Star-studded, dance-mix production of “Much Ado” is a marvel

Casting Hollywood stars on the stage and putting on radical interpretations of classics re-styled to appeal to youth are two time-honoured tactics for producers in London’s West End. These strategies fail as often as they work. But not Jamie Lloyd’s Much Ado About Nothing. He has combined both tactics, casting Tom Hiddleston and Haley Atwell while setting the play in a contemporary dance club complete with pulsating soundtrack. It is a very long way from the beloved film version where Denzel Washington, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and a gaggle of other luvvies donned renaissance clothing and capered about a dreamy Tuscan villa. And yet this production is just as joyous.

Indeed, it may actually work better thanks to Lloyd’s decision to cut out the entire secondary plot of Constable Dogberry and to severely trim down the cast of characters. Dogberry is, in theory, the comic relief. But his crew of bumbling cops has always been a lot less amusing than the sparkling battle of wits between Beatrice and Benedick. By cutting out the superfluous, Lloyd’s production gets us to the ultimate nugget of truth: Much Ado About Nothing gave birth to the modern RomCom.

As any Hiddleston fan already knows, he’s a perfect RomCom lead. Sexy but interesting-looking rather than vapidly handsome, able to slide effortlessly between drama and mirth, flawless comic timing. Atwell is equally captivating, though much of her performance was so similar to Emma Thompson’s in tone and cadence it didn’t feel like she really made the role her own. Hiddleston’s Benedick was fresh. Both actors are obviously comfortable with Shakespeare. Indeed, it was Hiddleston’s early bread and butter in London. Sorry to say I didn’t even notice him, much less mention him in my review, when I saw the legendary Donmar Othello with Ewan McGregor and Chiwetel Ejiofor … in which Hiddleston played a supporting role. Bottom line: both actors’ Marvel identities may be bringing the punters in, but it’s their complete ease with Shakespeare and their classical theatre experience that anchors this production.

The modern dance party idea is inspired. Few of us can relate to lounging about an aristocratic Tuscan villa singing “Hey Nonny Nonny”, though you might have fantasised about it. But I suspect just about everyone in the audience can remember the throbbing energy of a dance club or fraternity party where alcohol and noise combined to heighten their senses while confusing reality. It’s this atmosphere that most of the action takes place within. Confusion is the key to multiple plot twists in this story, the atmosphere here making it more credible than I’ve ever seen it. It also makes the whole thing a great deal of fun. Pre-show and at intermission glitter balls sparkle, coloured lights strobe over the audience and most people are tapping toes, if not having a little boogie in the aisles. The curtain call turns into a raucous dance party as Atwell and Hiddleston show off their best moves while Mason Alexander Park … wonderful as the serving woman Margret and a memorable voice giving us tunes throughout … serenades us all with a rousing “When Love Takes Over”.

The cynical will claim this is just a ploy to provoke a standing ovation, which has become more norm than exception in London theatre these days. I wasn’t bothered. This small but dynamic cast deserved the accolades. The show is only running until 5 April and is mostly sold out already, so if you want to see it get booking immediately.

And a quick post-script: I’m not sure how I’ve managed all these years in London without entering the Theatre Royal Drury lane but this was my first time and … wow. The public spaces are lavishly impressive. There’s a multi-story rotunda, two dramatic staircases that are stage sets in themselves, statues of theatrical greats, frescoes taken from famous plays, and a gorgeous double-height ballroom at the front that feels like something out of a Georgian palace. All the space means more bars than the average theatre, so less queuing, and there was a space in that ballroom clearly set up for evening dining. (I was at the matinee.) It is as grand, and memorable, as the Royal Opera House and in future I’ll be more likely to book something just knowing it’s playing here.

Why rugby has become an essential part of my English life

February brings two reliable reliefs from the unremitting gloom of a British winter: snowdrops and Six Nations rugby.

Carpets of the little white flowers remind me that winter is blessedly short here. From now on something will be blooming consistently in the garden. Skies may remain grey, drizzle may fall, but flower trails at heritage properties across the country give me a reason to get outside.

It’s not enough of a lure to get the husband out of the man cave on a winter weekend, however. People need to be chasing a rugby ball for that.

Rugby has turned up a fair amount over the years in this blog, mostly in conjunction with travel we’ve coordinated around England away games. It’s been an excellent excuse for Paris, Rome, and most notably Japan, where we were lucky enough to attend some of the 2019 World Cup. I haven’t written much about England’s home ground of Twickenham, however, despite the fact that we’re now regulars.

It’s time.

How did an American who’s mostly ambivalent about sport, with the exception of St. Louis Cardinals baseball, end up passionately supporting England rugby in the stadium five to 10 times a year, with more on TV? And why? Part of it is, quite simply, that I married in. Some men have a mid-life crisis and buy themselves a ridiculous car or a young wife. Mine, thank God, went for debentures at Twickenham. (This is a particularly English version of season tickets; your investment buys you right of first refusal on tickets for your seats, which you then buy at face value. Given the difficulty of getting seats for a sport where every match always sells out, this is the only way to guarantee attendance.)

