Duxford soars, Ballroom swirls between the poles of preference

There's heated debate these days over whether traditional "masculine" and "feminine" preferences are nature or nurture. Without cultural influences, would little boys dress up in spangles and feathers while little girls went for the toy armaments and beat each other up? In a week that saw a friend and me sharing two experiences at the opposite poles of the sexual stereotype spectrum, I'm leaning towards nature.

On Tuesday, we loved the stage adaptation of Baz Luhrmann's gloriously camp Strictly Ballroom. If you had emptied the theatre of women and gay men, I doubt there would have been enough bodies to populate three rows. Too bad for them. It was the most joyous, morale-boosting, feel-good girls' night out I can remember. Four days later, with our men in tow, we had to consider what to do with a Saturday afternoon in East Anglia. I was pushing for Tudor architecture (Blickling Hall was just north of us), but only the Imperial War Museum at Duxford would tempt my husband from an afternoon with his laptop. And while I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the planes and tanks, there is simply no doubt that the Y chromosome holders bonded with the military technology in a primal way we girls couldn't approach.

STRICTLY BALLROOM
In a world where the stage show Mamma Mia! rolls towards its 20th anniversary with no loss of momentum, the only surprise about Strictly Ballroom is how long it took to get to London. The original 1992 romantic comedy is widely beloved and already has all the classic elements of a golden age musical, from the boy meets-gets-loses-regains girl arc, to the ingenue-to-star story, to the impressive dance numbers. Lurhman adapted his own work for a Sydney stage debut in 2011. It had run in Australia, Canada and the North of England before opening at London's Piccadilly Theatre, all to average reviews. But, frankly, this is the kind of thing where reviews don't really matter. The singing and dancing is up to West End standards. The sets and costumes look great. After that, it's a matter of personal taste. If you (a) already love the film, (b) have a deep affection for lightweight, innocent old musicals like Singing in the Rain, and (c) have a soft spot for '80s pop, you will have a magnificent evening. (Two out of three will do. None of my companions had seen the film; they all loved the show.)

Though it's remarkably similar, you're not just seeing the film on stage. There's a new soundtrack, adding to the show's existing classics (Time After Time; Love is in the Air; Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps) with favourites like George Michael's Freedom, Whitney Houston's I Want to Dance with Somebody and Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself. There's some interesting mashing and re-interpretation, but enough of the originals to have you tapping your feet throughout the evening. There's also a new character: a narrator who sometimes enters the plot as a dance contest emcee, but who is mostly just on stage to tell you the story. He's also doing almost all the singing, a big departure from the usual musical and giving the evening, at some points, the feeling of a concert with whoever is playing that role. I assume this was developed as a star vehicle for someone. In London, Will Young had debuted the role but it had recently switched to X-Factor winner Matt Cardle. (Who, paying some attention to the reviews, I suspect was more engaging and better suited to the music than Young.) The most notable thing about the rest of the cast is how exact their likeness is to the film characters. It is as much tribute act as independent work. And it's enormous fun, in the goofiest, girliest way imaginable.

DUXFORD

There is nothing goofy or girly about anything at Duxford, but there is plenty of emotion. Awe, pride, admiration and fascination come in waves. At first glance, it's a typical air and space museum. Big, multi-story buildings with lots of aircraft scattered across the floor and dangling from the ceiling at different levels. But there are depths of human interest here that I haven't picked up on visits to similar collections in Washington's Smithsonian or Munich's Deutsches Museum. Almost every exhibit has a personal story with it; the inside scoop from someone who flew, supported or designed the craft in front of you. You can get hands on by going inside several planes, including a legendary Concorde. (Yes, just as cramped as legend says.) Several military groups have regimental museums here, bringing more real people into the picture. And dogs. The para-dog in the Parachute Regiment's section was a highlight of my day. Need your tears jerked? Head over to the American hangar where a pile of twisted metal girders from the World Trade Centre reminds you of the protective duty the military aircraft here exist to fulfil.

