Soho and Hysteria

I had two arrangements for the day - to meet a friend and go to the Pompeii exhibition for a third time first thing, ie 10am when it opens, and then to meet him at the other end of the day to see a play, Hysteria. So I had to find a few things to amuse me in Town between the two.

First catch was that while nice enough arriving at  the British Museum, it was pissing it down by mid-morning, so I extended my stay in the Museum, with a good wander around one of the lesser known sections - the Assyrian bit. The real attractions here are not the more famous winged figures that formed the entrance to the Palace, but a frieze depicting a  lion-hunt. At this time it seems the Middle-East was as teeming with lions as now it is with terrorists. One can't help feeling they would be far better off with the lions back.Perhaps the most interesting part of these carvings when you examine them closely is that they do not depict a hunt in open country. It is quite clear that the lions were pre-captured. Some of the lions are appearing out of wooden cages, no doubt so that the king doesn't have quite so much of a challenge in slaughtering them.

 Having braved the weather (and discovering that my shoes had a crack across the sole and so were far short of being weather proof), I headed across town to see the annual portrait exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I always like this: its the equivalent of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, but for new portraits. It is always interesting, and unlike the RA one, being portraits you can't have any abstract rubbish, notr can you get away with having no talent to draw (well almost - one or two are a bit dodgy). But by and large they are very good.

Then I went upstairs and made my way down through the earliest paintings, and indeed sculptures.

The Kit-Kat club, a series of paintings of some of the country's most distinguished men of the Regency.

Self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds

Witth rain having abated, and full of a dim-sum in China Town, I embarked on a walk through Soho. There is much more to this area than just seedy joints. Starting up at Goodge Street thearea is dominated by the BT Tower in the distance, here framed by a mural commissioned in 1980 of local people.

 This is Pollock's Theatrical Print Warehouse, with its attached Toy Museum

 This area is full of atmospheric little passageways which criss-cross the road network

 and tend to link various pubs, like the Newman Arms. Note the mural which occupies an upstairs window. It pays to look up in London.

 I liked this unofficial blue plaque

Coming into Soho Square you can find the French Protestant Church

The Square itself is currently home to some rather attractive modern sculptures, as well as the much older central statue of Charles II

 The streets around here have a nice antiquated feel

 The Intrepid Fox pub has this relief which celebrates a hard-fought election campaign, in the good old days of British democracy.  Charles Fox beat Sam House in Westminster thanks to some of the local great ladies giving kisses to local tradesman in exchange for their votes. Surely a much fairer way of attracting votes than say, promising to scrap tuition fees. At least you got a kiss of the Duchess of Devonshire, which is more than anyone has got out of Nick Clegg.

 Carnaby Street was of course the epicentre of the Swinging Sixties. Still full of clothes shops, but not a very appealing place now.

 Golden Square is rather more attractive, with its gardens around a statue of George II

 This the parish church of Soho, St Annes, which somehow survived the blitz intact. It, and the gardens in front stand 2 metres above the pavement line, rather alarmingly because underneath is a disused graveyard with almost 10.000 corpses.

 Nearby is the busy heart of Chinatown and the colourful Gerrard Street.

Haymarket theatre

The Royal Opera Arcade

The Institute of Directors HQ, designed by Nash

The coquerel which now stands on the "empty" fourth plinth in Leicester Square.

My evening's entertainment was to be seeing Hysteria at the Hampstead Theatre. Now I regularly go to plays here - quality is good, its right by a tube station and the seating is modern and comfortable. But from the exterior. well just lets say its not a looker is it? You would rather expect it to be selling discount furniture.

The play itself was neither fisn nor fowl. The premise was a meeting between the dying Sigmund Freud, played by Anthony Sher, and Salvador Dali in London in the 1930s. Into this is thrown a young woman who wants a meeting with Freud too, because her mother, who has committed suicide, was once his patient. The problem with the play from my standpoint is that it was part serious drama and part classic farce. To be honest the farcical parts worked best. Knocking on cupboard doors, ladies appearing in states of undress, comedy of misunderstanding. The drama element got rather lost.