Well it’s the Diamond Jubilee weekend at last and London is a veritable ocean of bunting and flags and, wouldn’t you know it, the skies have clouded over and the weather has turned from the bright, warm sunny days of this time last week to dull grey!
But, then again, that’s exactly what it was like on the occasion of the Queens Coronation in 1953 and that really did bring a splash of colour to a London that was still emerging from the austerity measures of the war years. Indeed, there are parallels between then and now.
So, today we thought we’d take a break from things rippery (is that a word?) and instead bring you another of our videos that look at the wider London landscape. So we hope you enjoy our journey through Shakespeare’s London.
The video looks at Shakespeare’s early years in London and is presented by Richard Jones. Your journey begins on the Millennium Bridge, which of course, given it’s going to be a great vantage point for the Diamond Jubilee flotilla on Sunday 3rd June 2012, is a somewhat topical inclusion at the moment.
There is, however, a connection between the streets of Shakespeare’s London and our Jack the Ripper Tour in that, in the film Murder By Decree – which put Christopher Plummer and James Mason as Holmes and Watson on the trail of Jack the Ripper – the streets of Bankside which feature in this Shakespeare video were used as the streets of the East End.
When Murder By Decree was filmed the area was a derelict and sordid area of dark, imposing Victorian warehouses that the film makers (or at least their talent scouts) thought made for a better East End of London than the East End of London!
So, we hope you enjoy this diversion into Shakespeare’s London but remember, as the activities of Holmes and Watson aptly demonstrate, the reach of Jack the Ripper extends across the whole of London. Sweet dreams!