American hangar? Oh, yes. During WW2 this airfield became station 357 of the US 8th Air Force, and 113 U.S. pilots lost their lives flying from here. The American museum covers their experience and shows a range of aircraft since that war, including a magnificently stealthy Blackbird and that F15 Eagle. The production line was one of the prides of St. Louis when I was a kid, and F15s performed at every 4th of July air show. My first job was at McDonnell Douglas, and the pride we had walking by those magnificent machines in various stage of production was palpable. Finding one here was like coming across an old friend.

There's a lot of beauty here, too. The exquisite craftsmanship of the wooden components in the WW1 fighters. Sleek, shining art deco lines of 1930s passenger craft. Cold War jets that look like they've come out of the era's cartoons or sci fi films. A Merlin engine, displayed on a plinth like a sculpture, is lovely enough to be art as well as breakthrough technology.

Duxford is huge. Don't attempt it without at least half a day to explore. There are five sizeable hangars of aircraft, covering everything from periods of history (Battle of Britain) to types of plane (land and sea, fold-up wings) to the restoration workshop. Even the buildings themselves are worthy of note: two hangars are charming WWI-era buildings, while the American hangar makes a striking modern statement. If the aircraft aren't enough for you, there's an additional building full of tanks and armoured vehicles with an atmospheric D-Day experience. All of the buildings are strung out along an airstrip which gives this museum its most unique aspect: some of the displays actually fly. You get to see and hear these beauties in action, including an iconic Spitfire. If you're well funded, you can even buy a ride in some of the aircraft.

All of these extra elements meant that Duxford massively exceeded my expectations. I thought I was sacrificing an afternoon to manly pursuits in order to make my husband happy. I ended up almost as engaged in the experience as him. Which just shows that, while we may default to "masculine" or "feminine" preferences, enjoyment of any activity can cross genders. At least, that's the theory. When it comes to garish, camp musicals however, I doubt my husband will buy my argument.

Oxford's Tolkien exhibition reveals a man as fascinating as his books

On the surface, the people of the United States and England seem remarkably similar. It takes actually living in the opposite country for the deep divisions to surface. Public expressions of patriotism are a classic example.

An American will fly, wear, sing to or otherwise publicly celebrate their flag at the slightest provocation. There are multiple patriotic holidays decked out with the Stars and Stripes. In England, overt displays of flag waving beyond sporting events or royal occasions are regarded with suspicion. Though this has changed a bit since Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee year and recent Olympic successes, there's still a sense of discomfort amongst many that too much flag waving indicates an affinity with fascism and racism. True English patriotism, I've found, is quieter ... and most likely to be  found outside of the cities.

It's the fierce competition of villages battling it out for Britain in Bloom awards. Intense pride in the local bluebell woods. Generations coming together, dressed in white, to play village cricket. The 2014 government survey found that 83% of the English now live in urban areas, but our sense of patriotism still seems to be indelibly bound up in the countryside.

Perhaps that's why J.R.R. Tolkien is so fiercely beloved by the English. Many readers, after all, see the Shire as a vision of the best of rural England, Sauron and his forces of evil as the opposing troops of rampant industrialism, and hobbits as the stout yeomen of Britain's good old days. You can test that relationship for yourself in an intriguing little exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. And while a deep knowledge of Middle Earth isn't required ... the notes, charts and maps displayed there give a fascinating insight into how an author constructs a plot, and thus would captivate anyone interested in the art of story telling ... true Tolkien aficionados will be delighted.

Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth takes a hard look at the man behind the legend. Most people know the basics: Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon and English literature, fanatical about detail down to creating his own languages, father of the whole genre of epic fantasy fiction. Here we learn about his childhood, education, military years, family life, sparkling sense of humour and creativity far beyond his writing.

