Most of us travelled by train to get there, and we met up for lunch, but before that, I'd arranged to meet my pal BooBoo (@BooBooBearGreen) and his mum - we'd never met before - for a tour of The Globe Theatre on Bankside, before our lunchtime tweetup.
We paid and headed down quite a few steps to get to the basement where we met our guide. It was quite a big group but he clearly didn't notice two of our lot had walking sticks as he headed up the stairs. Fortunately, they spotted a lift, so were able to catch up as he headed outside the theatre.
Old techniques were used to make the theatre, although they didn't bother with cow manure in the daub and wattle! The doors and beams were made of British oak and the nails were handmade.
As we entered the auditorium, the first thing we noticed was the lack of a roof! Guys - this is England! Apparently, they do a roaring trade in showerproof ponchos! At least the seats are covered, but the standing area for the groundlings are not. The stage is mostly covered, but the performers still get wet. Not to mention have to integrate the occasional sightseeing helicopter into a Shakespeare play! Talk about improvisation!
There are three storeys which have bench seating. They are not the most comfy of theatre seats, but at least now there are toilets, not like in the days of the original theatre!
The first purpose-built theatre in London was built in 1576. Over time others appeared and in 1598 a theatre was demolished on the North side of the Thames and the lumber carried across to the south bank to build The Globe, in which William Shakespeare was one of four actors to buy a share. It thrived for the next fourteen years, even though crossing the river could be precarious!
There were some dodgy-looking groundlings in front of the stage on our tour! BooBoo and I made our Globe stage debut! The roof of the theatre is beautifully painted and from our vantage point we could see the side boxes were too!
Turns out the original theatre had a bit of an incident in 1613 when, during a performance of Henry VII wadding from a stage cannon set light to the theatre - with its thatched roof - and it burnt to the ground. The original Globe was replaced by a second version - this time with a tiled roof. It is not thought that Shakespeare wrote for this theatre, though his old Company remained here until the Puritans closed it down in 1642. No longer of use, it was demolished in 1644 to be replaced by tenements.
We headed up the stairs to the second (middle) storey to get - I thought - a better vantage point from which to view the stage. Up here you can see into the seating area at the back of the stage (below left) - these were the best seats back in the day as the audience sitting here could hear the actors better, not to mention the odd heckle. However, today the seats in these booths (the Muppet boxes!) are deemed the better seats - nicely decorated aren't they?
The new, modern Globe Theatre was the brainchild of American actor, Sam Wanamaker, who had the idea when visiting London in 1949. It was 1970 when the Shakespeare Globe Trust was formed to reconstruct the theatre and more. After 23 years of fundraising and research, Wanamaker died with construction just underway, completed in 1997.
The tour ended in the obligatory gift shop! This one was pretty good, with items sorted by Shakespeare Play, as well as some more generic Shakespeare-y stuff. They even had stuffies of the man himself - I tried to have a word but they kept waffling on about 2B or not 2B, maybe they were talking about buses?
This little rat chap recognised me and asked if he and his grey buddy could have their photos taken with BooBoo and me - of course I couldn't refuse. Aren't they cute? Gotta love a gift shop with huge rat stuffies!
It was drizzling a bit as we left the building, so the sticky humans decided to adjourn to Starbucks while BooBoo and I took a walk across the Millenium Bridge. From the one end, we could see St Paul's Cathedral! As we started across, the rain got a bit heavier so Asst Paul hid undercover leaving Di to take our pictures in the rain. She was so pleased!
We saw some nice bridges up- and down-stream of our vantage point. Downstream (East) we could see Tower Bridge - if you squint you can just make it out. Below right you can see the new Shard building.
You could see the water's edge here, so we looked for those dead bodies that turn up in the best detective shows. No luck though! On our way back we spotted Tate Modern - looked like a power station to me so I checked. It was! Apparently, it was Bankside Power Station.
Done with the bridge, we headed back to Starbucks to get a coffee. Good job we had our raincoats with us - weird we both had the same ones!