But I’m not just tagging along to be a good wife. I honestly enjoy the game.

All the things I liked at my first outing … fast-paced action, fit male bodies worthy of admiration, a merry and highly social crowd … have only multiplied in my affections over the years. 

I can add patriotism. I love England as an enthusiastic immigrant. I had to work hard to gain my place here and I regularly appreciate things that native-born citizens take for granted. I think it would be great for the country if more people mustered more vocal enthusiasm for the place. But I grew up in a place where flag-waving is the norm, whereas patriotism here … with a few exceptions …. is far less visible. I love wrapping myself in the flag. Wearing a crown of red roses. Belting out Jerusalem and God Save the King. You get to do that at the rugby.

As I learned more, I fell in love with the structure of a game that has a role for any body type. The slight, little people. The tall lanky people. The chunky, broad types. Slow ones and fast ones. There’s a place for everyone in this remarkably inclusive game.

While I still only have a tenuous grasp on the laws of rugby … and know enough to call them laws rather than rules … I have a much better understanding of what’s happening on the field. Enough, certainly, to be able to roar frustration at gaping holes in the defence and appreciate the beauty of a particularly nimble tackle or agile run. Honestly, I don’t think it’s even possible to have a full grasp of the laws unless you’ve been involved with the game since childhood, and probably played it, because they are profuse, subtle and complicated. And ever-changing. Leading me to my belief that thick people can’t play rugby. It’s one of my favourite aspects of the sport.

Long before I paid attention to what was happening on the field I worked with the sport’s veterans off of it. If you want to lure British senior executives out of their offices, rugby regularly tops the list as the most enticing corporate hospitality offering. Thus I’ve hosted meetings where Clive Woodward offered leadership tips, got to interview Lawrence Dallaglio, and explored the importance of data in the game with Ben Kay. I even learned how to do the Hakka from New Zealand legend Sean Fitzpatrick. All of these events included drinks and socialising with the former athletes who were always incredibly bright, easy conversationalists and great fun.

These guys gave me my initial impression that people rugby people are special … a belief that’s only strengthened as I’ve come to know the game. So I’m not surprised that following Maro Itoje on Instagram can teach me about West African art and that Joe Marler’s podcast gives me fascinating insights into quirky professions.

These days, I extend that exceptionalism to the fans. I can’t think of anything else I do in my life where everyone involved is so uniformly pleasant and easy to get along with. In a country where you don’t talk to strangers on the train and cheerfully greeting an oncoming pedestrian is regarded with suspicion, fans inside the stadium strike up conversations like they’re all old friends. Or, if you’re part of the strange minority that is USA rugby fans, like family. This geniality extends to opposing fans. At the 2015 World Cub a group of South African fans consoled me after they trounced the Americans. Everyone loves the Italians, perennial 6 Nations underdogs. Even the long-standing Calcutta Cup, fought between the English and the Scots, is tremendously civil.

I admit, this may be because of the total lack of diversity in rugby fandom. I am not sure there is any other activity on the planet that is so relentlessly upper middle class. In the 10 minutes it took me to cut across the fan zone from the car park to our seats I once overheard conversations about how a new acquisition was going, how a retirement portfolio was weathering recent market fluctuations and the perils of moving the youngest child into student housing at Oxford. I suspect, if I worked at it, I could develop more new business at Twickenham than on LinkedIn. Though who wants to spoil such a fun day out?

Because fun, ultimately, is why I’m content with investing so much of our free time, and our discretionary spending, into following rugby. Every game at Twickenham is a celebration. Following the team away is even better. We’ve bought a package to see the lads in Cardiff for the last game of this season’s 6 Nations, and I’m ridiculously excited. I have no doubt it will be the highlight of our first quarter of 2025. When we were having serious conversations about economising at the turn of the year we took a hard look at the rugby and, rather surprisingly, I was even more vocal in its defence than he was. Whatever the result on the field, the whole experience is consistently joyous. 

Unadulterated joy is too rare a thing to sacrifice unless there’s no other choice.

How to avoid the six worst mistakes trending in online travel planning forums

January is long, dark, and gloomy. Yet it is also a month of hope. We delight in the potential of empty calendars, filling in highlights for the next 12 months. Gardeners snuggle in arm chairs with seed catalogues and notebooks, plotting the summer’s glories. Travellers browse magazines, websites, and airfares dreaming of the year’s escapes.

British travel agents dub the Saturday after the first full week in January “Sunshine Saturday” and report it’s the busiest day of the month as bookings soar. A recent survey found that 40% of the British population planned to book some element of a 2025 holiday in January. I won’t be travelling as much this year as I did last, but that doesn’t stop me from both researching my own excursions and finding joy helping others plan theirs. 

I have been a bit obsessed with travel planning groups on Facebook. While I’m offering lots of advice on England and Italy, I’m seeking it on Saxony.

These groups are great fun, and can deliver some fantastic insider knowledge. But they can also be incredibly frustrating as people ignore the search function to ask repeat questions. Conversations consistently throw up some disturbing trends. I’ve seen enough that I thought it worth pointing out the worst trouble spots and giving you some advice on how to avoid them.

