National Portrait Gallery at the moment called 'Russia and the Arts; The Age of Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky'. By 'little' I mean two rooms and maybe a couple of dozen paintings but it's worth seeing. It's based on the portraits collected (and sometimes commissioned0 by Pavel Tretyakov who donated his personal collection to the city of Moscow in 1892 as the start of the national collection.

As you'd expect from the title, it's a collection of portraits of artists, musicians, poets, composers, and critics from the mid-1800s to early 1900s. There are a lot of beards on display, so much so that some paintings seemed to more about the hair on the head and chin rather than the man underneath. And yes, the portraits are mainly of men although a notable exception is the portrait of the poet Anna Akhmatova on the cover of the catalogue for the exhibition.

There are portraits of the greats you'd expect to see including three portraits hung together of a rather ill-looking Dostoyevsky, a very hairy and puritanical Tolstoy and a disdainful Turgenev. All could've done with a comb and a pair of scissors. There's a rather unhappy looking Tchaikovsky which was a bit sad. There is also a nice portrait of Anton Chekhov dressed in a smart suit and sitting comfortably in a green velvet chair.

The poster girl for the exhibition is Baroness Varvara Ikskul Von Hildenbandt, a socialite and hostess for the arts in her bright red jacket and veiled hat. After a life of privilege and the wife of an ambassador she settled in Paris after the revolution. It's strange to read the short potted histories of the subjects of the portraits and wonder how they survived the hardships they sometimes went through, and that's part of the joy of a portraits exhibition - these people were real. The Baroness fled during the revolution but Anna Akhmatova stayed in Russia and lived through the dangers of the Stalin years. I need to know more about her but I'll leave the Baroness to live on through this portrait.

Mona Hatoum at Tate Modern

There's a great little exhibition on at the Tate Modern at the moment by Mona Hatoum, her first 'big' retrospective exhibition in this country.  She's not someone I now a lot about but, after seeing this exhibition, she's someone I'd like to know more about.

Mona is Palestinian Lebanese who settled in London in the mid-70s when Lebanon exploded into war. This makes her world view something different to most peoples' and this is shown in her art, such as the poster piece that shows the world outlined in red neon, red for warning and alert. Nowhere is safe.

A lot of her works are political. There is the piece made out of 200-odd cubes of olive soap fitted together with the shape of Palestinian homelands detailed in small beads pressed into the soap. She shows us cells without walls, with four-storey bunk beds for prisoners little bigger than 12" vinyl record shelves that fit as many prisoners as possible into a small space. It's all a matter of perspective.

One of the first pieces you see is the still from a video of Mona walking round Brixton with Doc Marten boots tied to her ankles. My initial response to this was ' so what?'. But then you think that this is Brixton in the mid-'80s, and the police wear Doc Marten's and so do skinheads and that suddenly makes this a different image. A young Palestinian woman walking round the inner city trailed by the police on the one hand and by skins on the other. It's a different experience. It's a still photo from a video piece that is shown later in the exhibition.

An installation that really made me take notice was 'Light Sentence', an installation of wire-mesh cages in a small white room lit my a single light bulb that is raised and lowered, slightly swaying in the breeze created by people coming in and out of the room. It's not about the cages or the light bulb, it's al about the shadows that grow around you and move slowly and silently. As you walk round the installation the shadows change as the light bulb moves up and down, becoming disorienting and confusing and strangely wonderful and magical.

One of my favourite pieces was towards the end of the exhibition, a giant circle on the floor covered in sand with an arm continually rotating just over the sand, one part creating a patter and the other part smoothing it out. Over and over again. It's called '+ and' and is mesmerising, watching that arm sweeping slowly round and round, creating and destroying continually. The cycle of creation and destruction goes on and on, almost religiously. All it needs is a dancing Shiva in the centre dancing the universe to destruction before it's created once again. It's a wonderful, meditative piece.

There is, of course, a lot more in this exhibition - a room full of household items wired together and electrified, a model of a baby inside an egg-slicer, public hair on a chair - but I'll let you discover these for yourself. It's well worth exploring this exhibition.

'The Toxic Avenger' at Southwark Playhouse

Southwark Playhouse seems to enjoy putting on UK premieres of American musicals and the latest is 'The Toxic Avenger' based on the film from the '80s. I've never seen the film or the stage version so this was a very tentative dip of my toe into the toxicity of the thing. It's good that Southwark Playhouse is willing to take risks and attract new audiences and, after premiering 'Xanadu' last year and reviving 'Grand Hotel' it's becoming a favourite venue. Particularly since it has also finally embraces the 21st century and now has allocated seating to avoid the silly queues of people wanting to get good seats. Well done - you know it makes sense. So, 'The Toxic Avenger' - what's it about?

