{"id":684,"date":"2017-07-04T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/04\/second-day-of-the-colloquium-and-annie-at-the-west-end\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T04:59:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:59:47","slug":"second-day-of-the-colloquium-and-annie-at-the-west-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/2017\/07\/04\/second-day-of-the-colloquium-and-annie-at-the-west-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Day of the Colloquium and ‘Annie’ at the West End"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nThursday, June 22, 2017<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\nSecond Day of Colloquium and Annie at the West End  <\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n            <\/span><\/span><\/b>By the second day, we got fully into the schedule of
\nthe colloquium. Familiarity with our global colleagues developed easily, coffee
\nand tea with snacks acted as fine ice-breakers, the presentations were superb
\nand provided much food for thought and discussion. Lunch (more substantial
\nburgers and quiches this time) provided yet another opportunity to socialize as
\nthe afternoon brought more interesting panels. We were all done by 4. 30 pm,
\nwhen I made plans to join my colleague Brendan at his faculty apartment at
\nByron Hall near Russel Square.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nA Lovely Evening at Brendan\u2019s:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\n            <\/span>Brendan has been the NY-appointee at London for the past
\ntwo years and will be staying for yet another year. He has moved house from a
\nspacious, rather special apartment that NYU faculty members in London once
\noccupied to a far more pedestrian \u2018one-bed\u2019 apartment in a student dorm\u2014not the
\nmost uplifting of moves. Still, refusing to have his spirits dampened, he
\nprovided for some of us\u2014prosecco and warming bowls of lentil and corn soup that
\nhis wife had cooked. Ifeona, Afrodesia, Brendan and I had a very talkative
\nevening as we mulled over varied aspects of our careers at NYU.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n            <\/span>I did not stay as long as the others as Shahnaz had
\ninformed me (by phone) that she had managed to get us 20 pound day tickets to
\nsee Annie at the West End. It was not a play I would ordinarily had chosen to
\nsee but the role of Miss Hannigan was being played by Miranda Hart who is one
\nof the UK\u2019s best-loved comedienne. Viewers might recognize her name for the
\nmajor role she has on Call the Midwife<\/i>,
\na show to which I have never warmed.  <\/span>I
\nalso saw her being interviewed on the Graham
\nNorton Show<\/i> and thought it would be good to see her make her theater debut.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n            <\/span>I walked briskly towards Holborn, reached my hotel,
\nbrewed a cup of decaff tea for myself, ate a hasty cookie and left. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSeeing Annie<\/i>
\nat the West End\u2019s Piccadilly Theater:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
\n            <\/span>Well, I hate to bad mouth what was obviously a very
\nsincere effort at excellence, but Annie<\/i>
\nfell miserably short. Apparently, there are three little girls alternatively
\nplaying the role of Annie and, I am guessing, we probably saw the worst of the
\nlot (I simply cannot believe there could exist a worse Annie). The entire set
\nand the costumes were drab and the kind of superb co-ordination that you expect
\nto see in a staged musical was simply missing. As for Miranda, she simply does
\nnot have the personality to play Miss Hannigan as she is meant to be played\u2014as
\na cut-throat female Fagin. Instead, she played a sloshed care-giver who looked
\nhorribly awkward as she pranced around and managed to provide not the slightest
\nhint of the sinister. A very disappointing night at the theater indeed!<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n            <\/span>Neither one of us was hungry even after we left the
\ntheater. Besides, we both needed to get home to pack our larger case \u2013which we
\nintended to leave at NYU\u2019s premises when we were in Devon. We\u2019d be leaving with
\na pull-along backpack. Tomorrow morning, we shall take our cases to NYU and
\nleave them there. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nBack Home to Pack:<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n <\/span>           <\/span>Packing
\ndid not take us too long as we made sensible choices in shoes and clothing for
\nour four days in Devon. When we were done, we took showers and got ready for
\nbed. It was not long before we hit the sack after what had been another
\neventful day in London. It is a relief that that the heat has abated and the
\nday was far more comfortable. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, June 22, 2017 Second Day of Colloquium and Annie at the West End               By the second day, we got fully into the schedule of the colloquium. Familiarity with our global colleagues developed easily, coffee and tea with snacks acted as fine ice-breakers, the presentations were superb and provided much food for thought… <\/p>\n

Read<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1933],"tags":[741],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-musings","category-united-kingdom","tag-west-end"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4894,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions\/4894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochellesroost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}