A little culture

I feel a bit guilty that I still don't have a post up for last weekend, but the insanity has continued! Glorious insanity only, of course. Monday night was Oliver - an absolutely spectacular rendition of the Dickens classic. I've always loved the show, but seeing it in London with such a stellar cast took it to a whole different level. My favorite actor? The lad who played the Artful Dodger. He was brilliant, and so full of energy, but having worked with kids his age in theater before, I'm pretty sure he was probably quite a lot to handle backstage. Oh, and lyrics like "who will buy, this beautiful morning?" and "I'd do anything for you, dear, anything, for you mean everything to me!" are ridiculously infectious.

Tuesday night I spent working at an event for the Labour Party in Mitchem and Morden. A Q&A with leadership hopeful, David Miliband. Just to note, I am in no way affiliated with the Labour Party and neither do I support half of what they do. I was working the event as part of my substitute internship. It was quite an experience though, to see a potential future prime minister walk in, shaking hands and kissing babies and see six hundred suburban constituents gape in awe. (As for Modus PR, a promo video we shot last month for Uniqlo went live on their website today and they DIDN'T edit me out. I'm impressed. To check it out, follow this link: http://bit.ly/aNeZag I'm the last one with way too many accessories.)

On a completely different note, I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum last Friday. Amazing. There's SO much crammed into that building - I heard somewhere that if you were to spend 30 seconds on each piece it would take you 12 years to see everything! Here are some of the pictures I took:

Gold. There was a giant hallway brimming with treasures from all over the world. This was just down a hall or two from a giant room full of hundreds of large swatches of fabrics dating back to Medieval times.

The original Peter Pan flying harness. Yeah, I was geeking out a bit. :) Looks even more uncomfortable than the one I had to wear!

My favorite piece from the special exhibit on the style of Grace Kelly.

Amazing riding jacket from the 1700s. Could have been straight off Christopher Decarnin's sketchpad.

My dream jewelry box from Japan. (Nate, if you're reading this, this is a hint...)

Italian gazebo. I want one hidden away in the gardens of my fantasy estate. You can sort of see the other statues and monuments in the background of this picture. There were two giant rooms full of castings of at least 50 major Italian sculptures, all crammed in together. It was actually really creepy. I can imagine if the world became completely industrialized and all of the great works of art were tossed into a storage facility it would look like this. That or an artsy version of the White Witch's courtyard.

Guardian Angel.

I'm usually not a fan of Medieval art, but this was pretty amazing.

The end of a very very long hall of statues.

The courtyard.

Outside of Oliver. A theater-goer's dream come true.

A blurry shot taken subtly from inside my purse (no pictures in the theater, please!) of the gorgeous theater. I bought my tickets ahead of time from the tkts booth in Leicester Square. Half price and sitting in the 6th row. That plus the Israeli mother and daughter sitting next to me who became my adopted family for the night, made the evening great even before the lights went down.