Wolf Hall at Aldwych Theatre

If you haven't read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and its equally brilliant sequel Bring Up the Bodies I highly recommend you get a crack on and read them. They chart the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, a powerful minister in the court of Henry VII.   

I was so ridiculously excited when I found out the RSC was adapting the books for the stage and was thrilled when the production came to London. 

I felt incredibly lucky when me and my mum managed to get tickets to see the Saturday matinee, and even more when we got them for a bargain £10. However, as soon as we got to Aldwych theatre we realised we hadn't bagged ourselves a bargain at all. 

We bought the tickets fully aware they were restricted view, what we didn't realise that 'restricted' in this case meant no view. We were devastated. When we bought the tickets we consulted the theatre map and to our understanding it looked like we were in the top section, at the front and far to the right, we assumed we would have a bar or a railing partially obscuring our view. We we're even on proper seats, we faced the audience rather than the stage, and only could see a tiny slither of stage and only if we cramped up against the wall and contorted our bodies to lean over the railing. In my opinion these tickets should not have been on sale. For future reference our tickets were AA seat 3 and 4. DO NOT BUY THESE TICKETS. 

So I don't feel I can probably review the production as I didn't really see it and therefore can't really comment on the staging, performances or even costumes. All I can say is it sounded good, and despite the disastrous tickets, we did enjoy ourselves. I'm hoping we can get some decent tickets for Bring Up the Bodies so we can have the proper experience. 

Eltham Palace and Gardens

I recently jollied off to the wonderful Eltham Palace and Gardens. It's a fascinating mismatch of architecture, there is a medieval great hall and then some glamorous art deco additions.

The beautiful wooden celling in the great hall 

The great hall was really impressive Built in the 1470's by Edward IV, the great hall still stands despite been bombed during WWII, the scorch marks from the incendiary bombs can still be seen.  

  

Eltham Palace was the boyhood home of Henry VIII, but as he favoured his palace at Greenwich, Eltham was neglected and the palace did not remain a royal residence . Various additions where made by owners throughout the years. In 1930's the extremely wealthy Stephen and Virginia Courtauld built a modern art deco extension adjacent to the great hall.    

The circular entrance hall, I can just imagine flappers lounging on the sofas having a smoke 

Walmer Castle

On another English Heritage visit I went to Walmer Castle, former home of the Queen mother. Built originally by Henry VIII as part of England's coastal defences, the property later became the official residence for the  Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. The current Queen's mother used to live here. 

Walmer isn't as grand as some of the places I've visited, it was clear that is was built to be a defensive structure rather than a home, the wall are really thick, and there are cannons on the battlements 

English Heritage are a bit stingy on where you can take photographs, but the interior wasn't too my taste anyway. Most of the walls were painted a rather garish blue. Also I don't think the Queen mum was much of a reader, there was no library, which is usually my favourite place to visit when I go on these trip. 

She was in to her gardens though, and Walmer did have some pretty outside space. Prince Charles apparently replanted the garden for his grandmother one year.