Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Romeo and Juliet


Amelia’s devotion to the Pop-Up Globe has been usurped by experiencing the real thing. What a riveting production; the cast were on point as two families who are too absorbed by their rivalry to accept the consequences of their actions. Many humorous touches (such as Romeo’s emo entrance slouching along with hoodie and headphones) made a good counterpoint to the tragedy. And yes, an impressive karaoke rendition of the YMCA song marked the dance where he meets Juliet. The two leads managed to convey an awkward teenage perspective along with (heartrending) hopes for their future lives. OTT elements of the story worked really well for this overt warning of their pending deaths. When there were fight scenes, they were staged as WWF-style pantomime. Romeo’s disguise at the masquerade was a Dia de Muertos skull mask. There were baby coffins and funeral wreaths paving the way to the inevitable ending. They opted for a raw, abrupt ending without a prolonged denouement – all-in-all completely devastating.

Meanwhile, the Globe’s ceiling – so beautiful!

Monday, July 10, 2017

Harry Potter post-script

So this is King’s Cross Station, but where is platform 9 ¾?

Never mind, found it!


Sunday, July 9, 2017

One fine day in the Wizarding World

How to describe the magic of Harry Potter IRL? Despite being warned at the beginning that the game of Quidditch would be forever spoiled, in fact seeing all the design and technical creativity only made the sense of world-building fuller. It was fun seeing the portrait wall, Dumbledore’s office, the Hogwarts Express, and many other familiar scenes. The visual effects, props, and pre-production models were pure artistry. Really an amazing experience - also managing to avoid the pit-falls of all-ages tours (read: it was not too kiddified), fortunate for the sake of those of us who are just slightly above the target audience age LOL!


Dumbledore in da house, yo!


But the highlight of the Warner Brothers Studio Tour had to be seeing a scale version of the complete Hogwarts Castle. Now that creation was real magic.


Hogwarts Castle (smaller IRL) :-D

Our game plan

We have had a lot of people wanting to know our itinerary so here goes... By the way I know Touristing isn't really a word 😀 JUNE 17...