Southampton Airport has me rethinking my aversion to budget airlines

 I haven't flown a budget airline in about 15 years. I swore them off after a horrific trip when the 80 miles from the arrival airport to the named destination caused serious stress, my mother was injured by young parents using pushchairs as weapons as they charged for those first-come-first serve seats, and I calculated the cost of driving to and parking at Stanstead as almost the difference between the "discount" fare and BA.

Easyjet and their ilk were false economies, not worth the extreme discomfort and hassle.

Of course, there was a big difference back then in the flight experience. My BA ticket included pretty much whatever baggage I wanted, I got seat assignments with my flight purchase, staff treated me like a treasured customer and even a short hop to Paris pampered me with a light meal and free drinks from a full bar.

Sadly, since then BA has been steadily slashing service and experience to lower themselves to the standards of their cheaper rivals. Without lowering price, of course. We kept defaulting to them because of frequent flier miles and the known comfort of Heathrow Terminal 5.

Then I had to fly to Geneva during ski season.

BA's outbound prices were laughable. A friend suggested trying Southampton Airport, given its convenience for public transport from Basingstoke. Easyjet had just introduced a route with timings that met my needs. So, fighting to keep nasty flashbacks from early experiences at bay, I gave it a try. And found the whole journey from Southampton to be so wonderful, I'm wondering where else we can fly from there to repeat it.

First, there's the transport. A quick hop to our local Basingstoke train station. Half an hour to Southampton Airport Parkway on trains that run four times an hour. The station isn't in the airport: you have to cross a small road. Here's the view from the train platform to the terminal building. I doubt it's more than 100 steps.

The terminal is tiny and easy to navigate. In the photo below, I have my back against one end, and you can clearly see the other.  Dropping bags took slightly longer than at Heathrow because the check in desk is also where they sell all their extras to you. I was stuck behind jolly skiers pre-purchasing champagne before the flight. I seemed to be the only person without skiis, too. All that additional baggage checking also added time.

Even with those extra disruptions, I was down to hand baggage within 15 minutes. Off to security. Here's the entrance at 7:20 on a Thursday morning. Note there are more staff members cleaning up a spilled potted plant than people in the queue. Taking my snow boots on and off consumed more time than the entirety of the rest of my progress through security.

I feared an airport so small would be bereft of shopping opportunities. Not so. There's a small but decent duty free well stocked with alcohol, make up and chocolate. Tiny compared to Heathrow but bigger than your average American airport version. There's also a basic WH Smith. You wouldn't want to kill hours here, but there's enough to survive.

Somebody has put thought into lounge design. There's only one, with 10 gates, but seating comes in a variety of colours and configurations. Walls feature full-bleed photographs celebrating Southampton's sailing heritage. There's a small Costa booth downstairs, with a larger Costa and some kind of exec lounge in a loft up the stairs..

 There's even a dedicated charging station and work bar for laptops.

Hand luggage is certainly more draconian than BA. Staff made me pack my purse into my laptop bag before getting into the waiting area ... one carry on means one. (Note to self: copious pockets are enormously useful.)

When it's time to board, you walk over the tarmac to your plane. The picture up top shows the distance from gate to plane. Everyone has seat assignments these days; none of the uncivilised scrum of memory. Inside the aircraft, the insubstantial garden chair feel of the seats, with advertising on the back of each, betrays that you're on a discount airline. But they were comfortable enough for 90 minutes, the staff was polite and efficient, and everything happened on time. The food and drink being peddled from the cart might be plain label rather than M&S, but you're still paying for it ... so there's no real difference to the travel experience.

It was all remarkably easy, fast and stress free compared to our usual airport departure. My Fitbit told the tale: home to my airplane seat was 1,700 steps, including a train journey. A Heathrow departure, even when driven to the airport by taxi, can easily chalk up 5,000 steps before buckling in. Bad on the exercise front, but otherwise a clear demonstration of improved efficiency. 