One: Don’t start with someone else’s “Top 10” list; outline your own priorities and go from there
Everything in travel planning comes back to this foundation. From guidebooks to individuals, everyone will offer an authoritative view of the best things to see in a place. But are they best for you? I’m rather horrified by the number of people on these groups who simply ask: “what should we do in such-and-such a place?” There’s no good answer before considering personal style, interests and preferences.

Twenty different people could have twenty entirely different experiences in London. Some might want history, art and architecture. Others might be bored silly by that, but desperate to see filming locations of their favourite productions. Visits can skew towards nightlife and music, food, fashion and shopping, or even adventure sport. (You can put on a hard hat, clip on a safety line and climb to the top of the O2 Arena.) Following someone else’s recommendation is likely to waste your time unless they share your priorities.

And don’t … as so many of my American compatriots do … say “I want to see Everything! As much as I can pack in, because I may never be back!” While I understand the impulse, down that road lies madness. You’ll end up stewing in the disappointment of all the things you didn’t get to, while exhausting yourself with your hungry pace. A few months later, you’ll be unable to identify what’s in your own photos. Slow down and focus on those priorities.

If your priority is truly to get a broad sample? See point six.

Two: Appreciate the influencers, but look beyond them
Believe me, I get the appeal. Interesting people telling great stories in front of gorgeous backgrounds makes me want to go there, too. I’m trying to influence with my own travel posts, after all. I’m seeing significant shifts, however, in the kinds of destinations rising to the top of everyone’s list due to influencers. Everyone seems to be in search of the same picture-postcard backgrounds to their selfies.

I see this most starkly in my Italy planning group, where a startling number of people are prioritising Lake Como, the Cinque Terre and the Amalfi Coast. These are all astonishingly beautiful places, but if you’re interested in art, architecture and history they’re cultural backwaters. They’re all variations on scenic R&R. Back in olden times when my mother was a travel agent she’d plan one into a client’s itinerary … but never the trio. It’s like having three courses of ice cream rather than a balanced meal.

Whether it’s these destinations or activities in the big cities, influencers have tourists heading disproportionately towards an ever-smaller group of photogenic activities. The result, of course, is that the hot spots have become ridiculously crowded. You couldn’t pay me to go to the Cinque Terre any more; I’m just relieved I went there before things got out of control. 

Getting tickets into the Colosseum or the Last Supper is like booking the hottest Michelin-star restaurants. Grab your tickets the morning they go on sale for the next three-month window, or you’re out of luck.

The good news, I suppose, is that as more people concentrate on the Influencers’ favourite spots, fewer will be everywhere else. These days I’ll substitute the Medici’s country villas for central Florence, the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj for the Vatican Museums and Herculaneum for Pompeii. All have just as much artistic and historic value with a fraction of the tourists. Or influencers.

Three: Be suspicious of AI-generated content; always check with trusted sources 
In the past few months I’ve seen an explosion of AI-generated images turning up in travel and history feeds across social media. If you’ve visited a place, these are obvious fictions. 

If you haven’t been there, however, you might believe that Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and the office building known as “the gherkin” are clustered together, blanketed under an idyllic two feet of snow in January. The reality isn’t even close. And the baths of Caracalla are not, and never have been, three stories of towering Edwardian neo-classicism looming over pools that look surprisingly like spas in Budapest.

These posts don’t seem to be attempting to entrap anyone in a fraud, and you could argue that they do no real harm. Gullible people, however, do risk scheduling trips to see things that don’t exist. I suspect this is a trend that’s going to spiral as more people start playing with AI image generators. Be careful. If you’re interested enough in something to pay to travel to see it, check official websites, travel magazines and local tourism boards to confirm the reality.

Four: Don’t ignore the stress of internal travel; no fewer than three nights in a place is ideal
The most frequent adjustment offered by people on these travel planning forums is itinerary editing. Go fewer places! A minimum of two nights in a place makes sure you have at least one full sightseeing day in each location. A three-night minimum is better if you don’t want to end your holiday exhausted. A different place every night will give you more insight into a country’s transportation systems than its tourism delights.

The most ambitious itineraries come from Americans and Australians who are so used to the vast spaces of their own countries that distances in Europe seem insignificant.  It’s true that Edinburgh is as close to London as St. Louis is to Chicago, but that still doesn’t mean you should attempt to drive around the whole island. Road works, traffic, train strikes, slow and narrow roads can all make 30 miles of travel feel like 100.

Again, priorities matter. It may be that Pompeii is indeed so important to you that it’s worth a day trip from Rome, spending three hours in transit each way. But if it’s that much of a priority, why aren’t you basing yourself out of Naples so you can enjoy it properly? If you just want the romance of wandering through a ruined Roman town, would the half-hour commuter train out to the ruins at Ostia Antica, in Rome’s suburbs, scratch your itch without losing so much of the day? 

