I've had more than one adventure since my last blog post. Where do I even begin?
Last Saturday, I went to visit Pemberly. Okay, okay. It's really Chatsworth House, home to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Mr. Darcy doesn't really live there, but it is where they shot some of the Darcy house scenes for the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice. I seriously could have sworn that I heard someone playing the movie's theme on the piano while I was in the house. Maybe it was in my head, but I'm not entirely convinced. It's a pretty sweet place. One of the men in the line of dukes of Devonshire was an avid collector of art, so the house is absolutely filled with paintings and sculptures. It's basically a museum. I was surprised to learn that Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned in Chatsworth for many of her later years. I got to see her bedroom. The last room I saw in the house was the Sculpture Garden, and I recognized it as soon as I walked in. Most of the sculptures were in that room when they filmed Pride and Prejudice. I was excited to see that the sculpture of the lady with the veiled face was there. After seeing the house, I walked around the grounds for a while. Let's just say the Duke of Devonshire's backyard is a tad fancier than mine. The grounds have a rectangular pond, a rock garden, a hedge maze, and sculptures all over the place, and that's just what I saw. I'm sure I didn't see everything.
Sunday, I went to evensong at Holy Trinity in Coventry. It was lovely. Singing “Abide with Me” was exactly what I needed. I'm constantly running around so much while I'm here that it was nice to go to this service where I could sit and concentrate on refocusing on God.
Wednesday of this week, I hopped on a train to London after my class in the morning, because I had a ticket for the matinée of Les Miserables at the Queen's Theatre in the West End. I was beyond excited to see it, because I've been in love with the music for years and had never gone to see it live. It was phenomenal; it definitely met my high expectations. The staging with the rotating stage is choreographic genius. Fifteen minutes into the show (the first time Jean Valjean gets a break), the lights came up, and the theatre manager announced that Jonathan Williams (Valjean) had taken ill and that they would continue after a short break with a new Valjean. Well, Jonathan Williams, who, by the way, was absolutely fantastic for the 15 minutes that I saw him, is the alternate Jean Valjean. I just happened to be at one of the shows in which Alfie Boe, the main Valjean, was not performing. The new guy was Robert Vickers; he was also great. You know you're at a West End show when the 2nd understudy is awesome. I looked Vickers up online after the show and found out that he usually plays Combeferre, one of the men in the barricades. I'm not sure of this by any means, but it's possible that this was the first time he had gotten to perform as Valjean. During the show, he was Jean Valjean, but, during the curtain call, he was just beaming. You could tell how much it meant to him to have played that role. Pretty cool to witness. I have to admit, I did kind of want to see Alfie Boe in the role. He's kind of a big deal. He played Valjean in the 25th anniversary concert, and he's only playing Valjean in the West End through November. However, this was one heck of a cool experience too.
More to come this weekend!
Laura
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