london: the harry potter studios tour and seeing kate bush live

hi guys! sorry for being so m.i.a. recently, a few weeks ago i moved into my student flat and i started university this week! so i've been crazy busy, getting used to things, meeting new people, exploring the city, so i haven't had much time to write (or read, really). i'm trying to get back into blogging now so there's gonna be a little backlog of posts before things get back to normal.

so at the end of august i went down to london for the weekend with my family. i had tickets to see kate bush and was planning on going alone just for the day but we decided to visit the warner brothers studio tour as well and make a little holiday of it. i won't say much about the harry potter tour as i believe the pictures speak for themselves, but it was wonderful. it was like being in a very warm, cosy environment and it reminded me a lot of my childhood. it was also incredible to see all the costumes and sets and things, it totally got me excited to start my costume course!

the main event of the weekend for me was, of course, seeing the beautiful kate bush in concert. i adore kate bush, so when i saw that she was going to perform again i knew it was something i couldn't miss. the show itself was magical; kate's voice blew me away and she seemed so comfortable and at home on stage. the love for her in that room was insane; we gave her a standing ovation after almost every song and everyone around me had tears in their eyes at some point or another during the show. my favourite moments were hearing 'top of the city' (which i had never really liked, but performed live it became this huge rock anthem and kate destroyed it), seeing her perform with her son, the story of the drowning girl (i had never heard any of 'the ninth wave' before the show but i sobbed so much, especially during 'and dream of sheep', it was so beautiful), and her 'cloudbusting' encore when the whole audience was on it's feet singing and smiling and just enjoying themselves so much. it was truly one of the best nights of my whole life. i came out of that show knowing i would never be the same and i was in a 'kate bush coma' for about 2 weeks after. plus, an extra bonus for me was meeting jarvis cocker of 'pulp' whilst i was in the merch queue haha!

so that is all i'm going to say on my weekend in london! i probably could ramble on for a lot longer but i should probably go get some work done! thanks for reading, and hopefully i'll be posting a lot more regularly now. :-) xx

v&a - theatre & performance

exact replica of kylie's dressing room for her 2007 'showgirl: homecoming' tour.

close-up of kylie's make-up table in her dressing room. 

orchestral score for jesus christ superstar.

costume design for frank n. furter for the rocky horror show, 1981. 

costumes for the stage adaptation of the lion king.

adam ant's 'prince charming' outfit (oh my god!) and one of mick jagger's 1972 stage costumes. 

elton john's 'bicycle john' stage costume and chris martin's 'viva la vida' outfit for coldplay, 2008-2010. 

set model box for sweeney todd: the demon barber of fleet street (stage show, 1998) showing various lighting directions. 

i wanted to go to the v&a museum with the idea that it was all entirely fashion and theatre based, but it wasn't. it was 90% historical art and sculptures, which isn't really my cup of tea, but the theatre things they did have did not disappoint! (their fashion bit did, however - textiles a-level has ruined historical fashion for me).
theatre is such a big passion of mine, as you probably already know, and i was so excited to see this little section of the v&a! i love the backstage element of everything, from shops to stage shows, so i adore seeing all the little plans and sketches and designs. they had so many interesting things, and they all seemed to be catered to my tastes haha! (hello, rocky horror designs and adam ant's bloody 'prince charming' outfit?! i nearly exploded.)
not only that, but it was so informative as well. it takes you through all the stages of performance, from advertising to planning to staging to performing. i learnt so much, and all of it will be so valuable to me if i go down the path i plan to go down. i loved every second of this exhibit and it just proves to me that i'm on the right track, which i'm very thankful for.
other than that, i'll let the pictures speak for themselves (even though they kind of suck, it seems my camera wasn't on top form that day). if you get a chance, you should definitely go see this section of the v&a - entry is free! lots of museums, when they do things on theatre and fashion, just kind of shove clothes in a display and expect you to find that interesting, but the v&a did so much more. definitely the best museum i've been to!
anyway, i think that's it! thank you for reading! xx