Five: You don’t have to plan everything! Determine what’s essential, and leave the rest
Being a member of a travel planning forum suggests that you like to plan. So do I. But it’s easy to overdo things and leave yourself with no room for the serendipitous discoveries that often make a trip. The pointless meandering down country lanes over spilling with early summer blooms in the Cotswolds. The pop into the tiny family winery for a case of delicious bargain rose. The Tuscan towns that aren’t in the guidebooks, but offer gorgeous streetscapes without tourists.

After 15 years of travelling together my husband and I have settled into a formula that works for us. For each destination we’ll each select two or three things that are a priority for each of us to get to an agreed short list. For each day we will only schedule one thing. The rest just flows. 

Obviously, if you have specific priorities you need to do a bit of research into availability. British Museum? It’s still free, but you now need a reserved slot and those are often booked out a few days in advance. Sir John Soane’s museum? You can just turn up.

Six: Don’t immediately dismiss organised travel; group tours and travel agents have their merits
Facebook planning groups seem to be dominated by people who believe independent travel is the only acceptable option; group travel … other than moving between destinations on a cruise ship … is guaranteed to give you an “inauthentic” experience. Authenticity, of course, is now the goal of all travel.

I am puzzled as to how following scores of Gen Z influencers to some photo spot on Como is more authentic than letting expert locals who’ve been officially accredited introduce you to their home … but such is the trend. While I usually travel independently, there are three circumstances in which I believe an organised group tour or a specialised agency can do it better than doing it yourself:

1. Introducing you to a place you’ve never been, especially if you don’t speak the language, 

2. Coping with complicated travel logistics (ie a cruise is the only practical way to do the Baltic and the Scandinavian coast in one trip), 

3. Dealing with specific needs (limited mobility, tricky diets, solo travel*, etc.)

If you’re short on time, the arguments for getting help grow stronger. My husband and I could afford to waste more than two hours wandering through the German countryside in search of the poorly-signposted Burg Elz, only to find that we deeply disagreed with Rick Steve’s description of it as the best castle in Europe. That’s because were were on a quick weekend break with no firm plans. Had I travelled from the USA spending some of my only 10 or 15 days of vacation per year I would have been frustrated by the waste. A travel professional would, no doubt, have avoided our debacle. 

Whether you’re considering a group tour or travelling independently, go back to those priorities. Sharpen them up. Then ask experts for help. Your next trip will be much better for it, wherever you’re going. 

*Solo female travellers should check out No Stopping Her, a new agency started by some talented friends of mine and dedicated to their sophisticated needs.

The Feast of Seven Fishes for Two? Here’s how.

Like spaghetti with giant meatballs and snowy excesses of cheese topping, the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve is not an Italian tradition. It’s Italian-American, which is quite a different thing. Yes, Italians do traditionally eat fish on Christmas Eve, and they like to set a festive table. But pushing yourself to seven dishes is considered a bit over-the-top in the Mother Country.

Like so many Italian-American traditions, I suspect the Seven Fishes swam out of the giddy immigrant delight of cheap, easily available food. Families who, in their native land, could only afford animal proteins a few times a year could now have them every day. They celebrated and showed off their wealth. Food writers have traced the generous excesses of Italian-American cuisine back to this fact. (Given that most 19th century immigrants shared that reality, whatever their country of origin, I’ve always suspected it’s at the root of America’s gargantuan portion sizes in comparison to the rest of the world. But, admittedly, the Italian-American table does groan a little more heavily than most.

To be honest, our family didn’t really do the Seven Fishes. In the Missouri of the 1960s and ‘70s, a 12-hour drive from the nearest ocean, fresh fish was unknown at all but the priciest of restaurants and frozen food … while becoming more common … tended to offer only breaded fish fingers. I suppose someone could have come up with a muddy catfish, but seven fish dishes would have been ludicrous. My Sicilian grandfather honoured his piscine traditions with a bit of pickled herring out of a jar while the family sat down to something meaty; usually an enormous lasagne.

As an adult living on an island on which the most inland point is only 70 miles from the sea, however, I liked the sound of the Feste. More accurately, I liked the challenge. We never entertain at Christmas Eve. We’re either out, or it’s just the two of us. Would it be possible to prepare seven distinct fish dishes in one meal, in portion sizes that didn’t overwhelm?

I’ve played around with the challenge in years past, but 2024 is the year I got closest to acing this conundrum. My pasta serving should have been a bit smaller … we were too full to properly enjoy the course after … and I spent so much time getting portion sizes right that I fell down a bit on seasoning and small touches. Much of this tasted good, but a bit of attention to detail would have made it great.

Still, I have a template for future years. If you want to try the Feast of Seven Fishes for a small group, here’s a workable menu. I split the seven into four courses.

First Course: Amuse Bouche. These were three single bites, presented on special serving spoons. My bites were an anchovy wrapped around green olives, tuna (high-quality Sicilian, in a jar) stuffed into a peppadew pepper, and bit of avocado covered with crab meat. I could have added one more here and taken one off the next course to make life easier on myself, as the squid could have been served hot or cold.

Second Course: Warm Appetisers. I put two on a plate. A griddled stuffed squid was easy, coming already prepared from the deli at Italian Continental Stores. Left cold, this could have joined the amuse bouche. That sat next to a single scallop on pea puree and a bit of grilled ham. It’s normally done on black pudding but I’d already roasted a ham for other holiday meals and wanted to re-use ingredients.