If you're one of those few remaining travellers who still have access to the premium lounges, and sit in those nice, wide seats at the front of the plane, you'll probably consider Southampton far too downmarket for you. (So no girls' trip departures from here, clearly.) For me? I've finally realised that neither BA nor Heathrow deserve the supremacy I've automatically accorded them all these years. It's time to pay more attention to Southampton timetables.

With parallels to Shakespeare and Mozart, Hamilton is set to take the Brits by storm

I gave my English in-laws Hamilton tickets for Christmas.

I'd owned the tickets for almost a year, and had dreamed about the success of my gift. They'd gaze at it in awe, then look at me with misty-eyed gratitude. "How did you manage to get these?" they'd gasp, aware that the show's initial London run had sold out almost a year before it opened. They would be amongst the first in London to get in on this phenomenon. I would be a hero.

It didn't work that way. Because on 25 December 2017, the London Bencards had never heard of Hamilton. The show had been drenched in good reviews on its official opening, but that was only four days earlier. They'd missed the news. The description of a hip hop musical about the United States' first secretary of the treasury raised sceptical eyebrows. They received my gift politely, but were unenthusiastic. And I wondered ... had I made a mistake? Would a show about American history resonate with Brits? Would the modern music element turn off the family with whom I was more likely to attend baroque opera or Gilbert and Sullivan? My musical-hating, pop culture-averse husband had already made it clear that he was an unenthusiastic attendee. As our show date approached, I grew worried.

My sense of relief as we left the Victoria Palace last night was palpable. They loved it. Even the husband admitted enjoyment. Hamilton's magic extends to grab those who are ignorant of, or resistant to, its weighty reputation.

And me? I adored it. Compelling music, gripping lyrics, a tremendously talented cast delivering a performance that hooks you from the first minute and doesn't let go. One powerful scene follows another at a breathless pace; even the quiet moments demand and reward your full attention. But that was as expected. I've been jealously watching American friends rave about the show for two years, am entranced by the Ron Chernow biography on which it's based and have been listening to the soundtrack for the past month. You could consider Hamilton the most successful journalist of all time, which gives him a special place in my heart.

But what about the Brits, currently free of hype and generally strangers to the history on which this show is based? Here's why that won't matter a jot.

Hamilton is Shakespearean

Take a charismatic hero who reaches giddy heights, only to be brought down by his own hubris. Add sophisticated villains, Machiavellian plots and innocents unfairly wronged, all playing at personal dramas that will ripple outwards to change a nation. These are the same plot points and emotional hooks that make Richard II, Julius Caesar or Macbeth work. True, this is foundational American history. But the story no more needs an awareness of early American politics than you require insight into Medieval Danish history to enjoy Hamlet. Hamilton's plot line plugs in to some of the most enduring themes of human existence: ambition, desire, honour, legacy. And the one that drives us to the climax: envy. Hamilton belongs in an awe-inspiring box set with Othello and Amadeus as the best-ever examinations of how the little green monster can break colleagues apart and send them spiralling towards tragedy, carrying others with them as they go. In a country where The Bard is just as current today as he was 400 years ago, Hamilton's Shakespearean elements make it a comfortable cultural fit. 

Hamilton celebrates the English language
Confession time: pre-Hamilton my impression of hip hop and rap was of monosyllabic, profanity-fuelled rantings about base instincts and brutal lives, blasted out in an irritating percussive dim. Now I see them as valid art forms, closer to poetry than music, perhaps unique in their ability to pack meaningful words into a story with fast-paced density. This musical may be a child of our soundbite age, but rather than dumbing anything down, writer Lin-Manuel Miranda has delivered the weight of literature at high speed. Listening to Hamilton is like standing in front of a fire hose of artfully crafted words and phrases. There are poetic constructions (Hamilton's wife Eliza sings achingly of "palaces of paragraphs" when she describes how his love letters won her), literary allusions (Washington is the model of the modern major general, Hamilton is Icarus flying too close to the sun) and countless remarkably clever rhymes. Brits love their language, and wordplay with it. Hamilton delivers a rare gift for them to enjoy.

