In anticipation of my upcoming week-long adventure in the Lakeland wilderness, I decided I needed some culture before trekking off into the valleys and hills. And when one is in need of culture, and finds oneself an hour and a half away from one of the world’s great cities, the decision is easy. So yesterday morning I was on the bus yet again, bound for London with two of my international amigos.

Easter performance in Trafalgar Square

To say London has influenced my cultural side is an understatement. As a country bumpkin, I have led a fairly sheltered life when it comes to museums and art galleries and the theatre. No disrespect of course to the ROM and AGO, which are both wonderful places, but London’s collection of cultural institutions are unparalleled by any Canadian city, and few other cities in the world for that matter. This is something many of the other European exchange students don’t understand, but these are also students from other cultural hubs like Germany, Italy, Spain and France. So when I get starry-eyed and excited about London, they nod politely and patiently indulge me. I think my rapt fascination and love for all the seemingly insignificant things that England and London has to offer is a source of amusement to them. I’m happy to play that role.

London is wonderful for a variety of reasons. The people are splendidly diverse (if you want to hear traditional English accents, go to the countryside, because you’re as likely to hear Slovenian or Mandarin in London as you are English), the places are uniquely different (London has many distinct districts with strong individual identities – you will never mistake Camden for Covent Garden), and the history is staggering (in a ten-minute walk you can see Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, St James Park and Buckingham Palace). Those reasons are all well and good, but the purpose of this blog is to comment on London’s cultural assets, which combined with the reasons just mentioned, make London the most vibrant city I’ve ever visited.

As I said before, I didn’t have much exposure to or appreciation for art galleries and museums before coming to England. I viewed them as nice things to have in a city, and good to wander around every once in a while. Now I can’t get enough. I have been spoiled by London (and to some extent Oxford too with the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers Museums). Part of the attraction of London’s institutions is their cost, or more accurately, their lack of cost. The places I’ve visited so far (both Oxford museums, the National Gallery, Tate Modern Gallery, Courtauld Gallery, the British Library, and today the British Museum) have all been free. Donations are accepted, and I usually toss in some change, but the beauty of these places is if you are suddenly consumed by an urge to see a Monet, Van Gogh, or Picasso painting or look at some ancient artifacts, all you have to do is walk in. No ticket, no line-up. As well as the cost factor, London’s cultural institutions house contents that are world-renowned. In the past weeks I have seen countless Impressionist paintings, a massive collection of Picassos, antiques and artifacts from around the world, original copies of Shakespeare’s manuscripts, an original copy of the Magna Carta, early versions of printed bibles, and I could go on. At each of these places I am simply overcome with awe at what humanity has achieved and how brilliantly creative and imaginative we are. Yesterday’s visit to the British Museum was no exception. In a short, two-hour visit, we wandered amongst Egyptian sarcophaguses, saw pieces of the Parthenon frieze and other sculptures from the Acropolis, and finally caught a brief, crowded glimpse at the famous Rosetta Stone. The British Museum (despite its name) strives to be a world museum, and it has a collection worthy of the title. Like the other big museums, you can’t see it all in one day, so it looks like I’ll just have to go back.

Classic Industrial Revolution housing near the British Museum

The British Museum

Inside the spectacular Great Court

The Rosetta Stone

Cool hieroglyphics on an Egyptian tomb

Pieces of the Parthenon frieze

One of a series of minotaur/human fighting sculptures. This was one of the most inact, the others feature headless, armless torsos fighting each other. It was kind of funny.

Clearly the Godfather borrowed something from the Greeks

Protest poster over inflation in Zimbabwe. Closer inspection revealed the poster was printed on bills as large as $5 billion

After a pub dinner in Chinatown (as strange as that sounds), the final cherry on top of our London day of culture took us to the Palace Theatre in Soho where we saw the stage production of Singin’ in the Rain. It was fantastic. Singin’ in the Rain is one of my top 3, favourite movies. If I were to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life, with only three movies to sustain me, it would make the cut. Thankfully, the play did not disappoint. Although it was mostly a re-creation of the movie, there were a few scenes omitted and a few that were carefully altered in order to transfer the movie to the stage more seamlessly. Some of the car scenes, and scenes that rely heavily on sets and props were watered down, but it didn’t detract at all from the show. The actor who played Cosmo Brown was a standout, the ‘Make ‘em Laugh’ scene and the diction coach scene were high points, just like in the movie. Lina Lamont’s hilariously grating, trashy, awful voice was spot-on, and the directors even incorporated a solo singing number for Lina. Suffice it to say the “singing” was frequently drowned out by laughter. Especially cool was the actual ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ scene, where heavy rain falls down from what must be a gigantic tank somewhere off-set. The effect was perfect and I think the actor playing Don Lockwood especially delighted in kicking the water on stage into the first few rows of the audience. It got some good laughs from above, and some shrill exclamations from below. The show was my first in London and I hope it is the first of many because going to the theatre is such a wonderful experience. With a show as joyful and merry as Singin’ in the Rain, the audience gets collectively caught up in a 2hr 40min wave of uplifting, blissful fun and everyone leaves humming or whistling a tune, with a great smile on their face.

The Palace Theatre in Soho

Our view. The floor was grooved to facilitate cleanup after the rain scenes.

When I was thinking about cities and the countryside the other day, trying to figure out why I loved going to cities but also loved escaping to the country (because my brain won’t stop at liking something, it has to analyze why I like it), I settled on the fact that cities are celebrations of humanity and culture, and the countryside and wilderness areas are celebrations of nature. It’s a crude distinction (there is culture in the countryside and there is nature in the city), but you get the idea. Cities are places to connect with our humanity. Cities are where you find museums, galleries, theatres, and other places that showcase our genius. The countryside and the wilderness are places to connect with nature and the spirit of the planet. As an aside, I think cities can play this role too, it’s one of the many reasons I find landscape architecture so attractive. So before I venture to the Lake District and have some solitary, spiritual wilderness time, I thought I should have a crowded, bustling, cultural day – to keep myself balanced. The last thing I need is a lopsided soul.