I Get High

Although it's spelled haight (the t is silent, the Welsh is hwcyntha).

And someone said fashion was dead...

Wednesday.  The best part of the morning was that no one knew who won the election.  Oh, and it was sunny.  Colder than Vancouver, proper November eight degrees cold, and, weirdly, all the leaves are not only on the trees still but they’re green.

It was exciting, even thrilling to be back in London and for it to be gorgeous enough to beckon walking.  Headed towards Sloane Square then along King’s Road, coffee at Nero, shopping, back towards Harrods, into the West End and then all through Covent Garden.  Did not pay 345 pounds for a Burberry cashmere scarf or a similar amount for Vivienne Westwood shoes.  Had lunch at Canteen, a sort of nouveau and improved version of pub fare (warm roast pumpkin and chicken salad in a light Dijon dressing, very tasty if a tad overdressed, although I think a pie or pasty would have been the thing).  Asked the Italian bartender Riccardo, who was across the street lifting stock shirtless, if I could take a picture and he said “no time” although there was plenty of time.  Frontline reported on the Russian oligarchs taking over London, and while they are around, or at least I should say there are many Russians in Aston Martins and with shopping from Fortnum’s, in my particular hotel they are shadowed by equally rich Arabs.  But while that’s a decidedly obvious element, it seems the city is also littered with surly Italian servers mispronouncing coffee and saying “afters” as a question.

Lamp standard on The Mall

City of statuary (look up)

Above and below: The building that was, once upon a time, the Texas embassy

Part of being high on London is simply getting re-acquainted with neighbourhoods, sites and buildings that I still remember discovering first time round, thirty years ago.  At the same time, I learnt two new things about London today: One, the lamp standards that line the Mall have, in reference to England’s naval past, ships atop each one.  And, second, when Texas was briefly a republic, it actually had an embassy here.

There is, believe it or not, a back seat; makes our shopping cart look Aston Martin-ish

Decided to catch a matinee and checked out the half price booth which was four deep in undecided tourists and tix for the play I wanted to see at over 20 pounds, so walked the two short blocks to the Comedy and scored a day ticket, stalls, unrestricted view seat for ten quid.  The Comedy is a cramped little theatre with pillars and narrow stairs.  Eric Peterson brought Billy Bishop there in the early 80s, to critical acclaim but public bewilderment.  I saw Joseph Fiennes in an unmemorable production six or seven years ago.  I was hoping for better.  Both with the Fiennes vehicle and the play today.

A Chorus of Disapproval is the sort of play that you expect an A student drama PhD to write.  In fact, many of Ayckbourn’s plays are sort of like that, as if he was voted the most likely to succeed in his class, and did, but became not necessarily the best of his class.  A strong cast in a Trevor Nunn production but really, the reason you are there for is for Rob Brydon (the second funniest man in Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip).  He truly is amazing, charismatic, spot on timing and with a language skill adept at making even a contemplative sigh hysterical.  In fact, he broke up a fellow thespian in the first act.  Many seniors (in the matinee audience) could be heard whispering “she’s very good” and “he’s very good” whenever someone performed to the second balcony but Brydon was so consistently good he defied the whisperer.  That said, start to finish, despite the many laughs and a bit of scenery chewing from the supporting roles, it wasn’t quite up to the splash of four star reviews littered across the marquee.  In a Google search afterward I came across the apt phrase that at the expense of breadth of story it lacked depth of characterisation.

The Queen's Head off King's Rd.  Many fine memories, including having our drinks collected un-drunk at time.

Bird lights

Pistorius claims they give women an unfair advantage

It's a little Verd, a little Wagner

Disney London.  Downsizing after Lucas took $4 billion off their hands.

Onto dinner.  If you Google “eat out alone London” you will get in the first page of hits a suggestion to take dinner at Joel Robuchon’s Michelin lauded L’Atelier.  Which I guess is a good recommendation as it’s certainly not the sort of place I would have ventured into alone without a search hit.

The place is discreetly tucked away behind where Charing Cross Rd meets Shaftesbury Avenue, sort of the nexus of the West End, Covent Garden and Bloomsbury.  In glossy black with red undertones there is the feel of something both elegant and Asian pastiche.  It has a sort of Interview magazine cover feel from the 70s, faux oriental grandeur.  If you’ve seen the film that Yves St. Laurent’s partner made about YSL after his death, you’ll know the style.  It’s of an era. 

Stock photo.  I did not have the courage to bring a camera.

There is a bar restaurant on the ground floor, a restaurant proper upstairs and a bar proper on top of that.  The ground floor, with a kitchen about the size of a bachelor apartment, with around 12 chefs “plus” all sautéing and reducing and whipping and foaming, is a hive of regimental activity with many "yes chefs" and quiet acquiescence. Although spectacularly expensive, there is a prix fixe theatre menu from 5:30 to six.  A subdued and appreciative crowd surrounds the bar.

