UK Week 2: Mad Men and English Dogs (part four)

I headed over to the Globe to catch an afternoon matinee of As You Like It, Shakespeare's light-hearted comedy, after mudlarking along the Thames for a good long while. I wrote in my journal that I could well spend the rest of my days doing that, even though my floral duster confused a bee (also wrote that perhaps that would make for good employment, "Bees confused: 50p" but there are unlikely to be takers, I suppose). I don't know why it's so much fun idling along the banks, but it always is: watching the traffic on the river, finding interesting things among the rocks, taking pictures of the random arrangements on the shingle.

The play was a lot of fun, as always, in a really lively -- I'd even say bouncy -- production by Thea Sharrock that got the most out of the intimate setting. It was a nice surprise to see Jamie Parker as Oliver (I hadn't looked at the cast list before the show) whom I'd seen last year in The Revenger's Tragedy at the National, and of course, who was so good in The History Boys. Standouts included a very robust Rosalind played by Naomi Frederick, a very sexy Orlando played by Jack Laskey, Laura Rogers who gave Celia and Rosalind's relationship a kind of Patsy and Edina liveliness. Dominic Rowan gave Touchstone a kind of dignity that kept his shenanigans from ever getting wearing thin. I even sprang for a seat, so I was out of the sun and light rain. Great fun!

Earlier in the week (I forgot to write it up earlier) I also saw In the Loop, the Armando Iannucci film that's (kind of) sprung from his television show The Thick of It. Much of the cast is the same, although not necessarily the parts they play, and much of the action takes place in the States. I thought that would be really annoying -- an obvious ploy to make it more "attractive" to an American audience who presumably wouldn't have much interest in British politics (not that they have much interest in American politics either). But the film was very funny and the American bits weren't too annoying, and fit quite well. The thing is with a film like this, you laugh all the way through it and then later feel depressed because it's a good dissection of just how frivolously politicians let slip the dogs of war. Curse you, Iannucci for always making me think while I laugh.

Hey, I think I finally finished week two! On to week three -- er, soon. Off to Lake George tomorrow...