The play is set in a small New Jersey town where the corrupt mayor happily imports toxic waste for back-handers and power. It's the Toxic Avenger's job to put an end to this and restore justice. Enter the town geek bemoaning the toxic waste and his secret love, Sarah the blind librarian that the mayor has entrusted the town records to. She tells the geek where the records are and he finds out what the mayor is up to and confronts her. Uh oh, big mistake. She hires the town bullies to teach him a lesson and they drop him into a vat of waste that mutates him into a super-strong green monster. He rips off their arms and legs in revenge and the librarian falls for him. Then comes the task of saving the town and bringing the mayor and the polluters to justice. Phew, it's action packed and fast moving and there's a lot going on.

So, here we have it, a serious dramatic exploration of ecological issues in the modern day and the motivations behind both sides of the argument. Um no, we have a raucous, rude and very funny musical comedy with lots of choons and madcap scenes. It's great fun and terribly un-PC, particularly with virtually every reference to Sarah the blind librarian, dropping her white stick and hunting round for it, trying to get off stage without the stick and, at one point, commenting that she's creating time for some quick costume changes behind the scenes.

The cast of five people mostly play multiple roles, appearing as one character only to disappear and reappear moments later as someone else, particularly the two lads who play everything from the local school bullies, a folk singer, policemen, hairdressers and polluting businessmen. Marc Pickering and Ashley Samuels were excellent and great fun as the two dudes. Mark Anderson played the geek and Toxie, the Toxic Avenger. Hannah Grover was Sarah and Lizzii Hills as the evil, dastardly mayor.

It's a great evening out and great fun - I really enjoyed it!  You could do a lot worse than get tickets to this show while it's on...

'Funny Girl' at The Savoy Theatre

Last week we went to see Sheridan Smith in 'Funny Girl' at the Savoy Theatre. This is the production that sold out almost instantly when it was put on at the Menier Chocolate Factory last year, so it was a must see. I'm a fan of Sheridan's stage work and saw her in 'Little Shop of Horrors' (in which I saw her cry on cue a mere few feet away), 'Legally Blonde' (at the Savoy) and 'Flare Path' so I was looking forward to seeing her in this show.

'Funny Girl' tells the story of Fanny Brice, a poor Brooklyn girl made good who goes on to be a huge Broadway star in the early 1900s, starring in the Ziegfeld Follies and a host of other shows. It opens in 1927 before we look back at Fanny's story. We see Fanny's first auditions and her mouthy way of getting what she wants with her quick wit and her singing and dancing.  She meets her 'first top hat' after a show and he becomes the great love of her life, meeting in different places as he travels round gambling and she headlines shows. They marry and have a baby daughter but when he needs money for a new money she gives it to him and the resentment starts. He goes to prison for fraud and the play opens with Fanny waiting for his return in her dressing room before we see the story of her life and ends when we see him return to the theatre for her latest first night of a new show.

Sheridan Smith plays Fanny Brice, our heroine and is on stage for much of the performance in what must be an exhausting role, rarely still and almost always talking or singing. The original version of 'Funny Girl' was written for Barbra Streisand so there's a lot in here that harks back to Barbra's delivery of machine-gum one liners and asides but Sheridan makes it her own. The husband is played by Darius Campbell, unfeasibly tall standing next to Sheridan but I didn't feel any great chemistry between them, despite having played these roles last year at the Choccy Factory. He always seemed a bit distant, a bit stand-offish. Maybe because it's really her story and her show?

I liked Joel Montague as Fanny's friend and sort of dance coach Eddie, clearly carrying a torch for her and not hiding it very well from first meeting until the end of the play. He gave quite a subtle and touching performance but it's never going to happen Eddie. I also liked Fanny's mum played by Marilyn Cutts and you can see where Fanny got her will to succeed from. It was nice to see so many 'old' people on the stage playing the previous generation - I haven't seen that many 'older' characters on the same stage in a long time. The rest of the cast were good too and I liked the long, willowy dancers.

This is really Sheridan's show, of course, playing it big as Fanny Brice and belting out some big songs. She really made me sit up and listen with her tender version of 'People' and again for the big 'Don't Rain On My Parade'. Apparently there's going to be a cast recording so it'll be good to hear those songs again. Well done Sheridan, another memorable show!

'The Winter's Tale' at The Royal Opera House

Last week I went to see a stunning performance of 'The Winter's Tale' by The Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House. This is my third production of 'The Winter's Tale' in five months (Kenneth Branagh's version followed by the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse production) so I am very familiar with the story of jealousy and reconciliation, a jealousy that emerges from nowhere and destroys people and families. But how would Christopher Wheeldon and the Royal Ballet tell this story? How do you dance jealousy?