I had not realised that Tolkien was a talented artist who created the instantly-recognisable original cover for The Hobbit. His artwork was my favourite part of the show. There's a gorgeous set of scenes from the Lord of The Rings that clearly influenced Peter Jackson. Wonderful designs for Elvish jewels and writhing dragons. Illustrations from a series of Christmas stories on the wanderings of Santa that he wrote for his children. Doodles scrawled on newspaper margins and over crosswords that show how he never stopped creating. I'm amazed that some design house hasn't picked up on his work for a range of wallpapers and decorative fabrics; there's luscious stuff here.

And there are maps. Lots of maps. With all this evidence of how visual a person he was, it makes even more sense that the map ... now a cliche of fantasy epics ... was a beautifully detailed foundation stone of Middle Earth. Some here are finished products meant for readers, some working documents, all beautiful. If you have any doubt about the professor's obsession with detail, witness the rigorous creation, on graph paper, of exact scales drawn from a measurement system based on the length of a hobbit's toenail. No distance traveled in a day in the books will ever be further than the creatures he created could actually go. In addition to the Tolkien-drawn originals, there are a couple of digital maps that let you explore different characters' journeys in the different books. The best takes advantage of video projection to cast the landscape in 3D and have shadows shrink and grow off the mountain ranges as time passes.

There's also a fun, life-sized projection of the gates of Moria at the entry to the show, setting the mood that you're about to enter a world of magic, and a big, projected Smaug dancing across the floor once you're in the gallery. Several sound stations invite you to don headphones to explore details like getting your Elvish pronunciation right. But most of the exhibitions are quite old school: peering through glass at preserved documents. It's also remarkably small: just one gallery. I would have loved more. A gallery, for example, on the cultural influences (old Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, Medieval, etc.) that Tolkien drew on, another on the vast cultural impact that his creations have sparked.

But that's not the point here. As you would expect from a combination of the rigorously controlled Tolkien Trust and the university associated with the author for most of his adult life, everything here is tightly focused on the man and his creative processes, and drawn from the two organisations' archives. In a world where so many blockbuster exhibitions overwhelm you with their scope, I suppose it's no bad thing to visit one that leaves you hungry for more. And, delightfully, it's free. You just need to pre-book tickets here.

For a more overt display of patriotism, we were back at the Highclere Battle Proms the next weekend. They were celebrating their 100th concert that night (they do about five a summer). It was only our sixth. The formula doesn't change much. People queue up from about 2:30 for gates to open at 4, then it's a mad rush to claim a spot on the broad lawns in front of the house the world knows better as Downton Abbey. In addition to flag-waving patriotism, the English get to display their flair for competitive picnicking: there are a lot of tablecloths, candelabras and fine food and wine coming out of well-stocked hampers. Over the years my husband has been bitten by the competitive bug, steadily upgrading our kit so that we look like traders setting out to conquer the Silk Road as we queue up for entry. Though he's generally happy with the set up, I suspect our two poles with their English, British Army, Danish and American flags will be tweaked before next year. They weren't flying highly or proudly enough.

The show doesn't change much. Historical re-enactors (usually Regency) set up at the far corner. There are some cavalry displays in the late afternoon. Music starts with a WW2-era group. There's a rousing Spitfire flyover. Then a two-part classical concert that's always much the same. But who ever really tires of the 1812 Overture with real cannon, Beethoven's Battle Symphony with fireworks and mass sing-alongs of Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory?

A groaning buffet and bar kept people going throughout the afternoon and evening. Pork pies, sausage rolls and crisps. Coronation chicken, chicken and wild mushroom terrine, roasted carrot salad, potato salad, insalata caprese. (Potatoes and tomatoes all from my garden.) Key lime cheesecake and cheese board. Free-flowing wine, and blackcurrant squash for the designated drivers and children.

It was a spread that would gain even a hungry hobbit's approval. I suspect Tolkien would have enjoyed the whole evening. And I'd love to see how he would have painted it.

