This weekend, I went to London with my girlfriend to see the musical, Waitress, which I’ve wanted to see for a good few months. The soundtrack is one of my favourites and I couldn’t wait to see the story and songs performed. I also visited the Natural History Museum for the first time which was fab and stayed at a wonderful Airbnb! Thought I’d do a little wrap up of my trip including a couple of little bookish things I did!
First off, I’m just going to say how lovely the Airbnb we stayed in was. It was such a dream place to stay! The flat was so nice, the hosts were lovely and they made us an amazing breakfast on the Sunday morning. They also had three rescue cats which were adorable and definitely one of the highlights of the weekend. We weren’t there much because of being busy but it was a great place to stay.
As I mentioned at the start of this post, the whole reason we went to London was to see Waitress. We booked the trip after my birthday as I used some money I got to pay for tickets etc. The musical was amazing!!! I was a bit gutted Katharine McPhee was away as I really wanted to see her play Jenna however it didn’t take away from it at all. I’ve mainly seen swings as the main cast whenever I’ve seen a play or musical and they’re always fantastic. Lucie Jones played Jenna in our performance and she knocked it out of the park. We actually saw her as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde last year in Manchester and she was great in that so we knew she was going to be fab.
The cast was so, so good! Marisha Wallace as Becky and Laura Baldwin as Dawn, my two favourite characters in Waitress, were brilliant. We also had a shock to find that Jack McBrayer who voices Fix-It Felix in the Disney film, Wreck-It Ralph, was in it as Ogie – I didn’t realise it was him til we got there! David Hunter was fantastic as Dr. Pomatter too. I genuinely smiled through about 90% of the show and couldn’t deal with how happy I was in that moment. It’s funny, heartfelt and also deals with some difficult themes like abuse so please be aware of that if you’re going to see it! The story isn’t the most brilliant and fleshed out in the world but the performances, the songs and just the heart of it make it one of my favourite musicals ever.
We also went for a walk down the Thames on Saturday afternoon before the show and this was so lovely. The weather was pretty nice overall. We stumbled upon Books Under the Bridge which I loved! We spent a little while there browsing the various books. I didn’t buy anything as I’m not buying books at the minute unless it’s for a signing I really want to go to/one of my favourite authors.
I also finally went to the BFI Southbank – not to see a film or anything, just to check the place out and go to the shop! Again, we spent a good while in here and I was in my element, flicking through back issues of Sight and Sound magazine and checking out their film collections. I’m definitely going back there soon too and would love to go see a film there!
I’ve always wanted to go to the Natural History Museum and it didn’t disappoint. We didn’t even get round half of it in three and a half hours so I definitely plan on going back. There was a casual, half-hour Nature Live lecture on when we went and we decided to go as it was about how the Earth formed and we both love learning about space. It was ran by a scientist who works at the Museum and we got to see various rocks that were part of the Earth’s mantle as well as tiny pieces of the Moon and Mars!
There’s currently a free exhibit on called Museum of the Moon which is amazing. When you walk in you genuinely feel like you have walked up to the Moon. I also loved the section of the Museum about earthquakes and volcanoes – I’m fascinated by natural disasters/phenomena and I learnt a lot of interesting stuff! We also looked at the bug/insect section, the birds and some of the other animals. We didn’t have time on this trip but I really want to go back and look at the dinosaurs, the evolution exhibits and much, much more!
Let me know if you’ve been to any of these places (I’m sure most people have!) or seen Waitress and what you think of it!
The Little Contemporary Corner 