Third Course: Pasta. I made three tactical errors with my Linguini Vongole, which I haven’t made in a very, very long time. First, lacking a linguini option on my pasta maker I opted for spaghetti rather than fettuccini. The thicker noodle would have worked better. Second, I dumped the liquid from the jar of clams when I should have used it to flavour the pasta. Third, I forgot how important really good olive oil is to this dish. Essentially, it’s really delicate and easy to create something extremely bland. I rescued it with a last-minute addition of the Sicilian olive oil our landlords from Ispica sent us home with earlier this year, but it could have been better out of the pan.

Fourth Course: From the Grill. Whole sea bass done “en papillote” with fennel, lemon and dill. Another tactical error … I didn’t open the packet from the fishmonger to see that my husband had bought a whole bass instead of fillets until an hour before serving. The papillote was a last-minute rescue because I didn’t have the time or confidence to fillet the fish myself. Had I realised I had a whole fish to work with I would have gotten supplies in to bake it in sea salt, but the only sea salt in the house was fancy stuff I’d purchased in Sicily and i wasn’t going to use that as a cooking medium.

Dessert: I made a simple lime posset, which is the kind of light, citric option perfect for ending this menu. We were so stuffed that we split one and only managed half of it, but it did wrap things up nicely.

And thus ended my culinary efforts on Christmas Eve. My lovely husband took over the kitchen the next day and switched the influences from Italian to Danish. (Crab salad, roast duck with red cabbage, Christmas pudding). Followed by the traditional Danish lunch of open-faced sandwiches, beer and snaps with friends on the 27th. Those feasts gave us enough leftovers to weather the rest of a quiet holiday season. Outside, it was grey, windy and wet. Indoors, we snuggled up with good books, good video, and good food. After a busy year, it was exactly the holiday season we needed.

Jermyn Street's "Napoleon" is a triumph of grown-up pantomime. And quintessentially British.

The Economist recently reported that more than a quarter of applicants taking the British Citizenship test fail (scoring less than 75%), and that rate would be MUCH higher if given to existing citizens who hadn’t prepared for it. I, who have a far better grasp of British history and politics than average, managed only 50% on the newspaper’s sample. Many argue that the glorified pub quiz is a poor litmus test for life in the UK.

I have a better one.

Prospective citizens should have to attend at least three Christmas pantomimes and then give a convincing oral presentation on what this unique art form, and British people’s fascination with it, says about life in this country. Trust me, this is far better preparation for settling here than knowing who William III beat at the Battle of the Boyne (got that one right) or how long you can drive on a foreign license while resident in the UK (whoops).

Napoleon: Un Petit Pantomime at the Jermyn Street Theatre was a bit of a British graduation ceremony for me. Despite almost 30 years in this country, approaching 20 as a citizen, this is the first time I’ve attended a performance in which I comfortably participated in all the expected call-and-response, laughed at all of the jokes and didn’t pause to consider just how bizarre the whole tradition is. Then again, this clever, historically inspired panto wasn’t the typical production.

First, a quick overview for non-British readers. Pantomime, usually shortened to “panto”, is a British stage production put on around the Christmas holidays. Most Brits will have grown up going to at least one a season with their families since before they can remember; this is as essential to holiday traditions as a visit to Santa Claus. Long before Shrek and Toy Story perfected the art, panto managed to present entertainment that worked on two levels: base, silly humour for the kids also holds innuendo and double entendre for the grownups. The humour is normally of the wince-inducing, joke-inside-the-Christmas-cracker kind, but some versions, like Jermyn Street’s and a Stephen Fry-scripted Cinderella I saw years ago, are more sophisticated. But even these are still silly; think Blackadder vs. Mr. Bean.

But there’s more. Gender-swapping is essential: the heroic young lad is usually played by a girl while at least one female character … the “pantomime dame” … is a man in drag. There is nothing sexual about this and the swapping pre-dates “woke” issues by centuries. (In fact, there are many critics who are irritated by a growing trend in female impersonators playing the dames. They are too good at the female roles, taking the intended absurdity of the swap out of proceedings.) There are always musical numbers, usually with new lyrics laid over floor-filling pop tunes that everyone will know already. A handful of classics come back year after year: Cinderella, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk. While the core plots are staples, they’re regularly adapted to include references to modern trends and news. (In the same way modern productions adapt Gilbert and Sullivan operettas.) 

Stars often turn up in main roles; sometimes big ones but usually TV celebrities having their moment in the sun. Audience participation through well known call-and-response patterns is essential, and there’s usually a bit where some kids get pulled up on stage. For some reason nobody has ever been able to explain there’s usually a pantomime cow, even if there’s no bovine element to the plot. Presumably because there’s nothing funnier than two people sharing a cow suit?

Brits, who have grown up with this and find it all completely normal, have no grasp of just how strange it all is. Most foreigners will probably find their first panto exposure to be a jarring revelation of just how alien and slightly disturbing the UK can be beneath its tweed and waxed cotton-surface. Thus my citizenship test suggestion.