Hamilton has memorable music
I feared that a "hip hop musical" wouldn't be pleasant listening. Wrong. While the poetically lyric style of the rap and hip hop tradition run throughout, melodies range across jazz, r&b and soul. There are a few stonking love ballads and comic pieces that would, on melody alone, sit comfortably in older, traditional musicals. Few modern shows, however, send you out the door with such a broad choice of tunes to hum. Though the style may be modern, the musical virtuosity of Hamilton sends you back to the blockbusters of Rogers and Hammerstein, when every tune was both memorable and integral to the plot. Or you could go even further back. There are several points where different characters, singing their own melodies and stories, come together in an intricate counterpoint that finds its closest parallel in Mozart's operas. Even the most musically worthy (my husband and brother-in-law were debating the merits of various versions of Handel oratorios on the way in) will find plenty to like here.

Hamilton showcases London's artistic talent
This is the first version of Hamilton to run outside of the United States and, in line with the "young, scrappy and hungry" ethos, the cast is full of fresh, largely unknown actors. The kids won't stay that way for long. The quality of both voices and acting ... flawless less than four weeks into their run ... says a lot about the continuing strength of the UK's talent pipeline. Fresh out of drama school, Jamael Westman has been garnering raves for his performance in the lead role. The director has decided to split the glory, however, and on our night we saw the alternate, Ash Hunter (pictured above, in white). His Hamilton was charming, sexy and looks a bit like Aidan Turner, a useful shortcut to draw the Poldark-loving nation into the 18th century. His beautiful tenor ranged easily from the powerful to the poignant. While there's no real attempt to make the actors look older, his voice and acting do the work as Hunter takes us from bright, ambitious spark through crushed, tired power broker.   Rachel John's Angelica Schyler was the strongest amongst a trio of impressive female voices. Obioma Ugoala's Washington has a voice that drips warm honey.  It's unfair to call any individuals out, however, as the whole cast is equally strong. Several of them worked together on Motown: The Musical; a logical match for the vocal style. And Shakespearean experience ... him again ... is rife across the team. The director is on record saying that those comfortable with Shakespeare had the easiest time mastering the dense lyrics.

Hamilton is funny
From eviscerating wit to puerile slapstick, the English prize humour as one of the highest forms of human interaction. A favourite criticism of other countries is lack of it. The Germans such an odd sense of humour only other Germans get it, Americans don't grasp irony, etc. Hamilton is a proof point against those American criticisms while giving the London audience much to laugh at. Though it's a serious story, there is plenty of both clever, intellectual jibes and simple physical humour here. Thomas Jefferson's grand entry will have you in stiches, thanks to Jason Pennycooke's impish portrayal (above, in pink). The real show stealer, however, is Michael Jibson's King George (below). Though he's probably on stage as the monarch for less than 12 minutes total (otherwise Jibson's part of the chorus), his hysterically funny delivery of the song "You'll be back", meditating on the rejection of his colonies and their future without him, is one of the most memorable parts of the evening. Evidently this was one of the few bits of the show changed from New York, with a more splendid costume and staging to give "the local side" a bit to cheer for. Given the reaction of the audience, I'd say it worked.

Hamilton is topical

Political parties at each other's throats. Parties imploding from within due to strong personalities. Angry battles in the media with accusations of fake news. A time of enormous change with an uncertain future. Specifics of news stories might differ on either side of the pond, but these themes resonate in the UK just as strongly as in the United States.  If you consider the American revolution and its aftermath as one big Brexit analogy, Hamilton might actually be more topical here than in New York. (Sadly, I fear we don't have any brains as big as Hamilton's and Jefferson's to debate our future.) Hamilton and Lafayette's shared line before the battle of Yorktown ... "immigrants, we get the job done" ... got the biggest spontaneous cheer of the night. The politics connect across the centuries.