Stow's a winner, but our new summer bolthole eludes us

We matched Longborough's Coronation of Poppea with two nights at The Porch House in Stow-on-the-Wold. Like the opera, much of this place's appeal lies with its antiquity. It claims to be the oldest inn in England, in operation since 947. It has abundant architectural charm and a prime location in one of the Cotswold's most picturesque market towns.

While the walls may be ancient, the decoration is modern and up to a standard (neutral colours, designer fabrics, luxury linens, mid-century repro fixtures and fittings) that earns the coveted boutique hotel designation. It allows dogs (saving us more than £100 in kennel fees for the weekend) and its dog-friendly rooms lead directly out onto a courtyard for fast and easy walks. Unfortunately those rooms are almost claustrophobically tiny, with minuscule windows that allow little air flow, thus creating a room temperature several degrees hotter than outside. Unsurprising in an ancient building, but deeply uncomfortable in the middle of what may become England's hottest summer on record.

This was the last of three options we tried this summer in a search for a new regular accommodation for the two or three weekends we attend the Longborough Festival Opera each summer. (A search that started when the owner of our long-time favourite, Windy Ridge, decided to stop doing B&B.)

The Porch House came in last in this summer's contest, not so much for the size and temperature of its rooms but for its somewhat soulless atmosphere and the haphazard approach of its genial but often absent staff. They tend to ignore email, are hard to get on the phone and are rarely present at the front desk. One of them insisted they didn't take American Express, even though I'd successfully pre-paid for the room on that card. The place feels less like an inn and more like a pub and restaurant with a few rooms up top; the staff are clearly more focused on serving diners than lodgers. Though they do a bustling business for lunch and dinner, guests have to cross the street to eat breakfast at their sister hotel, The Sheep. (Which we may try for lodgings next summer.) Despite the fact that their gorgeous hall with two enormous fireplaces on both sides, standing empty all weekend, would be a lovely breakfast room. There's little effort or incentive to entice hotel guests to lounge here, or in the cozy snug beside it, missing the communal living room element that's also essential to that boutique categorisation. What's the point paying to stay in an historic inn when they don't use ... and thus you don't spend time in ... the historic rooms?

In second place came the Old School in Little Compton, to which we returned after a pleasant stay last year. And probably would have, lazily, occupied for all three of this year's weekends had they been able to accommodate us. But being forced to try other options was a good thing, exposing the Old School's three flaws: they don't allow dogs, there's not much in walking distance and they're a 15-20 minute drive to Longborough.

Otherwise, it's pretty much perfect. And if my objective were a leisurely stay in the heart of the Cotswolds, rather than the opera, this would be my first choice. Luxurious bedrooms, wonderfully comfortable sitting rooms you're encouraged to make your own and owners who are hosts rather than staff. Add home-made cakes at tea time and generous breakfasts with eggs provided by the chickens at the bottom of the garden.

Meaning, much to my surprise, the winner of this summer's showdown was the Cotswold Cottage. This former bed and breakfast has gone down the AirB&B route: they have no web site or customer-facing front end, let their rooms and manage their finances through 3rd party booking sites, and provide no service on site ... just the room. As a guest, you pre-pay, have a narrow arrival window to pick up the key, and never see the owner again. It certainly doesn't sound welcoming.

But the room was gorgeous; the most spacious and beautifully decorated of the three with an expansive view over one of Stow's main streets enjoyed from a cushioned window seat. We never failed to grab an overnight parking space (free) just outside for the evening. Dogs were welcomed. Best of all, the elimination of effort and service on the owner's part translated to prices more than 30% below the other two options. The absence of an included breakfast isn't a bother thanks to an excellent cafe around the corner called Speedwells, which provides more variety than you'd get at a B&B anyway.

