London Concert Halls and Theatres

My busy vignettes of London's high culture. 

Who doesn't like an evening out in Theatreland? Surrounded by plush velvet, tassels and gilt or in a forest of acoustically engineered shapes; flapping a glossy programme in the heat; suppressing a cough; fretting that the phone isn't turned off...

Here are the smartest and most prestigious of London's concert halls.  It's only this year that I've managed to visit them all*.  As for the theatres - well, there are scores of them and I got it down to a select ten, including the old and the new, dance and opera, west end, south bank and further afield.

These vignettes are fun to assemble and populate.  I dug deep into the oeuvre of obscure musical instruments for London Concert Halls.  For no reason other than my own initial, they all begin with C:
cittern, chitarrone, charango, clarinet, cor Anglais and crumhorn.  On Some London Theatres it's all scenery and the accessories of theatre-going.  The bust on the plinth is Garrick.

The list of venues in full:

London Concert Halls:
Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall, St. John's Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall.

Some London Theatres:
National Theatre, Almeida Theatre, Menier Chocolate Factory, Royal Opera House, Duke Of York's Theatre, Gielgud Theatre, Tricycle Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, The Old Vic, Sadler's Wells.


* The Cadogan Hall for the Pasadena Roof Orchestra.  I became tearful when they played "A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square".