I have no doubt that Hamilton will settle into the same kind of institutional run that shows like Phantom, Les Mis and The Mousetrap have enjoyed for decades. In fact, so sure are the theatre owners of this fact that they totally gutted and renovated the Victoria Palace just for this show. The interiors are now sparkling as brightly as Hamilton's London prospects.

The current ticket release runs through late June and is sold out, though there is a lottery for returns every day. The next release of tickets goes on sale Monday, 29 July at noon UK time. In an effort to prevent the exorbitantly priced scalping that's plagued the show in the States, Hamilton in London only has electronic tickets. The person who purchased the tickets must be there with photo ID matching their name, and the credit card with which they booked. Once the door security checks your ID, a staff member with a hand-held printer gives you your tickets at the door. This means there's a big queue to get in, but it moves quickly.

Queen's Gallery captures lush and lavish world of Restoration

In a drawer awaiting my retirement lies the first two chapters and an outline for the rest of my novel, started at university and abandoned when real work got in the way. A sweeping historical saga charting an English Royalist family's attempts to survive through the Commonwealth and take advantage of the Restoration, it reflects my early and enduring fascination with Charles II. He's my favourite of all the British monarchs, and his court had a panache few others have equalled.

It's no surprise, then, that I was an early visitor to the latest show in the Queen's Gallery, London. Charles II: Art and Power shares my fascination, exploring how The Merry Monarch used art to validate his reign.

Charles chose his 30th birthday for his coronation (29 May 1660), celebrated with a blaze of magnificence.

His life up to that point, however, had probably been the hardest of any person to occupy the English throne since before the Norman Conquest. Though his father and mother kept a magnificent court, the tensions that exploded into the Civil War were present from his earliest memories. He was barely a teenager when circumstance forced him to the battlefield, 20 when Parliament executed his father, and by 22 was fleeing to exile as the Royalists lost their last battle at Worcester.

For the next eight years he lived off the generosity of friends and family on the Continent. The early years weren't so bad, hosted by his glamorous cousin Louis XIV. (Charles' mother, Henrietta Maria, was sister to Louis XIII.) But as the Commonwealth's grip on power tightened, France decided the benefits of trade with a current ... though illegal ... British administration outweighed the benefits of supporting a rightful heir with dwindling prospects. Louis asked his cousin to leave. By the late '50s, Charles and a tiny group of friends were living hand-to-mouth in freezing garrets in the Netherlands.

Had Cromwell been a bit less of a Puritan, Charles' story might have ended there. But history proves that few people like the restrictions brought on by religious fundamentalism; particularly not the English. When Cromwell died without an effective succession plan (his son Richard was a disaster), the head of the army took the initiative and invited the rightful heir back home.

Though Charles vaulted from pauper to king, his worries weren't over. He had to re-establish the business of monarchy from scratch when the Parliamentarians had sold off or melted down most of its trappings. He had to reconcile two sides in a society that had been in conflict for almost 20 years. European politics demanded military involvement, plague popped up and London burned down. Through it all, the treasury was never full and Parliament ... the organisation that murdered his father ... controlled the purse strings.

It's thus no surprise that Charles became a master of compromise. The Merry Monarch on the surface, he was a practical man of the people, scholar, scientist and secret Catholic at heart. He was the centre of a newly-glamorous court, but always managed on a budget. (His plans for a palace near Winchester to rival his cousin's Versailles never got funded. He made do with makeovers at Windsor that, while in the height of lavish fashion, were done on the cheap ... thus in poor enough shape by the early 1800s that most were swept away by renovations.) He was often quoted as saying that he had no desire to go on his travels again, thus would do whatever was necessary to keep the new status quo.

The objects on display here illustrate three storylines from Charles' life that have always fascinated me.