wicked

hello beautiful people! one of the main things i wanted to do whilst visiting london was go see a show. as i know tickets for things at the west end are very expensive, i was just expecting us to get cheap tickets for one of the less-popular shows on the day, but my mum managed to find super cheap tickets for wicked online! ah! i have been obsessed with wicked for a few years now, and have read the book, and various books about actresses experiences in wicked, and based my entire textiles a-level project on elphaba, so i was so excited when i found out i'd get to see the show!
our seats were very far back in the theatre, but the great thing about the apollo victoria is that it used to be a cinema, so it has tiered stadium-style seats and there are no 'restricted view' areas. we were really high up and it felt very vertical, like if we leaned forward we would topple down into the dress circle, but once you're sat down you didn't notice it. i think, no matter how far back you are, as long as you're fairly centred, the view will be fine.
however, you can't plan for who will sit in front of you, and i had a selection of annoying people: a man who looked like paul hollywood who was ridiculously tall, a girl who kept getting up to take phone calls in the foyer, a couple who kept putting their arms up to put on and take off various layers of clothing. so annoying, but only temporary, so i still got to see everything.
the apollo victoria is beautiful, as well. everything was lit up green and there were broomsticks and cauldrons and smoke, it looked so lovely! i'd never been to a long-running show so i'd never been to a theatre that matched the performance, it was so pretty to look at and made me super excited to actually see wicked!
oh, wicked! it was AMAZING! i can't even begin to describe it to you. i love the soundtrack so i was really excited to hear the songs live, and they so did not disappoint! louise dearman was playing elphaba and her voice was crazy! i've heard lots of elphaba's singing and their voice always falters at some point, but louise's just went on and on and on! her first big song, 'the wizard and i' brought tears to my eyes the second she starting singing, and the big finish, oh my god. (listen to one of louise's 'the wizard and i's' here)
gina beck was playing glinda, and i'll be honest and say i'd never really connected with glinda before, but she was so perfect for the role! she was bouncy and perky and so happy and adorable, i loved watching her performance. and her voice! the things she could do with her voice were ridiculous! her biggest performance, for me anyway, was 'popular'; she was so funny and charming, and i loved the song but had never seen it staged, and it was so perfect.
oh, and the costumes! after a year of studying them for my textiles coursework it was so surreal to see them on stage, especially knowing what i know about them - like, for example, seeing elphaba run around in a $20,000 act II dress! the act II dress is so beautiful in photo's and in person, and i wasn't expecting myself to fall in love with glinda's costumes as hard as i did! her first dress was bloody magical. the leading ladies costumes were fab, but my favourite moments were the scenes were it was just ensemble performers filling the stage - all of their costumes are so crazy and ridiculous, it was so exciting to look at, especially with the lights and the stage.
i had managed to gather the storyline from just listening to the soundtrack, but it was so nice to see the story between the songs. it was so funny, which i hadn't expected! (*toss toss*) oh, and while i remember, it was very strange hearing the songs in an english accent after listening to the broadway version for so long - it was very much 'darncing through life' instead 'dancing through life', which i found quite funny, although probably no one else did. i kind of didn't like it as 'dancing through life' was one of my favourite songs because of the pronounciation of the 'because dust is what we come to!' (listen here), like it's maybe my favourite part of the whole soundtrack, and it didn't happen because of the accent change. (sad face).
defying gravity was my favourite moment, as i knew it would be. louise dearman made the song sound so effortless and beautiful, i think i even preferred her version to idina's, the classic elphaba! i didn't know anything about the staging of this song either, but oh my good god, i was speechless. my sister absolutely adored it as well, apparently - this is a girl who hates musicals and only gets excited about nirvana, so that's a pretty big achievement. when elphaba took off to fly with the huge beautiful fabric flying around her, i almost burst into tears, it was so magical. i've never seen anything so amazing in my whole life!
i'm gonna be totally honest here and mention the only bad point: the first act was so amazing that there was no way that the second could ever live up to it. there, i said it! but they did bring it back at the end, with 'for good', which brought me to tears.
after reading the big complex politics of the book, i found the storyline of the show kind of dumbed down, but obviously they had to do that to fit it into two hours, and to make the plot work (the plot in the book is a bit crazy). the show neatened up all the loose edges, which i really appreciated, as i was so infuriated by the book leaving so many things unsaid. so even though the plot is kind of... basic, it had to be that way to fix the story, so it all evens out, i suppose. (but if you haven't read the book, as not everyone has, it would just seem basic, which sucks).
all in all, i absolutely adored every second of it. it was so perfect! during the curtain call, when elphaba and glinda came out to take their bows, i was just ugly-sobbing into my coat, it was that emotional for me, haha. i don't even know why i was crying but i was just like, "oh god i loved it so much!" it's probably because this is the first show that i just fell head-over-heels in love with and it was so wonderful to finally see it and i was also kind of annoyed that i can't sing so i could never be in and ah, all the emotions! there's a reason that it's the biggest show in the west end, and that's because it's bloody amazing.
have any of you guys seen wicked? i'd love to know what you thought in the comments. thank you for reading! xx