The only major drawback: no relationship with your host means no ability to refrigerate your opera picnic. Thus a return to this place ... or a stay at any of the other "boutique rooms" establishments hanging their shingles out along Stow's golden stone streets ... demands assembling your picnic on the day (as we did) or buying in to one of Longborough's dining options. So despite its first place position, the Cotswold Cottage is not a sure thing for next summer.

The undeniable winner of the experiment was Stow-on-the-Wold itself. At just 2.6 miles from the opera ... a straight shot down a single main road ... it's quick, an inexpensive taxi ride or an easy journey for even the most hesitant driver. (It's one of the rich ironies of the wine-loving Bencard clan that the only member who doesn't really drink, absolutely hates to get behind the wheel, especially at night.) Given the proximity, a quick dash out of the opera and a speedy change out of formal wear can put you in one of Stow's numerous picturesque pubs for more than an hour or two of post-performance analysis before bed.

Stow is one of the most picturesque towns in the Cotswolds, anchored around a large, arrowhead-shaped market square surrounded by picturesque buildings built from the region's characteristic golden limestone. There's a grand town hall in the centre that looks Medieval, but I'm guessing is Victorian revival.

The town's position atop an 800 metre-high hill, at the intersection of several stone age paths that became Roman roads, has made Stow an important and affluent market town for most of British history. Today the locals trade in tourists rather than sheep, but Stow's legacy gives it a rare density of pubs, inns and restaurants. The tourist trade contributes to an unusual percentage of independent boutiques rather than chain stores, and this is one of the few towns in England that still has a thriving number of antique shops. Yet there's still a slightly sleepy feel about the place, particularly at night after the day trippers have left. Perhaps it's because there's no mainline rail station here. Moreton-in-the-Marsh just up the Roman road claims that amenity, and it has an altogether more bustling, crowded feel to it.

So many hotels and B&Bs welcome dogs because this is also a popular centre for walking. On Saturday morning I set off on an idyllic three mile loop down the Tewkesbury Road towards Upper Swell, followed the Cotswold Way path over fields to Lower Swell, then back up the B4068 to Stow. Once off the main road, civilisation disappeared. There was only calm, and landscape. Though walking between two fairly busy roads, once I was in the fields the folds of the hills screened out the traffic noise. I spent an hour hearing only the wind through the trees, the panting of the dogs and the rhythmic clacking of a harvester bringing in the wheat a few fields over. Even when joined back to the road, the local Council has cut a path into the woodland about 10 feet above the road surface to keep things both safe and picturesque. You do, however, feel every one of those 800 metres as you ascend.

Fuel yourself for the climb at the Golden Ball in in Lower Swell. This tiny 3-room pub is resolutely local and obviously dog friendly; I think I was the only tourist, and my dogs were two of nine in the place. And in that way of small world coincidences that tends to happen in the Cotswolds, I knew two of the locals. One had been a favourite exec at the job that originally brought me to the UK. The other was Nick, the owner of Windy Ridge whose retirement had kicked off the summer's experiment in the first place. It was great to see him. We miss him. Wonder if he might consider "boutique rooms"?

Damning with faint praise? Poppea is ... interesting.

The last outing of this year's country house opera season was all about experimentation. New accommodation, new opera, new pitch for the marquee. The last was probably the most successful.

After more than two months of dry, hot, still weather, a thunderous cold front driving torrents of rain came ripping through England on the night we were due to be dining al fresco on the Longborough Opera Festival's lawns. Fortunately we'd brought our marquee, though the space we've erected it on for years has been taken over by the patrons' dining tent. Not having reserved a spot within, we set up in the patron's parking area, where we discovered that the marquee fits precisely within a small grove of trees and that lashing two of its legs to their trunks kept the whole thing from going airborne in the worst of the gusts. The new location lacks the expansive views over the valley you get from the top of the meadow, but was just 20 metres from the entrance to our box. Add four gorgeous courses meandered through before, at the interval of, and after the opera, and you have the delight of the evening.

