Sometimes it pays not to know too much

Today we went into London to see an afternoon production of 'Oedipus' at The Old Vic.  W had bought tickets last year and got them at a very good price; we looked recently and saw that the same tickets were selling for almost five times what we paid.  We were a bit apprehensive as, following the opening of the production last month, all the newspaper reviews had been pretty scathing with Remi Malek (who starred as the villain in the last 'Bond' film and as Freddie Mercury in 'Bohemian Rhapsody') coming in for particular criticism.  I don't think any of the reviews gave more than two stars and most only one.

W, who has been studying the original texts of Oedipus in her online Greek class, was not at all impressed.  I, however, whose knowledge of Oedipus was limited to having read a brief synopsis of the plot, thought it was brilliant and thoroughly enjoyed it right from the start!  There were interludes of the 'Chorus' performing modern dance in styles that ranged from Michael Jackson to Zorba's Dance and whilst I'm not a fan of dance generally, I thought it was superb and added a lot to the production representing the unseen crowds and their reactions to the various speeches.  The opening in particular, with short sequences of totally different dances interspersed by total darkness for a few seconds while the chorus regrouped in a different way, was quite breathtaking.  I could quite happily have sat through the entire production again, there and then!

Afterwards we had an hour to kill before our train home so wandered over to Covent Garden and had a drink in The Porterhouse.  On the way over I spotted this rather impressive mural of 'Paddington' outside Waterloo station.