100 things: Reformers' Tree monument

Just happened across this yesterday when randomly walking across Hyde Park (because the Circle Line was down and District Line closed between High Street Kensington and Edgware Road leaving no sensible way of getting from Chiswick to Lancaster Gate on the tube, grumble grumble). It's to commemorate a tree which was burned down in the Reform Riots of 1866, the stump of which then became a noticeboard for political demonstrations (all from the Press Factsheet on the Royal Parks website). Apparently a new tree was planted in 1977 but I couldn't tell if that had since gone or if this monument was not actually on the site of the tree.

My historical knowledge being appalling I didn't know about the Reform Riots but here's some info from the National Archive website:

Following the 1832 Reform Act, periodic demands for the extension of the right to vote continued. Further attempts at parliamentary reform took place in the 1860s. By 1865, both Liberal and Conservative leaders, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, were convinced of the case to extend voting rights. In 1866 reform demonstrations turned to riots in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square. The Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 extend parliamentary voting rights: firstly in 1867 to the urban adult male householders and male lodgers paying £10 for unfurnished rooms, and secondly in 1884 to men living in the countryside (under the same conditions).

Having a lovely time at the theatre, darling

So, here we are the day before Christmas, and I haven't done anything on my list since the Rivoli Ballroom, but it's not because I've been sat inside my house refusing to enjoy anything that London has to offer. Apart from the run up to Christmas taking up time in itself (especially when it comes with various obligations which are too insanely traditional to be believed, including choir robes, candles, trebles singing 'Once in Royal David's City' and having a handy bottle of brandy in my pocket for carol singing round the streets) this month has largely been about theatre. And I am ENJOYING what London (and the locality) has to offer theatrically wise. I think I'm subconsciously forgetting that all this costs actual real money, unlike my halcyon days working at the country's best attended regional theatre where seeing something different every week came for free, and I'm just booking in for things left right and centre. In fact, I haven't even yet seen half of the theatre I've planned, but I have been thinking about, talking about, dreaming about and practically eating theatre for breakfast.

Taking my cousin's older son, who is nearly three, to two different but equally excellent children's shows has been a real pleasure - he is very sweet when watching a show. He narrows his eyes slightly and watches intently but with a considering look, and asks pertinent questions if he doesn't quite understand what's going on. We could all hang on to a bit of that mindset. I'm hoping I can carve a role for myself in the family generally as the cool aunt / first cousin once removed (if we're going to be accurate) who takes the next generation to amazing theatrical events. Even my cousin's six month old enjoyed himself.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens to theatre as they grow up. For the last few years there has been a huge push from those arts organisations who might be seen as elitist - mostly big building based companies creating theatre in traditional forms such as 'straight' theatre, opera, ballet - to change their image, and hopefully their actual working methods too, while equally some of the smaller independents as well as education, youth and community theatre have all gained status within the theatrical world. However there is also a divide between those latter kinds of theatre and "popular" theatre: the musicals, mostly. The theatre I find most interesting is exploring and testing those divides: what makes theatre high quality, accessible, enjoyable, challenging, entertaining? Is it possible or even desirable for it to do all those things at once? It's not a new question I know.

I think the most exciting thing for me right now is that I'm finally in a position where I might be able to start exploring some of this for myself, rather than through the policies of the companies who employ me, and for real rather than through academic papers. I've learnt a hell of a lot and continue to through the people I work for, and I realised the other day through both a session at Devoted and Disgruntled and the Improbable Mentoring Fete that the journey as an independent producer, which I've been finding so bemusing as a prospect, might not be so different. Find the people and the theatre that interests you, see what you might have in common, try and work with them if you can, and see where that takes you. It's enormously exciting, though not a little scary too. It might well not work, but I've been on wild goose chases before and survived. So, this Christmas, for me, it's "here's to the occasional wild goose." May we all enjoy the chase.

100 things: Rivoli Ballroom

Behind an unprepossessing bingo hall style frontage, deep in South West London, is the Rivoli Ballroom, a red-tinted world of gilt, velvet and dancing. It's over the top, down to earth, camp, cliquey and accessible all in the same breath.

We went to Jacky's Jukebox, £9 entry, a night which happens on the first Saturday of the month and which has a mix of all sorts of music, mainly heavily romantic. There was an exhibition dance taking place as we arrived and then it featured everything from an Argentinian Tango to waltzes, the polka, line dancing and even seventies disco. We'd gone for a girls' night out dancing. It was really completely the wrong place for that: there were a lot of quite formal couple dances and almost everyone knew all the moves, so we spent most of the evening watching from the sidelines. However, people seemed to be having a fabulous time and on the odd occasions (the easier line dances, Saturday Night Fever, and one of our number who was a little bit more skilled and so could dare to ask someone to polka) we did get up and have a go, everyone was perfectly friendly and put up with our ineptitude.

The ballroom features in Elton John's original 1983 video for I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues but to really experience it you need to go. It's a gem.

100 things: Street art in Shoreditch

Of all things to love in London, I think street art in Shoreditch has to come pretty near the top of the list. Yet, though I've walked through the area a hundred times, I'd never really looked at until this weekend, when a friend and I had an absolutely brilliant time doing the Shoreditch Street Art Trail by HiddenCity. Of course you could do this more cheaply on your own by just wandering around, but for a bit of a challenge and help finding hidden gems, I thoroughly recommend it to anyone, long term and new Londoners alike.

