"History is Just One Fucking Thing After Another"

Tonight, as part of my plan to see and do more in London (both because I might be leaving soon, and because I don’t do enough, anyway), I saw The History Boys.

Tonight is a deadline night – meaning I can be up until 6 or 7 a.m. if I have a story closing – so the theater was a last minute decision, and I went alone. I thought it would be strange, but it wasn’t. I find I watch things differently when there’s no one I know sitting next to me, and no prospect of discussing it with anyone anytime soon. There is no one I know’s reaction to compare with my own, no one to whisper to, and no one causing me to miss something subtle on stage because he or she had to nudge me to tell me how much that guy (no, no, that one!) looks like someone we know. Tonight it was just me, watching and listening and not trying to remember things I think I might want to talk about with someone later; not taking pictures to be put in an album and trotted out as tangible proof of the places I have gone and things I have done.

The play reminded me of how much of a foreigner I really am here. I loved it, but loads of the jokes I missed – jokes about the English school and university system, and about Northerners versus the rest of England. (I at least got a few of the Oxford jokes.) I could tell from the way the actors delivered certain lines that they were funny but I didn’t know why. And – I can’t imagine them keeping this when the play transfers to Broadway later this year – chunks of it were in French. Which, judging from the audience reaction – I guess most people in the audience studied, no doubt in schools similar to the one depicted on stage.

Unlike most of the long-running shows, this kind of theater isn’t just for tourists. But I’m trying to remember that a lot of things on my mental London to-do list are things that likely will still be here for years to come. I may never live in London again after I leave this time, but that doesn’t mean I won’t ever be back.

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Tonight marks week of eating exactly as Weight Watchers told me to -- or UK Weight Watchers, anyway (no American diet I know takes as much trouble to tell you how to fit in your weekly allotment of liquor). I'm curious to see my results.