Visiting London for Food and Fun

November 2023

I am leaving London with a heavy heart, despite the knowledge I will be back in a short seven months.

This trip was to visit friends, dine out, and see a few plays.  I managed to do a lot more, but here are the plays I saw and the places I dined, none of which would have been possible if my dear friend Susan had not made all the play reservations and all the dinner plans.

Plays

Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theater.  This is fabulous; you laugh all the way through, and when you aren’t laughing, you are humming the lyrics to all the songs.  The acting was sublime, with the standouts being Daniel Mays as Nathan Detroit and Marisha Wallace as Adelaide.

Below is another stand-out actor in the show, Cedric Neal, as Nicely-Nicely Johnson.

 

Frank and Percy at The Other Palace was really wonderful.  One need not speak of how great the actors were; you expected that, but these two gentlemen brought all the emotions that go with daily life, facing aging and accepting love.

Kenneth Branagh directs and plays the title role in King Lear at the Wyndham Theater.  This play got trounced in the reviews, but while I found a few of the characters as pathetic as milk toast in their acting abilities, I truly enjoyed the play.

Dining Out

Tea at Claridges

Tea is always special, and with Christmas decorations, especially so.  The tea at Claridge’s is absolutely worth every penny.

Aulis

Aulis is a 12-seat restaurant with a fifteen-course meal.  The first few courses were in a small room where we gathered at small tables.  The food was brought out and explained.  Then we moved to the main room, where the food was prepared to watch and learn. – I had the wine pairing as well.

The menu and the pictures say it all.

And, again, it was Susan who had the sense to take all the photos.