The production starts with an energetic and joyful prelude, showing the three protagonists as younger versions of themselves, dancing up a storm before moving to the present day when the boys are kings and Hermione is a queen. Leontes and Hermione have one son and another child is on the way as Hermione dances with her prominent baby bump. Polixenes of Bohemia is, again, a guest and enjoying dancing with his two friends when Leontes starts having suspicions that his wife and friend are lovers and we see his mad jealousy as they dance in the garden of statues and we see through is eyes. That is all the proof he needs and he fights his old friend and arrests his wife on grounds of treason. You know the rest - Hermione gives birth and appears to die while the infant is sent away to die on a foreign shore but is rescued by a shepherd and grows up to fall in love with the prince who just happens to be Politeness' son and they flee back to Sicilia for the big reveal.

The story is relatively straight-forward in that respect but it's underpinned by the nature of kingship, the evils of jealousy and loss, love and reconciliation. But it's how they get there that's fascinating in this production with some great stage effects and plot twists. I loved the 'silkwork' that brought the bear at the end of the first act to life in terrifying form, I loved the sea chases as the young lovers flee to Sicilia and I loved the tree. O yes, what a marvellous tree at the centre of the stage for the celebrations in Bohemia where we have Florizel and Perdita dancing their youthful love. It was a lovely change from the formality of the first half with the natural scene and vivid costumes, the young people dancing and celebrating while the few old folks watched on.

Florizel and Perdita take most of the dancing but are often joined by their young friends, showing off and showing their skills, an elaborate courtship dance.

After a sea chase the young couple seek sanctuary with Leontes and, unlike in the play, we see the big reveal that Perdita is actually his daughter when Paulina recognises that a piece of jewellery she wears was her mothers that she had hidden in the baby's basket when she was taken away. But there is another reveal when Pauline shows Leontes the statue of Hermione and her dead son but, magically, Hermione is still alive and dances a stately forgiveness of her stupid husband. She finally meets her daughter and leaves the stage with just Leontes and Pauline. Leontes touches the statue of his son to see if he will come alive too...

This is a marvellous re-telling of the old tale of winter in the heart, magically re-invented by Christopher Wheeldon and the Royal Ballet. It's a new ballet first performed in 2014 and this was the 15th ever stage performance (it said so on the cast list). The dancers were, of course, marvellous, but I must single out Itziar Mendizabal as the brave Paulina who was the epitome of grace on that stage, every movement building on her character and story and a joy to behold. I'm so pleased I saw her Paulina. Also great praise for Marianela Nunez as Hermione and Bennet Gartside as the wretched Leontes. Vadim Muntagirov and Beatriz Stix- Brunell were also lovely as our young lovers Florizel and Perdita.

As ever, the staging was wonderful, as were the costumes, lighting and music. The music was by Joby Talbot, designer was Bob Crowley and the magnificent silk effects (for the bear and sea chase) were by Basil Twist. This really is a marvellous and magical production and I'm so tempted to go back again if I can get tickets... See this production if you can - you might think you don't like ballet but this could well change your mind.

I am Fire and Air ... The Complete Walk

Yesterday I did The Complete Walk to celebrate William Shakespeare. It's now 400 years since his death and his work is still as alive and vibrant as ever and what better way to celebrate his 37 plays  than to set up 37 video screens along the Southbank and Bankside and show videos of all of them. The Globe theatre on Bankside is, of course, Shakespeare central and it was the hub for this event. Full details are here, along with a map and a brochure of the special films

It is such a great idea and a great way to celebrate Shakespeare with these old plays being shown on the latest technology for all the world (well, if you were in London) to see and enjoy and relive all that great story telling and poetry. I saw 29 of the 37 films - not all of the screens were working but, as I know from long experience, the technology can always let you down at the last minute. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw wandering up and down the river.

For me, the Walk started at Blackfriars as I wandered along to The Globe to pick up a map and continued along to start my viewing from Potters Fields. The first screen I stopped at was Simon Russell Beale as Timon of Athens filmed in Athens and sited outside Southwark Cathedral - I saw him in this play at the National Theatre in 2012 and it was really touching to hear some of those speeches again, particularly filmed around the Acropolis. Just to keep it all real, the bells of the Cathedral started chiming just as he started talking about gold so, with a wry smile, I walked on since he was drowned out.

