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| Fantastic Show - 10 pounds - Royal Stratford Theatre |
It was our last night in London - I could lie there and whine about my flu - or we could go out and make the best of it. Lulu went on line and found tickets for this Janet Joplin show for 10 pounds each - senior citizen rate.
After a day of walking all over downtown London - and a fantastic lunch at The Bank of England Pub on Fleet Street - we caught the Central Red Line and headed east to the Olympic Village at Stratford east of town. It was great to see the facilities built for the 2012 Olympics still being used for something fruitful. The Westfield Mall was booming - it was packed with shoppers. We got to the Royal Stratford Theatre - and although it was connected to a mall - when you walked inside - it felt just like a century old theatre. The crowd was again - pretty old.
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| Hannah Jarrett Scott played Janis Joplin |
We picked up our tickets at the will call window - Lulu found 2 great tickets on line - center - 5th row - floor. I was surprised to find Guiness beer in the theatre for only 2 pounds.
The show featured Hannah Jarrett Scott - you can see her regular musical act on line. She was a bit too pretty and slim to play Janis - but - what can you expect for 10 pounds :-) She did an excellent job belting out the many Joplin torch songs. She obviously went to "hair flipping" classes in college - because she really had that down.
Janis Joplin was the best female blues singer of her time. She wrote quite a few solid hits herself. Rolling Stone has her at number 28 on the top 100 list of female singers. At the time I was not a fan of female singers - but at the time she was one of the few that could rock with the boys.
The play reviewed Janis's life from when she was bullied in high school and college in Texas. The only use of multi-media was a film psycho backdrop during her Haight-Asbury period. Most of the dialog was during interviews in the dressing room between shows. Besides taking heavy drugs - Janis could polish off a bottle of Southern Comfort during a show.
Unfortunately - in 1970 - we lost her at age 27 to a heroin overdose. She was lost among a short period that year when we lost - Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. Joplin was famous for bursting onto the scene at the Monterey Pop Festival. She also performed at Woodstock. She did not like her performance there - and refused to have it included in the famous rock documentary. Her number 1 hit was - "Me and Bobby McGee."
After the show - it was one quick tube ride back to our apartment. We got home at 11 - a rock club was throbbing across the street - by midnight it was silent. We had to get up at 6 AM to make the plane home. We really love staying in that old apartment on the University District of London.
We woke up at 6 - a tube and train ride got us to Gatwick Airport. A 90 minute jet had us back to Berlin in no time. By 2 PM - we were back in our London pad - thinking about the next adventure.
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| The real Janis Joplin - died at age 27 in 1970 |
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