London, a City I did not take to be so complex but simple. Let me explain… First, I don’t think I ever thought I would find my self traveling overseas to a destination anything like this. After spending a full day or two worth of traveling, I find it hard to believe at times that I am on the other side of the world. Within the first hour of being here I began to see many things that are the same and many things that are different. There are things that stand out like the driving and walkways, but there are several things that are the same like some interactions with people.
After a day of wandering around and a lovely bus tour around the area I have started to notice a few things. The Buildings are stacked very close together and they ran out of space a long time ago. That is in the x and y plane or for you non math nerds the land that they can build on, but yet they continued to expand in the Z plane and not only in one direction but both up and down. I have been decently big cities where they had a few large buildings, however the scale of London makes those cities seem like tiny sand castles in comparison. Sky scrapers and tall building everywhere, and next to those building are places that have been around for so many years. Most of the older building are being kept in use as modern buildings. With the problem of space, many buildings and homes have grown taller to help support the continued growth of London. Having building going up they also used the earth below my making a very intricate set of subway tunnels. These tunnels, or Tubes as some people say, are placed around the city and out side of it as a way of quickly travel through the city without the need to navigate streets and traffic. My first thought was that it was going to be kind of annoying and complicated to navigate the tubes. After traveling through them today I have found I am enjoying the tubes as a very efficient and direct way of traveling to specific points in London.
On this very eventful first day of our trip we got a tour of the city and were able to catch a show called Straight Line Crazy With Harry Potter Star Ralph Fiennes. The show was performed at the Bridge Theatre, that is located very close to the Famous London Bridge. This play was very interesting, I was navigated through the story by the amazing performance by the actors. Being someone with a strong background in Lighting Design I found my self enjoying several specific parts in they play. For most of the play the lights where very simple, suggesting a realistic feeling. But there where many moments in the play that the lighting did more and enhanced the performance. Specify there was several moments near the end of a scene where the lights progressively got darker slowly indicated the scene coming to and end. Near the end of the Performance there was the most dramatic lighting of the entire show, isolating the main character to help feeling that he is now alone. I enjoyed it deviation from the rest of the show most likely because I have large background in musical theater and dance lighting design. There was also some very decorative lighting on the 3d models up stage where the actors never usually go for very long. I found my self looking upstage at them a few times even when the action of the play was located down stage. I enjoyed how it looked but it may have not served the play as well as it could by pulling attention once in a while. Otherwise I really enjoyed my first experience of London Theater.
After only one day of exploring the city I Can see that this trip is going to be filled with so many eventful things and I will not find my self bored or run out of things to do or see. I am looking forward to the rest of my experience on this amazing exploration of London.
Theatre in London U of A 