We had an hour or so until our Tweetup when we remembered we hadn't looked at the Globe Exhibition,
which was included in our tour ticket price so we headed back down Bankside (not very far) and headed inside. It's not huge, but has some nice exhibits.
Below left is a timeline, which shows the history of the original Globe from 1589 to 1613, outlining which of Shakespeare's plays were performed when alongside key historical moments. There's a model of the theatre, built as near as possible to the original construction, tweaks added along the way. The model, below right, is of the Frost Fair which occurred in 1821 when the Thames froze over.
Below left is a model of the Boar's Head which was an inn with its own playhouse. Below centre is The Rose playhouse which was the second playhouse on Bankside - along with the Globe - the entire foundations have survived and can be seen as the office block planned for the site was moved! Below right are some of the costuming techniques used back in Shakespeare's day!
They have some of the costumes used in the theatre on display also. Glad I don't have to dress like the guy below! I don't think I have the legs for tights.
While on the tour they were telling us how all the parts in Shakespeare's day - male and female - were played by men. One of the plays has a girl, played by a guy, pretending to be a guy falling in love with a girl, played by a guy. At least I think that was it - I forget which play though. That Shakespeare was a funny guy! Not sure why that posh girl below right is grabbing me though!
They have a collection of musical instruments reminiscent of the period, though it's not known how much music was used in productions back then. That said, there were around a hundred songs in Shakespeare's plays so there must have been some!
The awesome model (below right) of the future International Shakespeare Globe Centre was built in 1990. There were design changes during building, but it's not far off! Shame Mr Wanamaker didn't get to see it though.
Done with the Exhibition, we headed just along the river bank (about 100 yards) to the Pizza Express, Bankside
where BooBoo and I were meeting our fellow twitterers for lunch. We met mini-Kolo (emissary for @Kolo_Martin who is too big to travel) - we'd met him early in 2013 on the Isle of Wight - and his baboon pal Freddy, Chilly @ChillytheBear - who we'd met in May 2013 in Florida - William @SheepWilliam - who we'd not met before - and dogs @borderpup and Lexie @Dogstoyevsky and who couldn't come themselves but sent Nigel for @borderpup and bellydancing baboon Nuriyah for @Dogstoyevsky and their human mums. BooBoo had brought his pals Boowite and Tony the little baboon with him and I brought my little Baboon pal Bob too. It was quite a crowd!
Then there were the hangers on! There were eleven humans that were dragged along (we thought it was only fair, as they were paying for dinner!) During dinner BooBoo thought he'd play waiter with the huge pepper mill! We also had t-shirts and bandanas made! A large amount of chocolate and Bailey's cupcakes also changed paws! It was a long thin table so it wasn't always easy to eat and talk with everyone, but a bit of wandering up and down the table helped! I had a fabulous time and hope everyone else did too!
Lunch over, we were heading down the River Thames on a ferry to the London Eye.
Kolo and his people had to leave at this point so we said goodbye, then headed the few yards to the ferry ticket office. We bought our tickets and waited on the dock for the boat to arrive. I was surprised that as we travelled down the river, we did get a bit of commentary about what we could see (not much!) Below right is a tall building with OXO on the side - it did belong to the gravy company, and advertising was not allowed on buildings at the time, but they did some clever work with a clock and some decoration! Sneaky - I like that!
As we got closer to the London Eye I was able to get a couple of photos - that was our next stop. Across the river from the Eye are the Houses of Parliament and the clock tower that isn't called Big Ben! (That's the bell!) I understand they renamed it in 2012 so now it's Elizabeth Tower - think I'll stick with not Big Ben.
Once the ferry docked, we had to say goodbye to William Sheep and his human. They'd done the London Eye before and had to head off so we said goodbye to them at the base of the Eye.
We arrived at the Eye a little after 4pm and our ride wasn't until 5.30pm, so I sent the assistant to ask if we could just get in line early - they said yes! So we went to where the end of the queue should be, then back some more, behind a kiosk and back even further! The guy checking our tickets looked puzzled. We wondered why till he told the two humans with walking sticks to go sit down by the front and we'd queue and pick them up nearer the front. What a nice guy! Well, to them...could've told me to sit too! So Chilly and I got in line, with my assisants, three Twitter mums and a Twitter dad.
