Out trip to the Royal Albert Hall today for 'Letters Live'.
We arrived at five, so took the opportunity to have a wander around the Albert Memorial, and a little way into Kensington Gardens (as far as the 'Physical Energy' statue) before heading back and to door 12 and our 5:30 pre-show reservation at the Verdi restaurant for some pasta and tiramisu.
In for the main event, and the line up was pretty impressive, including:
- Benedict Cumberbatch
- Gillian Anderson
- Matt Lucas
- Toby Jones
- Sanjeev Bhaskar
- Meera Syal
- Brian Cox
- Daisy Ridley
- Emma Corrin.
However, the two that particularly stuck in my mind were an open letter written by Ione Wells to her attacker when she was sexually assaulted, and we were honoured to have it read by the author, and secondly a letter from the character Michael Tolliver to his mother, from 'Tales of the City' by Armistead Maupin, again, remarkably, read by the author.
A quick Google search and here are those two letters read at earlier Letters Live events, both times by different readers, the first one by an actress who was in Guardians of the Galaxy, and the second by the always brilliant Ian McKellen.
Nicky posted something to say that we were at the event, and in the interval there was a message from one of her Facebook friends to say that by coincidence they had a reservation for a hotel not too far away that they couldn't use and which wasn't refundable, and so would we like it. As a spur of the moment thing we said yes.
Let's just say, looking back from Sunday, that was one of life's impulsive decisions we probably shouldn't have made!
