CANTERBURY:
Our day trip this past Friday was to Canterbury. As many of you may know Canterbury was where Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was assassinated by four of King Henry II's knights. This is the subject of T. S. Eliot's play,Murder in the Cathedral and the film, Becket, starring Richard Burton as Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II. Later O'Toole would play Henry in the later years of his life in the film, The Lion in Winter, with Katherine Hepburn as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Both are excellent films. So Thomas became a Saint, and the Cathedral became a site for pilgrimages. One of these was made famous by the writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote The Canterbury Tales. In college I took a semester course on Chaucer where we read the complete works of Chaucer all in Middle-English. It was like learning a new language!!! It was also very rewarding.
Our first stop was to take a photo in front of Chaucer's statue.
Chaucer.
Getting ready to walk from the bus into town to meet our tour guide.
It didn't take long for the Lush fanatics to find a Lush store!
THE GATE:
This is the Gate that is the entrance to the Cathedral. It will be covered in scaffolding soon to be cleaned up like the Cathedral.
Cromwell and his men took down and destroyed the original image of Christ that was on the Gate. They had a competition, and this modern bronze statue was the winner.
These are some of the images that we also saw in King's College Chapel in Cambridge. Here is the rose from The War of the Roses. Also some of the Royal crests.
Here is an example of Tudor architecture.
St. Thomas Catholic Church where our Chamber Singers sang on their tour. They also sang in the Cathedral!
Our great tour guide Sean (not sure of the spelling). She was highly recommended by last year's group, so I requested we have her again, and we did!!!
INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL:
What are they all looking at?
A magnificent ceiling!!!!
The white cross is actually a trap door that can open up and have things lowered into the Cathedral.
Another pulpit.
A fresco discovered!
Where Becket's original shrine was located before being destroyed by Cromwell's men.
When I went to Canterbury in 1974 with my Chaucer professor, he was writing an article on how the pilgrims were going to Canterbury to be judged. For judgement. He asked us to see if we could find a Libra in the Cathedral to help support his theory. When we all met, we said no luck! I then looked down and saw this right next to me.
He was ecstatic!!!! Canterbury has some of the most exquisite stained glass in the world. Here is just a sampling.
Thomas a Becket
Becket being murdered.
I find it interesting that all the tombs have an animal at the person's feet.
His armor and gloves and hat are displayed above his tomb.
His hat!!! Interesting. Ahnika fell in love with it!!!
The new Martyrdom of Thomas Becket which is located just before you enter the Crypt where you are not allowed to take photos.
Outside the Cloisters is the Chapter House which has an incredible ceiling.
And an incredible stained glass window with all the Kings in it.
Second from the left is King Henry VIII
The Cloisters.
Cloister ceiling with many crests.
A chapel dedicated to war veterans.
Whenever I come to Canterbury there is always scaffolding covering part of the Cathedral, but it is worth the final result.
It looks fantastic all cleaned up.
This is a new addition to the grounds of the Cathedral.
MORE OF THE CITY:
The wall surrounding the City and a lot of the buildings look like this. The black is flint!!!!
The Pilgrim's Hospital.
A great Tudor building.
There is a dunking chair over the river where people, especially women, were put in the chair and dunked as a punishment.
A large metal mask outside the Marlowe Theatre.
The walk on the way back to the bus along the river.
My favorite house in Canterbury. Don't know how it is still standing!!!! Also an example of how each floor sticks out further than the floor below it. Why? One was taxes on the square footage of the ground floor, so they made it smaller than the upper floor. Many of the houses and buildings are set up like this.
On the way to rehearsal I stopped into the Design Museum to check out the Stanley Kubrick exhibit, but the line was too long, so I need to go back before it closes on September 15th. This week the Art in London class went to the National Gallery and saw many, many wonderful works of art! No pictures yet.
THEATRE:
For the Page to Stage class we saw the most incredible play, Secret River, performed by an Australian theatre company. When the play was done in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, the actress playing the Aborigine Narrator unexpectedly passed away. A new actress took over the role. She did a terrific job even though she had a script in her hands which fit in well as a prop. The play is very emotional. It is based on the book, Secret River, by Kate Grenville. It is a book that is taught in Australian schools and deals with the conflict between the Aborigine tribe and the white settlers taking their land. Very similar to what went on between the Native Americans in the USA and the white settlers. We will discuss it in class on Monday.
Statue of Sir Laurence Olivier outside the National Theatre. He was the first Artistic Director.
The back of Charing Cross Station.
For the Theatre in London class we went to see the farce, The Play That Goes Wrong. This was for the unit we did on British Music Hall, Pantomime, and Farce. It was hysterical!!!!
The best set ever!!!!
The Mischief Theatre Company also has another play in the West End called A Comedy about a Bank Robbery which takes place in Minneapolis. Opening soon is their play, Groan Ups. It will be part of a residency at the Vaudeville Theatre. The one after that is Magic That Goes Wrong. They have also done Peter Pan Goes Wrong. Looking forward to seeing these.
Look who I found in Camden Town today!!!! Chilling!
THAT'S ALL FOLKS!!!!
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