Napoleon included all the classic elements with a remarkably witty script, rapid-fire banter and a plot that got funnier the more you knew about the Napoleonic wars. (The Family Bencard was in heaven.) There was even a cow gag, though this involved milking machines and kids from the audience rather than a bovine costume.

The fanciful plot made Bridgerton look like a documentary: panto villain Napoleon was in league with the ghost of Marie Antoinette, our “hero” was proto-feminist Princess Georgiana who pretended to be a boy to go on adventures, Wellington (played by a woman) dreamed of giving up war and making beef pies, and this King George III gave the scene-stealing character in Hamilton a run for his money. The channel-crossing adventure involved a hunt for the severed hand of Lord Nelson, which was the only way to get into a cache of treasure beneath one of the London bridges. Which, naturally, led to a performance of Waterloo near the end.

Utterly mad. Completely delightful. My kind of panto. It seems they take this Blackadder-style approach every year. Last year was a pantomime take on Odysseus. Hard to even imagine. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next year. I think we might have just established a new Bencard family tradition.

Milan’s cultural wonders deserve more attention than the average tourist gives them

Milan may be Italy’s richest city and its business hub, but when it comes to tourism it’s an also-ran. People may arrive here, but they’re more likely to be in transit through town en route to Venice or Florence. They might pop in to da Vinci’s last supper, or use a hotel here as a base for a day trip to Como, but they’re unlikely to linger.

That is a shame. 

Milan is as rich in history and cultural gems as any of the more popular destinations. Though it’s lacking in rustic charm and feels more modern than other Italian towns, the very fact that it’s less dependant on tourism than its neighbours makes it more authentic than the staples of the tourist route.

Most visitors start with the Last Supper, as well they should. It one of the great masterpieces of Western Art. Seeing it takes long-range planning. The official website opens sales for three months’ worth of tickets at a time, and they quickly sell out. We booked our tickets for early December on the first day of their availability, 24 September, when tickets for November, December and January became available. The official website does not publish those drop dates very far in advance. Your best bet is to follow them on social media and check regularly; they announced new ticket availability on their Instagram feed about two weeks before the date.

Adult tickets are €15. You may be able to get in without advance planning, but it will cost you a lot more. A handful of official tour guides get blocks of tickets they resell as part of packages, but these tend to go for well over €100 per person. Sure, you’re getting a guide and a tour of a few other things nearby, but it’s a huge difference. Go for the standard admission unless a last-minute trip gives you no other option.

So what’s the big deal? Da Vinci anticipates the immediacy of film by 400 years, dropping us into a moment of high-tension live action that’s been freeze-framed. If you need proof of just how revolutionary this painting was, you only have to turn around and look at Giovanni Donato da Montorfano’s Crucifixion on the opposite wall. It’s beautiful, and it was painted at roughly the same time, but it’s almost cartoon-like. It’s bland and devoid of emotion in comparison to Leonardo’s masterpiece across the hall

Visits last 15 minutes, admit 35 people at a time and are orchestrated with a rigorous efficiency that may cause you to re-evaluate Italian stereotypes. You will turn up a bit before your booked time, go through the security screening, then pass through two air-locked rooms. The high tech procession allows the curators to control exactly the temperature and humidity of the old refectory that the Last Supper decorates, and while you’re waiting you can read useful information about what you’re about to see. The painting’s history has been precarious. Most people know the stories of Leonardo’s experimental fresco technique starting to fade almost as soon as he completed the work, and of Napoleon’s troops abusing the space, but not that the whole room was almost destroyed in WW2. Photos of its wall standing in the open air surrounded by rubble are striking. 

 Recent renovations have worked wonders and the strict visiting procedure makes the experience a joy. In so much of Italy you’re jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with others trying to get a glimpse of the star sights. Here, there’s plenty of space to drink it all in and sit in wonder before you’re moved on. While true art lovers could spend hours in there, 15 minutes seemed the perfect amount of time for most people to appreciate the details without getting bored.

Sadly, I watched most visitors come and go from the Last Supper without ever checking out the church next door. It is the anchor of the monastery complex da Vinci was working to beautify. Santa Maria delle Grazie was a Dominican church and was the burial place of the Renaissance ruling family, the Sforzas, ergo the artistic firepower lavished on the place. It’s had as hard a time as its refectory, with the tombs being moved out by later rulers and the French looting its best painting. (Titian’s altarpiece of Christ Receiving His Crown of Thorns is in the Louvre these days.) But nobody could move Bramante’s dome, which is as much of a masterpiece on the architectural side as the Last Supper is to painting. It’s innovative and unusual; Bramante was introducing Renaissance style to Milan. Outside it’s a curious mash-up of plaster and brickwork, arcades and neoclassical windows. Inside it’s clearly drawing inspiration from the Pantheon with its coffers, but Bramante throws in all sorts of other classical shapes. It’s an elegant study in geometric forms.