the natural history museum

when i was planning my trip to london, the natural history museum was one of the first places i wanted to go as i had such good memories of a trip there when i was about 11 years old. however, the day i chose to visit (good friday) was maybe the biggest mistake ever. we actually had to queue to get in, which i've never known happen before, and the place was packed. screaming children, walking into people, being squashed into a small room with too many people, packed. we couldn't get near anything for the crowds and we ended up doing around 80% shuffling around not being able to see anything, 20% actually looking at stuff.
other than that though, it just wasn't as great as i remembered it. i'm not that interested in history and animals and things, if i'm completely honest, and i just wasn't interested in the exhibits. the fact that i found it a tad too boring and was surrounded by too many people made it hell. the only good bit, for me, was the space / astronomy / planets section, which we didn't find until right at the end, and by then i was too annoyed to care. such a let down!
however, don't let my bad review put you off: the first time i visited, it was amazing! i loved it. it helped that it wasn't so busy, but i did really think it was great. it's just become apparent to me now that it's one of those things that you only need to do once.
i'm sorry that this post kind of sucks. i promise my other london-based posts are a lot more positive! remember to keep a look out for those! xx

easter london

the travel lodge at covent garden has crazy comfy beds!

staircase inside monki on carnaby street.

oranges at the v&a. 

hello beautiful people! i recently went to london for the weekend to celebrate my 18th birthday. i absolutely love london and have been dying to visit for a long time; i had been twice before but was too young to remember anything, and this was the first opportunity i was given to actually plan a holiday myself and do all the things i wanted to do there. although london is not that far away, maybe 2 hours on the train, i rarely get to go, so we crammed as much as possible into the 3 days we were there, including the v&a, the natural history museum, the science museum, shopping, and going to see wicked at the apollo victoria theatre. (it was amazing! but a post on that to come...) although doing non-stop tourist things for 3 days has ruined my legs, i had the best time ever.
i had gone with plans to make stop-motions and various videos while i was there but it was ridiculously cold, and definitely too cold to have my hands out in the air holding a camera all the time. i did manage to shoot a few minutes of footage though, which you can see at the top of this post. it's mostly shot at the science museum, as i loved their moving light installations and wanted to capture their full beauty, which couldn't be done with photographs.
this is just a quick summary/update post, and there will be several more in-depth posts with lots of photos to come in the next few weeks, so you have those to look forward to, and i can look forward to writing them! there are so many wonderful and free things to do and see in london; you may think a city break will be crazy expensive but we managed to do it on a budget and had an amazing time.
thank you for reading, and keep your eyes peeled for london-themed posts in the future! :) xx