You play this treasure hunt style game in teams - either just one team of two-four people, for the fun of it, or against your friends. We coincidentally started the hunt at roughly the same time (ok, I'll brag, just AFTER though we finished well ahead!) as another pair of people and as we both like a bit of competition it did add a frisson of excitement to our trail. Once you've signed up and paid your £16 per team online, you find the start point (in Hoxton Square), text "START" to the contact number, and you're off with your first, faintly but not too horribly cryptic clue pointing you in the direction of your first piece of art. At each stage you have to first find it, and then answer a question about it, to get the next clue - and it's all timed. You get two half hour breaks in pubs to take a breather and the whole thing took us just over three hours. We sailed through most of it, with finding the art the hardest bit: we did cheat twice, once asking a friendly bartender who gave us a hint and once giving up and using the official "HINT" function only to receive a clue which confirmed we were in the right place already, but just hadn't spotted it yet.

Along the way you see some amazing art (I've tried to avoid photos of the clues here but warn you that some of the links below may include spoilers), yes Banksy included, but also Nick Walker, Scavage, Christiaan Nagal, Ben Eine, Space Invader, Mackay, Conor Harrington, Ronzo and others whose work is unattributed. Suddenly, also, you're looking for it everywhere, and we saw as much that wasn't part of the trail as that was. Shoreditch seems to be an absolute mecca for street artists and although not all of it is beautiful, quite a lot is absolutely amazing.

We had a brilliant time, and although we then slightly ruined our individualist credentials by eating in a commercial restaurant chain, we desperately tried to scrape them off the floor again afterwards by sampling cocktails from, amongst other places, Boho Mexica and the secret bar behind the fridge (ssssshhh) at the Breakfast Club in Shoreditch (though I don't remember the restaurant being where the official website says it is - even more of a mystery. Entirely possible that I was seeing it through a slight haze of alcohol however). I'd had a run of good but safe cocktails so decided to finish with a brave chilli and lemongrass margarita - it was an excellent end to an excellent evening.

100 things: St James's Park to the National Portrait Gallery

I've not got around to writing this post for a while and I think it's because, you know, the National Portrait Gallery is fab and all that but it didn't quite have the thrill of discovery of some of the other places I've been so far. This was perhaps particularly because of the unfortunate arrival, while I was going round the First Actresses exhibition, of a class of either sixth formers or  new undergraduates (young, reasonably trendy, monosyllabic) and their very loud, confident, slightly patronising teacher, whose voice echoed around the space and made it really difficult to focus on what I was looking at. In Italy tour guides were banned from a lot of places, a policy I liked.

However, I'm starting near the end. I began by getting off the tube at St James's Park. One of the things that I think a lot of non-Londoners don't realise is how walkable the city centre actually is. The tube map, though beautiful, is quite deceptive. St James's Park tube station in a way isn't the best place to start, despite its name, because it brings you to the middle of the south of the park rather than to one end, but it was a bit of a last minute thought, when I realised that I could do a good route through the park, up Whitehall and across Trafalgar Square to the gallery. The park was lovely, the leaves were all autumnal, the pelicans were unexpected but there were a few too many tourists about.

Whitehall was a bit disappointing too. I don't need all the fingers on one hand to remember the number of times I've knowingly walked up Whitehall, which is perhaps a bit rubbish for a so-called-Londoner, but I'm quite glad I haven't bothered more often. You think it's going to be so much more impressive than it is. I was struck by the number of red telephone boxes around the HM Revenue and Customs building. Do people particularly need to make phone calls when coming out of there or is it just to cater to the tourist photo opportunities? There were lots of those happening. My favourite things were these slightly random but impressive wrought iron gates and the memorial to the women of World War Two which I'm not sure I knew about before: shame it's in the middle of a busy road like the Cenotaph, but rather beautifully evocative with all the empty uniforms hung up on pegs: not only symbolising the work done by women during the war but also the way in which many of them had to give up those jobs again afterwards, probably mostly reluctantly.

Making it to Trafalgar Square I managed to get a rare photo of one of the lions without a person on it or in front of it. Thinking about it I should have checked out the Fourth Plinth - I think it's the Ship in the Bottle at the moment, and I do like the contemporary art concept - but instead I paused for some lunch and a quick squiz at St Martin's. There's a church which is successfully engaging with what's going on around it, frequently hosting demonstrations on its steps and running a programme of support for the homeless, without sacrificing some revenue opportunities like the Cafe in the Crypt.

Finally I got to the National Portrait Gallery. I do like it very much: I'm a fan of portraits generally and it definitely bears repeat visits as there is so much there, and the exhibitions change regularly, particularly downstairs with the modern sections. I've been quite recently (to see the BP Portrait Award as also recommended by Lucy, which was fab and I'd have willingly gone to again but has now finished) but it didn't matter at all. Looking at the website there is a lot that looks interesting which I didn't see. Though of course the main part of the gallery is free and I'm not normally a big one for paying for exhibitions if I don't have to, I did fork out £2 for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, which was really interesting even if I do slightly agree with the controversy over the winner, and also for the First Actresses exhibition as already mentioned, more expensive at £12. I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to everyone unless you're particularly interested in the subject, even on days when annoying teachers aren't around, but I did my undergraduate dissertation on the actresses so felt it was worth a look, and there are some lovely portraits. I particularly liked the couple by Reynolds and one of Lavinia Fenton. I was also quite surprised by how many of them went on to become writers and playwrights: I've read about Mary Robinson but didn't realise there were quite a few others such as Elizabeth Inchbald and Sarah Siddons. You hear more often either about their scandalous reputations or how they left the stage when they got married: perhaps typical of how women have been portrayed in history.

I did also go up to the top floor restaurant as recommended, and the view did indeed look quite amazing over the rooftops towards Trafalgar Square on a rather misty day, but it seemed a bit too posh to be worth it for a solo cup of tea. The menu looked good: perhaps somewhere to go for a treat before the theatre? Not really for someone trying to rediscover London on a budget. Otherwise, not too bad an afternoon on balance: thanks Leah, Rose, and Lucy.