London Blood

Since I won't be home for my parent's 26th wedding anniversary I got them an early gift that we could share together while they were visiting - tickets to see Blood Brothers the musical in London.  We decided to make a day of it and went to London about noon to do some sight-seeing.  We wandered around, had lunch at Pizza Express, and saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, and The London Eye.  By the way, how much do you think it costs to ride this ferris wheel?  Take a guess.  £15?  Nope.  £25?  Not even close.  THIRTY SIX FREAKING POUNDS!!  To ride a ferris wheel!  Unbelievable.  I cannot believe that people would pay that.  Granted, the ride takes about a half an hour, but unless they serve a seafood dinner with beer and wine at the top, that is a ridiculous sum of money. 

We then decided that we had better find the theatre that Blood Brothers is playing at, since we didn't actually know where it's located.  That was an experience.  Note to all: Charing Cross ROAD and the Charing Cross underground stop are not even remotely close to each other.  I, however, did not know this.  So about an hour and a half later, of being absolutely (and very stressfully) lost in London, we found the stupid Pheonix Theatre.  Thank GOD, because I was losing my mind.  So we picked up the tickets and decided to take a little journey to this pub that my dad had wanted to go to eleven years ago when he and my mom were last in London.  This supposedly fantastic little pub, called The Charles Dickens, is in the most obscure place and really is not that fantastic (especially if you are a woman who needs to use the toilet, eh mom?).  So we had a couple drinks, got to sit down for a while (which admittedly was very much needed) and were off again to have dinner before the show.

We ate at a restaurant just down the street from The Pheonix called Garfunkles, and it was quite a good dinner actually.  Then to the show!  I was especially excited because Mel C (Sporty Spice, for all you Spice Girls fans) is currently playing the role of the mother.  She was really good too!  The show itself (one of the longest-running musicals in London theatre) has a contemporary nature vs. nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins who were separated at birth. The twins' different backgrounds take them to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming an Oxbridge-graduated councillor and the other unemployed and imprisoned. They, despite their mothers' desperate attempts to stop them, become best friends and fall in love with the same girl, with tragic consequences. 

It actually doesn't have a whole lot of singing in it; it's more of a drama in my opinion.  But I really enjoyed; it is very emotionally charged (with some great humour as well), and the acting I thought was brilliant.  Mom and dad enjoyed it too, so that made me happy.  After the show we took the journey back to Maidstone and made it to bed around 12:30am.  Another very long, but very enjoyable day with my parents.