The Song of Solomon - and lots of Ben Whishaw and other things
I'd like to apologise in advance because this post is going to be a million miles long (and I'm still going to forget a lot of things I'm sure). Anyway if anyone wants to ask me anything, please do, or wants me to clarify something I'll be more than happy to do so! Also I won't be posting it in the Whishaw tag for various reasons but I've tagged a few people who've expressed an interest in what I have to say (I love you guys).
So I travelled to London for the Australia and NZ Festival of Literature and Arts on Sunday. I'd bought tickets for two events, Once Upon a Time in Oz and The Song of Solomon (with Mark and Ben). In this post I'll mainly just cover the latter + Ben&Mark sightings and some of the shenanigans of myself and Annie (oh good Lord).
So I got to King's College London (which was the venue for the festival) at around 10:50 am while A Double Spring was still going on in the Chapel. The nice lady working there talked to me a bit about the festival and Ben while giving me a small tour (she said he was really lovely and it was easy to agree - this was the same lady that agreed to give Annie's friend's story to Ben - seriously she rocked); I asked if it would be okay to wait for my friend (Annie) outside the Chapel and she said of course.
I'd told Annie before that I might break down into tears at the sight of Ben, thinking to myself that it might be a bit of an overstatement because I've seen him before and didn't cry, BUT. We stood outside the Chapel chatting and waiting to see Ben coming out (not to approach him, but just to see him), but it took Annie's friend who isn't even a Ben fan to point him out to us! How embarrassing! And how did Mr Whishaw manage it in the first place is a big mystery, but he is a somewhat elusive person so yeah. Anyway, at the first sight of him (surrounded by fans as he were, and all I could see was his profile), that first glimpse of him actually did bring tears to my eyes.
I had to tell myself to get a grip because if I was going to cry every time I happened to look at him I would spend the concert bawling. Ben left soon anyway (to the direction of the artists' lounge) and thankfully people let him go without any further drama. (It has already been pointed out that apparently some fans acted horribly disrespectfully after the first event, which we only learned about later).
We went out for a little while and spent some time in the park with Annie's friend, and came back to the campus for Once Upon a Time in Oz (with Julianne Schultz, Karen Foxlee, Kate Forsyth, Bruce Pascoe) which was quite interesting; there was a last minute change of rooms so we ended up running around a little bit, but were still in time (and happily took back row seats). The discussion seemed a bit general to me; I would've expected it to be more about the Australian aspect and tradition of story-telling? But like I said, it was quite interesting, even though I didn't quite undestand everything (the toil of an ESL person).
[Hoping for more Whishaw...]
After the event we had more than 5 hours to kill before The Song of Solomon, so I checked in at the hotel and then we headed to the National Portrait Gallery. Sadly enough we couldn't locate the elusive portrait of Mr Whishaw, BUT Annie showed me the portrait of Charles I and several other cool people so that was nice.
We had some dinner too and wanted to head back to the campus a bit after six because we knew that the closing event was sold out, and there would be a big crowd, and we didn't want to end up in the back of the queue and consequently sitting in the back row where it would be hard to see anything. We were a bit worried about looking suspicious and/or embarrassing loitering around (in hindsight I'm pretty sure we were neither) but there were other people too so that was nice. We were just crossing the foyer and I was almost on the stairs when I heard Annie calling my name and I stopped, and turned around just to see Mark and some other people standing in the foyer just a few metres from us. Some seconds later Ben joined them and we rried not to freak out, mainly because it was so sudden.
[Here I'll talk about how Ben and Mark looked so feel free to skip...]
Alright now so Ben was wearing his black leather jacket and a pair of slim black trousers. Odd thing; I was looking at him quite casually and then I was horrified at the thought of looking at his butt and had to look away. (Like wtf. Looking at somebody's butt isn't a moral failing but I COULDN'T. Seriously I'd watched Foxtrot just a few days before but still.) Annie was a better person than me anyway and didn't look at them at all. (I would've been upset with myself him myself if I didn't so I did.)
Anyway, back to Ben. His hair was short - having been cut for Suffragette and Lobster - and he was sporting a beard; not bushy but nicely trimmed. So whishawbendragon Ben wasn't sporting the fairy prince look we'd been imagining and hoping for beforehand but that was okay. Seriously I would have died otherwise so it's better this way. And he was beautiful anyway). Mark was wearing black trousers and a brown leather jacket. No beard for Mark. (And he was very cute. I've lamented a lot about the lack of info and/or pics of Mr Bradshaw online.) They both appeared pretty relaxed and happy and that was really nice.
They stood around for a while chatting with their (musician) friends; I drank down half of my water bottle out of sheer nerves. (Ben had ofc a big water bottle under his arm and that was oddly reassuring.)
[... and more Ben. Actually I talk about his looks here a lot so please skip if that's not your cup of tea]
The concert started a bit late, perhaps a quarter part 8 pm and we'd been standing in the queue since before 7 pm so the wait felt like forever. The Chapel was really beautiful though, and we got places from the fifth row I think.
In the Chapel I noticed Ben in the sidelines when he stood up and took off his jacket and I realised he was wearing some kind of sleeveless top underneath, and no shirt. Now. I'm a fairly excitable person overall (haha) but things don't usually make me feel like I'm going to die. A BARE-ARMED BEN WHISHAW MADE ME FEEL QUITE CERTAIN THAT I WAS GOING TO DIE (I might have told Annie this like a dozen times). Did I mention bare arms? Did I mention a lack of undershirt or any other shirt? Just a sleeveless top/waistcoat/Idek showing off his shoulders.. I'm actually surprised I'm still alive tbh. Good Lord. Now it was a warm day and it was warm inside the Chapel but.
sidneypots wrote a very thorough and lovely review of the music here - f you haven't read it already I suggest you do!
I'm not smart about music at all so I won't be able to say much about it really, other than I thought it was a bit jarring at times (although meant to sound that way) and at times it just felt like it was flowing through me - I loved it. The poetry of course is very sensual, and I love that Ben is so clear when speaking because he's so easy to understand. And he was obvs very much into the poem which was lovely; looking up into the light at times and intermittently at Mark whenever he wasn't speaking.
I couldn't see Mark from where I was sitting (I know, what a disappointment) but I could infer his location from where Ben kept looking. I do know that Mark looked very happy and pleased after the concert when they were taking the bow. Seriously it was excellent and over way too soon.
[About fans... my apologies if I'm beating a dead horse]
So other people have already posted about how some fans acted very rudely and disrespectfully after A Double Spring, not only torward Ben but also toward Juliet Darling (which I admittedly didn't witness in person but heard about only afterwards). However we did hear before the concert that Ben was a bit worried and concerned about how the same fans would behave at the concert and we were very embarrassed on their behalf. Like way to go to make Ben feel awful and uncomfortable. He shouldn't have to even think about such things ffs.
So it wasn't much of a surprise that there was no sight of him after the concert. We waited around a bit just in case, but didn't have very high hopes. Mark came back some time later and he cast a somewhat bemused look at the group of fans who were standing the nearest to the door (that the staff were pretty much guarding) before going inside the Chapel. Soon enough a staff member came out and told everyone that they would be closing soon so everyone left.
