London Calling - A quick visit by Nanny Goat*

 

Sean Palmer and the Crazy For You chorus girls

*Jazz Clubs  Pizza Express / G Funk 
                         Ronnie Scotts /Ray Gelato 

*Movie           The Artist at The Vue Leicester Square

*Free Stuff     Royal Festival Hall Afternoon Tea Dance

*Musical         Crazy For You  
*Events          Lord Mayor’s New Year's Day Parade

*Sacred          Vespers at Westminster Cathedral

*Buskers       Opera Girl / Infamous Irish Dancer 

With the gloom of twixtmas setting in, I escaped for a few days to the bright lights of London. We arrived too late for a traditional theatre  show  so there was nothing for it but to head for the jazz clubs in Soho on our first night in the capital.

Legendary jazz club 

Gelato  at Ronnie Scott's

First we called to Pizza Express Jazz Club on Dean Street, Soho.This super cool jazz night spot has been running for 40 years or so and is easy to miss, as it operates in the basemen tof a unassuming pizza chain restaurant. But soon we are ushered through the diners to the basement stairs to the downstairs cavern where G Funk were just launching their second set of the evening. A quartet made up of American brothers Gary and Gerry Grainger on bass and drums with Myles Gilderdale and Fred Whyte of Acoustic Alchemy . The atmosphere is intimate and patrons are up close and personal to the artists. There is the sense that the musicians are playing to each other  as much as to the audience. It is super cool and you can eat pizza and quaff red wine while you indulge your jazz habit which we do . It was such fun that we carried on to our second jazz club of the evening. Outside Ronnie Scott's, Ray Gelato and his crew were having a short  break on Frith Street. We queued and were ushered in just before the late second house This was more upmarket slick entertainment than the previous venue and  Gunther Kurmayr’s tinkling of the acoustic ivories was the most satisfying musical aspect of the set. Cover charge to both venues was £20 

Next day it was  the Gershwin musical Crazy For You a 1992, remodelling of the original 1930's Broadway show,  Girl Crazy which is running in the Novello Theatre . This theatre formerly known as The Strand Theatre has had a €5 million makeover and looks stunning. This show has everything you could want in a song and dance show with familiar standards grafted onto the original score of an earlier hit show, Girl Crazy.  A very physical show for the dancers with several long extended dance scenes in both acts, the cast sang and danced their hearts out so much so that you wondered where they would possibly  muster up the energy to do it all again for the evening performance. With Gershwin, you know the tunes are going to be good. The costumes were gorgeous with many changes , the girls looked stunning, every aspect of the performance was superb from the leads to every last chorus member.  We enjoyed chatting to dancer Wes Kelly from Dublin who gave us a fascinating insight into the London  theatre scene. Nostalgia is a popular theme with The Artist a modern version of a silent movie the top show at the cinema box office in Leicester Square.

The Lord Mayor's Parade on New Year's Day was a somewhat dull affair. There were lots of American high school bands and riders on horseback and rather  long gaps in between, perhaps not to frighten the horses . It is a good day to walk the route down Whitehall and Regent Street with traffic suspended and the weather unseasonably mild. At Westminster Abbey, pearly kings and queens rubbed shoulders with British Legionnaires, high school cheerleaders and cornet players. Vespers at Westminster Cathedral was held in the main body of the church although the sparse scattered  congregation did not make it the resonant experience it might have been in a smaller space and the nature of the service required a lot of sung responses that most of us were not familiar enough with to respond to.

  Covent Garden was heaving with buskers . Opera Singers usually prefer darker indoor spaces but

Opera Singer Imogen Roose busking in Covent Garden

Imogen Rousse was doing her best with the acoustics of basement arena in the covered market.  An elderly man near Victoria dressed bizarrely in a very short  mustard skirt that definitely wouldn't pass any school uniform inspection and dancing his own version of a jig could only surely mean that infamous Irishman Neil Horan is  loose in London. There couldn't be another could there? I hurried through puddles on  a rain sodden South |Bank to the

Unconventional ballroom Dancers at RFH

Royal Festival Hall where the an  afternoon tea dance was in full swing. This was so much fun, I wish I could have stayed longer. The ballroom packed with dancers of all ages, included some unconventional couples among the dancers.  All over the ground floor in every nook and corner couples were rehearsing their steps. What better way to spend a Sunday faternoon with the rain belting down outside.

Legionnaires at the Lord Mayor's Parade

'Royal' Family outside Westminster Abbey

Dancer Wes Kelly  at Novello Theatre

Colourful display at Westminster Abbey 

American Cheerleaders

The 'Archbishop' I presume

Its a dog's life

I had travelled by ferry and train to Paddington. Leaving the car at Rosslare I hopped on the Stena ferry to Fishguard at 9.00am. On the plus side, the Stena SailRail option was great value needing no prebooking, allowing for travel on a whim and for €40 bringing you from Rosslare to Paddington in central London at 7.30pm. On the minus side the trains towards London were very crowded and involved several changes.Travelling at this time of the year, you risk delays and cancellations and luckily I escaped the storms that suspended ferries later in the week.London is always fun no matter when you hit it and the bleak midwinter is probably as good a time as any to enjoy it. A blog of my earlier trip to Londin is  here.

*nanny goat is of course cockney rhyming slang for boat.