I left the trail and headed round to Potters Fields where four of the screens were sited but only one was working and, thankfully, that was for The Tempest' that I saw at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse' in The Globe a couple of weeks ago. This screen showed excerpts from a previous production at The Globe as well as specially filmed segments with Douglas Hodge as Prospero filmed in Bermuda. A memorable section showed him standing on the beach with him reciting a speech before walking into the sea and continuing until he was completely under water and the camera lingered with him still under the waves, a really dramatic moment that will stay in my mind for a while to come.

Walking along the river I found 'King Lear' beside one of the pagodas with Kenneth Cranham slowly going mad on the cliff tops at Dover, making his own crown from grasses. It was all very emotional but I preferred the quieter, later section with Joseph Marcell also playing Lear but in a wheelchair on top of the cliffs when he's greeted again by Cordelia (Zawe Ashton) and he says he will drink her poison. That was so touching and gentle, this reconciliation of father and daughter before he dies. I would love to see him play Lear on the stage after that great performance.

Just along from 'Lear' was 'Anthony & Cleopatra' which was a magical mixture of excerpts from the great production at The Globe a couple of years ago and specially filmed scenes set at the pyramids at Giza in Egypt. The Globe scenes showed Anthony dying in Cleopatra's arms and the film picked this up with her own defiant suicide with her loyal maid Iras as she brings the deadly snake to Cleopatra at the foot of the Red Pyramid.

And then, surprisingly, they climb up to the entrance of the pyramid and go inside to the chamber where Cleopatra puts on her crown and says those immortal lines.

'Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have
Immortal longings in me ...
I am fire and air, my other elements
I give to a baser life...'.

Eleanor Matsuura was Cleopatra and Katy Stephens was the brave Iras. It was a very touching scene, particularly as the camera stayed on Iras as Cleopatra died in the pyramid. I've been in that pyramid and so know what it's like inside, stuffy and warm and full of history across the millennia and myth.

After a late lunch we continued walking along the Thames, stopping to watch this screen and that but the next one I really liked was 'The Merry Wives of Windsor', a play I've never seen performed. Again, it was a mix of a live performance from The Globe and filmed portions with Paul Chahidi and Mel Giedroyc as mistresses Page and Ford each receiving an identical letter of everlasting love from that rogue Sir John Falstaff. O such a rogue is he and they will have their revenge! Paul and Mel made an excellent couple and I'd love to see them do this on stage sometime. It was great fun!

Then onto the Southbank proper and more screens with lots of the history plays, lots of Henrys and Richards. Jonathan Pryce reprised his role as Shylock in 'The Merchant of Venice' with scenes from his Globe performance last year as well as a new scene filmed in the Jewish Ghetto in Venice. And further along was a touching performance of 'King John' that was dedicated to the death of Shakespeare's young son, Hamnet. Underneath Hungerford Bridge we see extracts from the Globe production of 'Titus Andronicus' (the one that gained publicity for people fainting at all the gore) with extra scenes filmed in Rome featuring Peter Capaldi.

The final screens were in the gardens outside St Thomas's Hospital with a very touching 'Henry VI, Part 3' in which we see Henry sheltering in a church at Towton with a soldier who realises he's killed his father in the opposing army and a father who finds that he has killed his son. What a wretched king to witness the sorrow of his people. But on the other side of the lawn we visit a sun-drenched castle in Verona with an acerbic Meera Syal as Lucetta in 'Two Gentlemen of Verona'. Meera was excellent with her trademarked glances into the camera as if to say *you* know what I'm saying even if this young girl doesn't. O yes, Meera, we do!

By now it was dark and you can see the lights in the wards at St Thomas's Hospital at the top of the photo and the outline of trees to the right.

'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', as Shakespeare's first play, was actually Number 1 on the map and the film included lots of excerpts from the other screens but I did the walk from last to first. Of course, there was still time to catch some more screens so we headed back to see if any of the screens not working earlier were now working and caught 'The Comedy of Errors' with Omid Djalili filmed in a Turkish restaurant and a few others. We finally gave up at London Bridge to get the train home. Phew, with aching feet too.

This was a very tiring and madly crowded day but great fun and a fitting tribute to Shakespeare. There were log-jams of people at various places along the riverbank with the crowds brought out to enjoy the free show along the river and, frustrating and annoying as that was, it's nice that so many people wanted to join in the celebration. I'm certainly pleased that I did. It's a bit disappointing to see the criticism some unthinking people have left on the Globe website this morning because some screens weren't working. I'm grateful that so many were working. I'm also grateful that this celebration was arranged in the first place with some excellent film clips picking out some of the key parts in the plays and presented so well. Hopefully all the videos will be available on DVD at some point - I'll certainly get a copy!

It was great to be involved in a celebration rather than just sitting on the sofa at home and watching something on telly. Well done to The Globe, to everyone involved and to the volunteers handing out maps along the route - good show people!