A wonderful evening!

For my birthday present, ever so slightly belated, my in-laws took me out for an evening of dinner and theatre. We drove to Stratford-upon-Avon for an early meal at the restaurant in the theatre. Quarto's is the restaurant actually in the theatre. We had wonderful seats directly overlooking the Avon and it was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was shining, the willow trees and all were in full bloom, there were a few swans in the river, tourists gently rowing in their rented rowboats and us looking over everything.

The entire experience was actually amazing. It turned out to be one of the best meals I've ever had in England. The food was excellent. I had a roast duck with cranberry sauce and some lightly steamed vegetables followed by a crème brulée for dessert which is only surpassed by my wife's crème brulée. Bill and I shared an excellent Chianti Russina red wine with the meal and the coffee afterwards was perfect.

After the meal all we had to do was walk downstairs to enter the theatre and our seats. The placement was amazing. We were close to the front while enough rows away to be able to see the entire stage (about 8 rows back) and right in the centre. The Royal Shakespeare Company is performing the entire works of Shakespeare over the next few months. Actually there are quite a lot of companies performing many of the shows as well at the RSC theatre. Tonight was Romeo and Juliet. I can safely say this was one of the strangest performances of Romeo and Juliet I have ever seen. However it was also one of the most enjoyable versions I have seen yet. It was rather timeless in the choice of period. The costumes looked like late 19th century. It also appeared as though the Capulets were gypsies. But that was just because of the music. Whenever the characters would fight they would actually dance. Instead of fighting each other they would dance against each other. It was all very precisely choreographed and mostly tap. They all had huge sticks (batons) that they used as weapons instead of swords. It was quite an novel way of presenting the fights. But I must say I missed the good ole fashioned sword fights more than once. This was particularly apparent during the scene when Mercutio is dying and speaks of being pierced and the blood. There was neither piercing nor blood to be seen. It was also a bit of a raunchy production with particular concentration being done to emphasise much of the built-in double-entendre and sexual innuendoes which Shakespeare had delicately sprinkled throughout the script. All-in-all it was a very strong production and one left the theatre exhausted.

At the end of the meal the waitress took our drink orders for the intermission and our same table and seats were there waiting for us. It was wonderful sitting over the river, now with nighttime offering a completely different scene, and slowly sipping red wine (Rioja) knowing we only had to stroll back downstairs to get to our seats. At the end of the performance Bill was there to drive us home. A cuppa tea later and I was in bed before midnight, packed and ready to leave the next morning.