1. The role of the visual arts in what we now know as public relations, used by Charles to shore up his position and create a new story for his family.
2. Charles' career walking a knife edge between delivering the magnificence expected by both the public and fellow monarchs, while limiting spending and staying on parliament's good side.
3. How Charles managed his inner demons: coping with, and trying to redress, a tragic family legacy

We start in a room dominated by a somber portrait of the father, Charles' I, captured during his trial. The strange combination of intelligent nobility and pig-headed obstinance that drives so much of the Stuart family saga is obvious in his face. We move to the restoration of 1660 quickly, however. This is an art show, after all, and the dreary years of Civil War, Commonwealth and exile produced little. More often, it destroyed or eliminated art ... making it particularly appropriate that the first blockbuster display here is the plate Charles II commissioned for his coronation.

With the exception of the solid gold chalice and paten (the small plate used for the communion wafer), the collection of platters, ewers, candlesticks and a weighty mace is "only" silver plate. Still, it's enough to make a statement of serious bling. The royals were back, and livin' large. The work on these pieces is exquisite. (Check out the cavalier King Charles spaniel characteristically scrounging for scraps from the table of Jesus' last supper; sadly the only appearance I spotted in the show of the era's iconic.) Normally, this set lives at the end of the gallery with the crown jewels in the Tower of London, where you've been overwhelmed with other bling and you're buffeted by tourists. It's a delight to see it here, given its own space in a gallery generally free of crowds.

Though they initially pale before the glitter of all that gold, the prints and books that dominate the rest of this first large gallery provide a fascinating exploration of the Restoration world. The real artistic firepower, however, comes in the following galleries.

One, dominated by a ceremonial portrait of Charles II enthroned (pictured above), is mostly lush and lavish portraits of the key players in the Stuart court. There's no better way to drink in the spirit of this age than to revel in how its key players chose to be remembered: strong men, romantic women, everyone dressed in ridiculously expensive, lovingly detailed fabrics while they flash their bedroom eyes at you. The the real people couldn't possibly have been as attractive as the artists made them. Within the exhibition you can compare some early, and probably more realistic, portraits of Charles' Queen Catherine of Braganza with the sexy, oversized painting of her as a shepherdess. This is first-class image management for PR spin.

The last large gallery looks at Charles II's efforts to re-establish a Royal Collection after his father's was sold off. Though cursed with abysmal political instincts, Charles I was arguably the greatest single connoisseur of art in English royal history. As sensuous in their own way as the portraits, his son's treasures include pastel-perfect Renaissance scenes, photo-realistic Dutch old masters, magnificent tapestries and noteworthy furniture. Most impressive amongst the last is a rare silver furniture set. The table, matching mirror and pair of pedestal stands usually live at Windsor Castle, where they can be lost in the surrounding opulence. Here ... much like that Coronation plate ... their isolation in a plain background allows you to appreciate them for the magnificent items that they are. Especially as the whole set has just been cleaned and restored, shining with an almost eye-damaging gleam.

Three smaller rooms offer additional insight into Charles' re-assembly of royal treasures. There's ornate dining decor, including the magnificent Exeter salt; precious books, some of which demonstrate Charles' serious commitment to science; Old Master drawings (here's the source of the Royal Collection's wealth of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Holbein on paper); detailed portrait miniatures, jewellery and a blockbuster ivory and ebony altarpiece.

Overall, the exhibit does a fine job of capturing Charles' story and conveying the lush style of the court. Your £11 admission includes an interesting audio guide and the right to return to the gallery for a year. As with anything in the Queen's Gallery, the intimate spaces mean the show is digestible without being overwhelming, and you can appreciate items without big crowds.

It is, however, a solidly traditional exhibition and thus perhaps best for people who already have an interest in the topic. Last month I wrote about how the Opera show currently on at the V&A sets a new high bar in how to present culture and deploy multi-media. After that, the Queen's Gallery seems much more solemn, and like harder work. Charles II might have been famed for his common touch, but this show appeals to more rarified tastes.

Charles II: Art and Power is on at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 13 May.