Arts to War

The very next day was another jammed packed day for Becky and I. We first tagged along with the SOA 200 fine arts course on their behind-the-scenes tour of the Royal Albert Hall. I had seen the building multiple times since being in London as it is right across the street from Kensington Park and only about a 15-minute walk from the Daniel House. The inside of the RAH was magnificent and so gorgeous in so many ways. None of us had any idea how versatile the building was in all the types of shows it has hosted since its opening 153 years ago.

The building was the idea of Prince Albert the husband of Queen Victoria. He was always trying to come up with ways to allow the British people to have access to the arts and science. He was the person who was the driving force behind the incredible 1851 Great Exhibition which showed amazing inventions from around the world and around 6 million people attended. Prince Albert kept the price of admission very low so people could attend and yet the exhibition made £186,000 profit. This was the money used to build the hall.

This hall has of course had so many amazing shows performed there and so many amazing performers. What we did not know is that it also has hosted world class tennis matches, basketball games, and yes even chess/boxing (Chess Boxing). There is a huge organ and they also show movies where the music soundtrack is played by a live orchestra. Most of the James Bond movies have premiered at the Royal Albert Hall.

We did not get to see the whole expanse since Cirque du Soleil currently has a shown performing and had very large currents draped around cutting off parts of the hall. We did get to see the king’s box and the original roof. We were told that very little has changed to the interior of the building in the 153 years the hall has been around.

After Becky and I grabbed some lunch, we joined up the British Heritage class on their trip to the Imperial War Museum. This museum has great collections and exhibits on WWI. They also have some displays on WWII, and they have a very powerful holocaust exhibit. Since my knowledge on WWI was pretty low, I really enjoyed touring through this exhibit. Again, it is so eye opening to go through all the collections and displays here and see things from another country’s perspective. WWI so impacted this country in so many ways and to read the information and learn what was going on really made me better understand why WWII was so powerful here.

Unfortunately, it was late afternoon when we arrived at the museum and there was not enough time to get through it all. I did enjoy also going through an exhibit of cartoon about Winston Churchill. He really was the perfect person, in both statue and character, to be drawn in cartoons. I really do plan to return because I did not have any time to really give the holocaust exhibit the time it deserves.

It was a full day, but a very good day. There is just so much history in such a short distance from where we are living, and we have just scratched the surface of it.