The next most visited place in town has to be the Duomo and the streets immediately around it, for good reason. Milan’s cathedral has one of the most gorgeous exteriors in Europe, a fantasy of gothic spires and fantastic statues. It’s even better now that it’s been cleaned and really does resemble an ornate wedding cake. Walk all of the way around it to appreciate the variety of sculpture. The cathedral wasn’t officially finished until 1965 and there are some surprisingly modern gargoyles around the back. Skip the interior if you are short on time. Like many European churches it’s a mix of different time periods and styles, but the Milanese manage to be particularly graceless and heavy-handed putting it all together. The quality of some of the art in here is shockingly second rate, given the wealth of the great and the good in town.

I think it might be the ugliest cathedral interior in Europe. The strange, chunky gothic capitals on top on the ponderous supporting pillars are particularly awful.  It’s not just my opinion. The famous British art critic John Ruskin wrote that the cathedral ”steals from every style in the world, and every style spoiled.” The round classical temple sheathed in patterned silver that serves as a high altar is a bit of a redeeming feature for me, but it clashes so badly with its surroundings it’s hard to take seriously. See what you think.

The streets immediately around the cathedral are full of elegant boutiques and luxury brands, most notably the cross-shaped Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. This is surely one of the most beautiful shopping malls in the world, full of elegant restaurants as well as shops beneath its glass barrel vaults. You’ll pay a premium for anything here, of course, but if you want to see and be seen this is the spot.

Cross through the Galleria to the Piazza della Scala to see the famous statue of da Vinci. He’s facing one of the most famous opera houses in the world, the Teatro Alla Scala. Our timing was terrible. It was opening weekend of the new season, with performances restricted to patrons and no tours taking place to facilitate the national broadcast of opening night. Opera in Italy is a big deal. But under normal circumstances there are regular tours of the interior and tickets for performances are easily bookable via their website. Prices are much closer to London’s Royal Opera House, however, than to the bargain that is the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

My favourite cultural experience of the weekend, after getting one-on-one with Leonardo, was a leisurely ramble around Castello Sforzesco. This is one of the largest castles in Europe, a quintessentially Renaissance assertion that something can be both lethal and beautiful. It’s free to walk beneath its massive gates and explore its lovely courtyards, but you’ll have to ante up €5 to get inside. This has to be the best value for money in Milan.

Technically, there are nine different museums here, all entered by this one ticket. The scale and range of the collection is on par with any of the major museums of Europe, and in many cases the rooms and their painted ceilings are as interesting as the collections displayed within them. It would take at least a full day to walk through everything, many more to view the collections in depth.

With only a few hours, we started with one of the museum’s great treasures: an unfinished pietà by Michelangelo. This has been restored relatively recently and moved to a new display space that reflects its importance; it has a whole hall to itself and the explanatory displays about it and its artist. We wandered through the “Museum of Ancient Art”, which is a bit of a misnomer. It’s mostly sculpture from late antiquity through the high Renaissance, plus an armoury. The arms and armour collection is small compared to those in Vienna or London’s Wallace Collection, but it’s worth checking out just for the gorgeous display of Ludovico Sforza on his horse, both recreated in lifelike detail and dressed in their parade armour. This is also the part of the castle that has the most impressive rooms, including a large chamber frescoed by Leonardo to give the impression of being deep in a magical wood. The painting is in terrible shape but you can make out enough to be impressed. Restorers are trying to recover more.

The Applied Arts Collection is an Italian equivalent to the V&A. Objects range from the Middle Ages to modern times, with much from the Sforza family making the Renaissance galleries predictably strong. There are whole interiors pulled out of buildings, furniture, lush decorative objects, glassware and jewellery. It’s so big that at one point we got lost and drifted into the painting collection. By this point we were too exhausted to even contemplate the hundreds of metres of canvas-filled galleries ahead of us … despite the prospect of some Caravaggios … and doubled back, using my bad knee as an excuse to talk the guards into letting us go out the entrance. We didn’t even touch the Egyptian Museum, the print collection, prehistoric stuff and special rotating exhibitions.

That was the extent of our sightseeing time but was only the tip of the Milanese cultural iceberg. The Brera Art Museum and the Basilica of Saint Ambrogio would have been next on my list. I wouldn’t have minded a day trip down to Pavia and its magnificent Certosa, of which I have misty but dazzling memories from childhood. Lake Maggiore and its magnificent palace on Isola Bella lies in the opposite direction. And I wouldn’t mind a much deeper exploration of the local wine scene. 

Clearly, Milan is not just for business trips and getting to other places in Italy. It’s a tourist destination in its own right.

Two Milanese restaurants show off the city’s talent at meaty comfort food paired with top local wines

Milan is one of those places that feels like they should put “vegetarians beware” signs up at the borders. After spending three weeks this year in Italy’s fruit-and-veg-rich south, I found Lombardy’s meat and carb addiction a bit of a shock. The menus, like the miles, are closer to Germany than Naples. 

If you like veal, however, you’re in luck. Forget about the greens and stuff yourself with all the milk-fed vitello cotoletta, milanese and ossobuco you can. Have a salad when you get home.