While thinking about what to order I had a Sardinian white Vernaccia which was listed “in the sherry style” and although I am baffled by that description it was indeed both dry and deeply interesting in that nutty, woodsy way sherry is, although not for a second was it anything but white wine.

Not famished, and absolutely certain everything would be scrumptious-ed up with butter and oil, I took the starter and main for 28 pounds.  It was no surprise to be served, first, an amuse bouche of foie gras, port wine and parmesan foam.  The foam, the omnipresent high end restaurant tendency towards foam, which has long outlived its welcome, actually worked very well, as it cut the foie’s richness without detracting from it (but so would any number of lightly bitter flavours, without the salt).  The port was sort of lost on me but swirled together it was perhaps the most decadent (non-)milk shake I’ve ever had.

A starter of chestnut veloute, a celeriac puree and chestnuts with the veloute poured over top.  Chestnuts are one of those enticing aromas that beckon you on the street; you buy a bag; you bite into one; and pthhft—they’re absolutely tasteless, dry, mealy and banal.  But here, with the dimension of celery, and the richness of the soup, it all combined nicely, with the mealy-ness of the nuts lost in the smooth richness of sauce.  I felt there was a tiny hint of cardamom in there to boot.  Trust Rubuchon to make chestnuts delectable.  With that a Touraine which was good, not a star.

For main a saddle of lamb, pan roasted, I watched the chef finger it lovingly to test its doneness, served with roasted potatoes (the anticipated lemony overtures were brief to nonexistent) and a side of buttered root vegetables which were as good as homemade which is I guess a backhanded compliment.  Overall, the dish was excellent, but I can’t help but say the lamb was ever so slightly, just a smidgen, too done.  Recommended was a Cote du Ventoux.  In Canada, CdV has long been an underappreciated value wine and I remember many good vintages back in Toronto as a student, but I don’t think it had the oomph to stand up to the saddle, it was a trifle too weak, and I think that is one recommendation that just didn’t pair perfectly.  There was no dessert, no chocolate with the bill (the French tradition, what a letdown!) and, as you can see, I didn’t take one picture.  But everything I ate, and watched come out of the kitchen, was a work of art.  Great dinner.

The joys of paying only 10 pounds for the afternoon were tempered by having to pay full price for the evening, a remount of an RSC production of Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance and Stephen Fry (the half of Fry and Laurie most North Americans don’t know).  It was at the Apollo, where Stephen and I saw a remount of The Country Wife a few years back, a wonderfully intimate theatre but with a centre aisle in the stalls that cuts out halfway.

“Twelfe Night” plays in rep with Richard III.  God knows how the cast that did Richard at 2:30 then quickly turned it around for three hours of Twelfth later that day; something of the dedication actors have for the craft I guess...  The theme, much lauded, is to replicate the purity of a version from Shakespeare’s time.  Thus, all the roles are played by men, there is actual candlelight (dripping, often, wax across the stage) augmented by artificial, period costumes, there are two tiers of seats specially built for the sides of the stage, and actors come and go through the stage and stalls.  Mark Rylance, not that well known outside of the UK (think Prospero’s Books) was Olivia, but the over-achievers were Belch and his sot pal Andrew.  Having actual musicians, lingering about, and playing actual music when appropriate (on period instruments) was genius.

Above: Fry as Malvolio.  Below: Rylance as Olivia

I was seated (excellent seats BTW, perfectly centred with a spectacular view) next to a young man called Oscar who was taking notes and I asked him if he was a theatre student and he told me he was the assistant director!  The actual director, Tim Carroll, did an amazing job.  So, all in, it was the type of rare theatrical event that makes you want to return to the theatre repeatedly, and encourage the art, it put me in a hugely upbeat frame of mind, it was just that good.  Like fly into London for it that good.  However, there is this one little problem: Twelfth Night is not the best comedy.  In fact despite the gorgeous language and many amusing scenes, particularly as it unfolds, there is something grossly overwritten about TN--and as it hits the three hour mark you do wonder to yourself whether a sincere edit (taboo to the purists, I know) was in order.  Somehow, unlike say in The Tempest or All’s Well, you don’t connect with the characters or their plight or really care.  Even the subtitle, As You Will, is like the lax and lamer version of As You Like It.  In the end, despite Fry’s performance, you don’t have any feeling, good or bad, about Malvolio.  Worse, you don’t really have any concern or interest about the mistaken identities coming to light and the glimmer of all’s well that ends well to the thing.  It has been three decades since I last saw TN and, truthfully, I think it fair to say it will be my last.  Still: If you’re going to do TN, you couldn’t do it better and this really is a runaway must-see event.

Laura Ashely Approved