It rained on my very early journey to work from Westbury to Fareham. Work is fairly dull as I'm the admin assistant. However as is the way, the people are fabulous, it pays well and is fairly flexible, so I will complain no further. Thursday evening turned out to be especially manic and especially British.
Armed with a picnic, a waterproof jacket and a brolly, I had been invited by godparents and assorted friends to go and see a production of "Pride and Prejudice" at Mottisfont Abbey, a National Trust property near Romsey. The sky was ominous, and the air chilly so I but on my stiff upper lip and hoped. Sat in our deck chairs in the grounds of the house, we daintily nibbled at our unusual picnic items such are dried mango, ginger cake and dark chocolate. The play was excellently produced, cast and costumed.
The rain held off until the end of the second act and then it came down with a vengeance. In a spectactularly display of Britishness we were told that they'd carry on through the rain as far as possible. Half the audience left, and the other half became a sea of umbrellas. The cast were given, clear plastic rain ponchos and carried on with many a hilarious adlib...
"Come walk in the rose garden with me Jane, but don't for get your umbrella!"
...and so on. They even had real horsesand a carriage to take the cast to and from the stage. I was especially impressed with the way they utilised the abbey as scenery, it becoming the outside of Pemberly, or the doorway into an unseen ballroom as the play required.
Perhaps the best bit of the whole evening was the rip off the Darcy in a wet shirt from the BBC's artistically licenced adaptation. In the pouring rain of the evening, Darcy in a wet shirt strolinghis grounds make perfect sense. He was also quite handsome so that helped. Alot.
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