The Coronation of Poppea was more interesting than enthralling. Monteverdi's tale of the rise of Nero's second empress is still in the modern repertoire for two main reasons: it was one of the first operas as we know it, so an important ancestor of all to come, and it closes with one of the most beautiful love duets in classical music. (Second only, I believe, to Mozart's La ci darem la mano.)

Pur ti Mio, Pur ti Godo (I gaze at you, I possess you) perfectly captures the passionate ache and ecstasy of a relationship in its early glory, and is almost worth sitting through the 2.5 hours before it just to hear it live. That's not to say the preceding opera was bad, it's just very much of its time. There's a lot of ponderous harpsichord, undeveloped characters and vocal fireworks in search of a more memorable tune. I suspect that had it been performed as written ... essentially a court masque with outrageously lavish sets, costumes and special effects ... those irritations would have been less noticeable. But nobody does traditional anymore, and Longborough's small stage and tight budget couldn't finance a Baroque treatment even if they wanted it.

Instead we got a strange mix of Roman, Viking and modern "Street" costume with brutalist pillars and a few curtains as the only stage setting. The gods wore high tops, backpacks and neon-illuminated hoodies, and punctuated the action by scrawling graffiti on the central wall. When they scrawled GRIME, and then later preceded it with LA, was I supposed to read the Italian word for tears or as a fashion commentary that helped me understand the characters? The programme added little, asking us to consider not the historic Nero but a metaphorical one who lives in a "cubist, splintered hall of mirrors, that allows us to explore the perilous brevity of time and instability of place and history." Don't let years of brilliant reviews go to your head, Longborough. You're in danger of disappearing up your own backside here.

This was the young performer's production, which Longborough always uses to go experimental on staging. Often, it works. (Rinaldo set in an early 20th-century carnival was a triumph.) This one didn't. My bigger problem, however, is with the opera overall. Monteverdi is playing with morality, turning some of history's most awful people into heroes. It's hard to get excited about the main characters when you know that Nero divorced, exiled and starved to death his first wife, Ottavia ... sung here with stoic dignity by Maria Ostroukhova... then presented her head in a box to the gleeful Poppea. Or to take that final duet seriously when you know that an unhinged Nero kicked his pregnant new wife to death six months later. (And then forcibly castrated a slave boy who looked like Poppea and had him pretend to be the dead woman, returned to life. Seriously, this guy was bad news.)

 The voices and music, however, lived up to Longborough's usual standard. Anna Harvey's Nero, Sofia Troncoso's Poppea and Matthew Buswell's Seneca all gave particularly strong performances. There's a pleasing sub-plot between Ottone (Matthew Paine) and Drusilla (Lucy Knight) that's the most dramatically engaging part of the opera. Jeremy Silver's orchestra, with a full complement of period instruments and him conducting from the harpsichord, brought our ears the Baroque lusciousness that our eyes were denied.

We'd seen Harvey as Bradamante in Longborough's 2016 Alcina, and Knight as one of the spirits in The Magic Flute last year. It's great to see familiar faces progressing into bigger roles. And equally exciting to see all the Longborough debuts. Crazy staging aside, there's no question this is becoming one of the foundries for operatic talent in Europe.

The whole production team deserves special praise for coping with an opening night disaster: the storm that didn't take our marquee did blow out the sound board, forcing an early dinner break and putting the whole production an hour behind schedule. The show continued to that magnificent concluding duet without throwing anyone off their stride.

And there, at last, came a bit where the strange setting worked. As Poppea's and Nero's voices entwine in the majesty of love, the gods link words together on the graffiti board to say "Words mean nothing anymore". In light of the karmic justice awaiting the couple (Nero only makes it three years after murdering Poppea before he's forced to suicide), it's a profound, ironic and hugely depressing way to end the story.

I'm thankful to Monteverdi for helping to create one of my favourite entertainments, and was intrigued by this exploration of operatic roots, but I admit to breathing a sigh of relief that his cynical celebration of anit-heroes didn't become a staple of the art form.

