West End (Part IV)

Hear them up in Soho Square, dropping H’s everywhere!

So sang the famous Professor Higgens in My Fair Lady. I heard a lot of people in Soho Square but not many were dropping H’s. Most were speaking French. But I did hear a bit of American-English. Silly place.

The statue is Charles II. Not sure what he’s famous for (I should know I’m sure), but he apparently built Soho Square. If you look closely you’ll see a pigeon on his head, and he’s covered in, uh, whitewash.

For my dear brother, I took a photo of this theatre (not cinema) that I had absolutely no desire to visit. But I did get a pretty good laugh out of the theatre façade.

And here you can make out The Queen’s Theatre advertising their production of Les Miserables, which has been showing non-stop on West End for over 20 years.

At the risk of making many of my friends jealous unto sin, I will eagerly share that I did in fact go to see the evening production of Les Miz. It was the most amazing theatrical production I have ever seen, though that’s only because I had bad seats when I went to see Beauty and the Beast in Kansas City back in 2003. Now I want to read the book in its original French. If you’re not familiar with the story, you should be. Go out and listen to the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre version of it, the musical CD, or just read the book. Don't watch the movie with Liam Neeson. Somehow this story captures the reality of the human life on so many levels. The opposing character’s of Jean Valjean and Javert represent humanity’s two possible responses to the Grace extended to us. An excellent spiritual allegory that deserves not only a blog post but several books expounding on the gems of the story. Maybe I’ll do that sometime (the blog post, not the books).