Ossobuco on a bed of risotto milanese is the most iconic dish of the region. It’s one of those deceptively simple recipes that’s very easy to get wrong. Veal shank, slow cooked in stock, carrots, celery, onions and garlic (there are your vegetables!), with the marrow from the bones thickening and bringing it all together as it cooks down. Get it wrong and it’s a tough, gelatinous mess. Done well, it’s a melt-in-your-mouth triumph of meaty goodness.

To taste this classic at its best, book a table at Trattoria all’Antica on the Via Montevideo, on the northern edge of the Navigli district a short walk from the Coni Zugna tram station. This is a small but elegant local place with classy, modern interiors and a short menu of regional specialities. It’s run by husband and wife team Luca and Susana Conti, and you feel their close personal involvement in everything. There’s the printed menu, but this is also the kind of place you can just put yourself in the hands of the waiter who will roll out Luca’s specials of the evening. We dined there twice and appeared to be the only tourists in a place packed full of locals both nights, which I figure is always a good sign. The food was so spectacular that before we’d finished our main courses on the first night, we asked if we could book another dinner within our three-night stay.

The ossobuco was perfection, and I can validate that having tried a more famous restaurant’s version the night before. (More of that below.) The veg had melted and coalesced into a thick and flavourful sauce. The meat was sweet and tender, any hint of fat rendered away. Its pillow of risotto was a textbook combination of al dente bite and creamy sauce, spiked with a pleasant hit of saffron. This is the comfort food of your dreams.

There was much more that was worthy of note at this gem of a restaurant. On our first visit the waiter let us know that it was the very end of white truffle season, and there was a little of that magical ingredient in the kitchen that could be incorporated into a variety of dishes. Truffles aren’t for mushroom haters or those on a tight budget. The concentrated essence of funghi, like the distillation of a rich forest floor, but in the case of the white truffles with an astonishing delicacy and nuance. They’re also one of the most expensive raw ingredients in the world, so wiser diners than us might have asked the price before ordering the home-made tagliatelle with truffles and cream sauce. We didn’t. And I don’t regret it, despite the €35 sticker shock. Another example here of the guiding philosophy of great Italian cuisine: if your ingredients are top quality, you don’t need to combine too many to create greatness. Just let the essential elements sing.

To accompany the luxury pasta, our waiter introduced us to Franciacorta. While Italy produces a lot of sparkling whites … most notably Prosecco … this Lombardian DOCG is Italy’s closest competitor to Champagne. Generally made with the same grapes, grown in similar conditions, using the same production methods, but with the fruit sitting on its lees for a minimum of 18 months versus champagne’s 15. The Italians say their slower maturation process makes for a more flavourful wine; I couldn’t argue with the glass in my hand. The bargain €7 a glass also helped balance the truffle splurge.

On our first night at Antica I’d opted for the cotoletta on the waiter’s recommendation, and it was extraordinary. Essentially a lightly-breaded and pan-fried veal chop, it’s so easy to dry these out I often consider it too risky to order. No need to fear here. I honestly don’t know how they preserved that much moisture in the meat, and got such an intense contrast between the dry, crispy coating and the succulent interior. The instinctive reaction with breaded meats is to serve a sauce; it would have been pointless here.

Other delights across our two meals included a variety of local appetisers, beef tagliata, a classic yet feather-light chestnut tart and our introduction to Roero, a variety of red wine from neighbouring Piedmont made with Nebbiolo.

Our hotel’s top recommendation for local restaurants was Osteria del Binari, and it came a close second. This place is far bigger and has been a culinary anchor in the Navigli neighbourhood since the 1970s. Its roots go deeper, however. It started life as a social club for people who worked on the railways (“binari” are railway platforms). It’s next to the tracks leading into one of Milan’s oldest stations and the interiors have a classic late 19th century vibe. If you grew up in the United States, as I did, this fusion of dark wood furniture, Victorian lighting, jewel tones and art nouveau decorative touches is exactly what you think a posh Italian restaurant is supposed to look like. While Antica has perhaps 50 covers, Binari has hundreds spread across a warren of different rooms. We were out in the winter garden, essentially an old Victorian-era glasshouse with stone floors and fireplaces on either end. The rail tracks lie just beyond. This place wins hands down on atmosphere.

There was a bigger menu here. More vegetables. More seafood options. Some gorgeous stuffed pasta. Dishes presented in a “chef-ier” way. Bigger wine list. But in a taste-to-taste comparison the flavours were just a bit less impressive. My ossobuco had a very slight sheen of unincorporated fat on its surface. The waiters and the sommelier were efficient and businesslike, but lacked the chatty interaction of those at Antica. Binari just felt a bit more functional, but that’s not surprising from a place serving four times the diners. 

While Antica is my first choice, I’d happily return to Binari … especially in the summer when that conservatory would be flooded with light and there’s a garden where club members once played bocce. Whatever the choice, our two restaurants supported the idea that dining out is reason enough to spend a bit of time in Milano. 

But one shouldn’t live on great food alone. There’s culture in Milan to delight your eyes as thoroughly as these two places pleased the stomach. I’ll cover sightseeing highlights in my next article.