It was a long windy line, but they said half and hour and it moved quickly so they weren't far off. We picked up the sticky folks whereupon another member of staff put us in the fast-track line - all six stuffies and eight humans got speeded up cos of the sticky people! Yay! I'm going to get me a walking stick! It wasn't much longer till we passed through security, through a little shop kiosk and to the front of the line!
It wasn't the best day for photographs! A bit drizzly, grey and starting to get dark, but I still got a few shots. We stuffies all sat in the window so we could get a great view up the Thames! Aren't the Eye cars like alien spaceships?
As we rose off the ground we could see the Thames below us - the blue boat (below left) is a river ferry, like the one we travelled on from Bankside Pier. It was just going underneath Hungerford Bridge, which carries the trains to and from Waterloo Station. Below right, the tall tower with the lights on it (you can just about make it out) is the BT Tower.
As we travelled over the top of the wheel and down the other side, we got a great view of the Houses of Parliament. Only trouble was there was spots of rain on the windows so the camera kept focussing on the rain rather than the view.
Eventually we got around to the base again. As the car in front of us emptied we saw that two staff members got on to do a security check of each car between passengers. It's a sad day when they have to do such things but I guess it's a good thing they do.
I would've dropped it two Teds, but considering how nice they were about our sticky people, I only dropped one. They couldn't be held responsible for the weather, but I'm not sure why it is where it is. As far as I could tell there was very little to see up there. Yes, the Houses of Parliament but that hardly makes it worth nearly £20! It would've been better round by the Tower of London so you could see that, Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast and the like. As far as I could see the highlights were Elizabeth Tower (not Big Ben), Waterloo Station and the BT Tower. Not that impressed, if I'm honest.
We got out of the car and we were ahead of schedule - it wasn't even 5.30pm yet, the time we were due to get on the car! Good news! We had time to see the 4D movie included in our ticket but no one was really bothered - I hate 3D as it just gives me a headache so I didn't mind.
At this point Borderpup and Lexie's moms had to go, and we ditched Assistant Paul at Waterloo Station so it was just Chilly, BooBoo and Me (and humans) on to the next stage of our Tweetup day. We were off to take tea at Harrods!
We had a terrible taxi ride to Harrods - the driver trying desperately (it seemed) to knock a guy off his bike, then yelling at us cos he hadn't seen we'd left the fare in the little ashtray thing we thought was designed for the purpose! Miserable git. Anyway, a lovely Harrods doorman helped us out of the evil cab and we headed inside.
We had decided to take tea in The Tea Room
which they described as featuring a quintessentially English line-up of mouth-watering fare. We all opted for cream teas, with two scones, clotted cream and jam with tea. Despite the pictures, Chilly was allowed to look at the menu and get scones and tea! It does look like BooBoo and I are trying to prevent him!
We were a bit disappointed. While the scones were nice and there was plenty of jam (and nowhere near enough cream, as usual!) it just wasn't as posh as we'd expected considering this was Harrods. There weren't even table cloths (not even paper ones!) on the plasticky tables. Yes the china was nice, but it's hardly a British tea for our American friend Chilly without a nice table cloth! I suppose £12.50 for two scones and a pot of one of many available teas wasn't bad - especially for London, especially for Harrods, but I did expect a tablecloth. Call me picky. So I dropped two Teds! Not good enough, Harrods!
BooBoo, his pals and his mom had to catch the 8pm train so they left before us, but it wasn't that long after that we were done so I said goodbye to my Twitter friend from Florida. He and his human mum and dad are all lovely! They all were - stuffies and even the humans!
Near to The Tea Room was the Harrods Gift Store so we had a quick look in there. As we passed through we saw a charming and distinguished bear who agreed to pose with me. They even had a Police Bear next to the lift (elevator) so we had our photo taken together too. He was a very tall chap - even without the helmet! We found another bear on the lift door! Cor! We bears are everywhere!
