Matthew Munson: An event-filled trip to London

You may recall that my lad and I went up to London last weekend to watch a panto, and I’m so pleased we got the chance; it was great fun.

We caught the train at 8am, although it felt earlier. I guess because it was a Saturday, and we’d got up at 6.30 in the morning to be ready on time. I don’t do mornings if I can help it, but it was worthwhile, so I suppressed my grumpiness and on we jolly well went.

We arrived in London at a half-decent time and started the day by feeding Bryan a snack from an excellent vendor in St Pancras Station. We go to it every time we’re up in London, as my son starts to fade away if he hasn’t eaten at least every twenty minutes.

From there, I had intended to take us to the British Museum to see some cultural treasures, but the gods themselves seemed determined to thwart our plans. We got on the wrong tube (my fault – I’m usually good on the tube, but I wasn’t concentrating and went on the wrong part of the Northern Line), and my efforts to correct it involved the Elizabeth Line – which turned out to be severely delayed due to Who-Knows-What on the line. I didn’t want to ask.

Beaten but not unbowed, we went to Plan B … which I had to pause and think about for a few minutes. We did a little historical tour around the City of London, where Bryan took some lovely photos, and we soon found ourselves outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

I’d been in there once before, years earlier. I’m not religious in the slightest, but I love architecture and history, and St Paul’s has both in spades. We pottered around the cathedral for at least 90 minutes, and watched the 12.30 eucharist – Bryan had been learning about it at school, so was interested to see one in action. I dredged up what I could remember from when I went at school and told him as much as I could (quietly, at the back, so we weren’t disturbing anyone).

We then popped by Leicester Square (having resumed my mojo on the tube) and had some takeaway food while watching street theatre (a favourite pastime when we have time to kill in the capital). One chap on a bike was incredibly skilled, while one woman  was singing … I am loathe to criticise, given my own singing voice led me to be delicately removed from a school choir audition at the tender age of 10 – but I thought you had to have a discernible level of confidence to be using one of these official busking spots in the West End. I don’t say that to be nasty or cruel, but the poor girl looked terrified, was struggling with her technology, and was whispering so quietly that even the microphone couldn’t pick her voice up.

We then took a gentle stroll through Holborn to Trafalgar Square, assiduously avoiding Covent Garden (it was a Saturday afternoon, and neither of us particularly like massive crowds). Trafalgar Square was busy, but spread out, and we watched the world go by before heading via the scenic route to the Peacock Theatre. We window shopped, watched some emergency vehicles go by, and soon found ourselves at the theatre.

One delightful thing was that Bryan’s siblings and parents also had tickets to watch the panto, so we got to share a row of seats and all watch the panto together.

It was a brilliantly funny panto organised by PWC, so all of the performers and backstage staff were superb and not professionals – but not being professional performers didn’t dim their talent and skill. Every single performer was genuinely superb; they acted and danced with absolute passion. Bryan and his siblings thoroughly enjoyed it, and so did the adults (there were even a few jokes for the adults). I laughed out loud at a few points, which is always a good sign.

I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with my son. I am a very fortunate human being for having a son of whom I am immensely proud, and love spending time with.