London, the last day

September 22: Today started slow even though we gained two hours due the time zone change.  We had breakfast in the hotel after packing or rearranging clothes in our suitcases. We each have a suitcase of mostly dirty clothes that is now set aside and will not be opened until after getting home.

We did other internet things, like checking our bank accounts and checking in for our flight to Iceland.  We also bought theatre tickets for tonight to see The Entertainer with Kennth Branagh.  And we looked up the Blue Lagoon to see when it opens.  It's website suggested we book a spot, so we tried that.  But, it is fully booked on Saturday so our plan to enjoy a soak has been derailed. 

After the Internet work, we walked to the British Museum to see the rest of the famous marble carvings of the Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles.  It was interesting to see how they displayed their pieces in comparison to those in the Acropolis Museum in Athens.  I was able to find Panel V that is intact except for the head of Athena, which was found sometime later in the rubble and consequently is still in Athens.  The Acropolis Museum has the head mounted with a plaster cast of the remaining Panel V and a note that the rest of the panel is at the British Museum.  The British go to considerable effort to justify their ownership of the Parthenon sculptures, mostly on the grounds that the marble was deteriorating badly and they had permission from the Ottoman rulers in charge at the time. 

We hung around for a free tour in the Enlightment Room.  The guide explained how the room began as a library housing collections of Hans Sloan and King George III.  It has evolved into a summary of the vast contents of the museum, arranged in categories.  It is a way to sample the museum's collection quickly.  The categories include natural history, paleontology and archaeology, arts and culture, religion and rituals, letters and books.   

We had a break at the museum cafe and walked back to hotel for a siesta.

We left the hotel around 4:30 to walk toward the Garrick Theatre and for a place to have dinner.  We arrived in the West End and retrieved our tickets for the evening performance of The Entertainer, starring Kenneth Branagh.  We ate an early dinner at Farm Stand, a light cafeteria-style eatery (on the corner of Long Acre and Drury Lane).  We each had poached salmon with 2 sides for a fixed price.

We had time to kill before the theatre so we ambled down to the Embankment (riverside).  The tide was high, lapping up on the walls and boat accesses.  We walked through the Whitehall Gardens and arrived to the theatre in time to claim our seats.  My was a wheelchair accessible seat and two guys from the stage crew had to reset the a trio of seats and the back wall.  Our seats were in the middle of the fifth row in the Dress Circle.  Strangely, this was basically street level.  The stage is about 30 or more feet lower down.  As we waited for the opening, we noticed a couple of actors who came in and sat two rows in front of us.  After doing a little Internet research we determined they were Nicholas Farrell and Stella Gonet.  Nicholas Farrell had done some Shakespeare with Kenneth Branagh.

The Entertainer was written by John Osborne.  It takes place in England around 1956 and centers around a family comprised of a former music hall, dance man grandfather, current tap dancer/host son (Branagh), wife, daughter and two sons (though only one appears in the play).  There was a love/hate relationship among the family members with the music hall business was in serious decline.  It appeared that the entire economy of Britian at the time was depressed.  While Branagh did an admirable job acting, singing and dancing, the plot was a bit disappointing.  Our reaction after the close was why would anyone care what happens to the characters.  We rode the Underground back to our hotel.