On the Royal Route: Time works wonders for Brighton Pavilion, less so for Kensington Palace

When I first started working in Europe in the mid-'90s, I was an obsessive weekend tourist. Without local friends (they'd come later) or household responsibilities (I spent my first three years in serviced, corporate-funded rentals), I could use every weekend to indulge my passions for British history, culture and countryside.

Times have changed. And though I'm still an aggressive sightseer on holidays (as this blog attests), I've gone ever more native in the UK. My limited time gets claimed by visiting exhibitions in London rather than places I've already seen. Activities revolve around catching up with friends. A good chunk of every weekend is demanded by house and garden. Until a friend with the typical American's energy for power sightseeing comes to town, and my old touring instincts revive.

My university buddy Lee isn't just any American. He's a passionate Anglophile with a deep interest in, and knowledge of, British royal history. He was already familiar with the obvious places. We needed to dig deeper. With his particular interest in the Victorian era, I would have loved to get him to Osborne House, but we didn't have enough time for the Isle of Wight. Kensington Palace and the Royal Pavilion at Brighton got the nod.

I'd been to both, of course, but neither for at least a dozen years. In memory, both were delights, and before last weekend's touring I would have told you that Kensington was my favourite royal residence in London. No longer. Perhaps my increased familiarity with England's cultural heritage over the years has put it into a context I didn't have when it first impressed me. This time, I found its sights mostly underwhelming and its cost extraordinary. At £23.50 on the door (it's £4 less online), it's roughly the same price as Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace or the Tower, but with much less to see. Meanwhile, the years have seen the town of Brighton pour restoration funds into their community-owned Pavilion, making it even more magnificent than on my last visit. And at just £13.50 per person, a bargain. Here's a bit more on both.

KENSINGTON PALACE

I suspect just two words explain why this place can charge such a premium despite being the least impressive of the royal palaces: Princess Diana. She's strongly connected to the site, her sons still live here and the "temporary" exhibition space is occupied by a display of her dresses. No doubt they'll be here until that whole generation of women of a certain age, currently gazing at them with misty-eyed adoration, passes away. Until then, the relics of the saint of High Street Ken will keep pulling them in.

I, however, will tell you that the highlight of visiting here is the state rooms, and the woman who deserves the spotlight is Queen Caroline (nee of Ansbach), a highly-educated and hugely-competent consort of great refinement who probably would have been better at ruling the country than her husband, George II. Her tastes greatly influenced Kensington, Hampton Court and the Royal Collection, something that's explored here in a gallery devoted to her.

The interiors at Kensington are very similar to Hampton Court, so if if the bigger palace is in your sightseeing plans then you may want to give this one a pass. If, however, you don't have time to get that far from central London, Kensington gives you the same William and Mary and early-Georgian style: grand staircases with frescoes of life-sized courtiers watching your progress, dark wooden panelling, Grinling Gibbons carvings, floor-to-ceiling sash windows, damask-covered walls hung densely with old masters and a hefty slice of Queen Caroline's oriental porcelain collection. George I's cupola room is the star sight, with a tromp l'oeil ceiling painted by William Kent to create a Pantheon-like dome of blue and gold coffers rising to an impressive Star of the Order of the Garter. Handel performed new works here for his patron; it is a magical setting worthy of genius. The curators of the Royal Collection have also made sure that some of the masterpieces have been diverted to Kensington, most notably Van Dyck's iconic Charles I on horseback and his Cupid and Psyche, some fine Veroneses and Tintorettos, Holbein sketches and most of the famous portraits of Queen Victoria.

Victoria looms large because she was born, lived until her accession and held her first council meeting here. There's a suite of rooms dedicated to her story which were renovated extensively in 2012. (Along with the rest of the palace, though this is the bit that seemed most different to me.) They've tried to go modern, with multi-media experiences, bold quotes and infographics screened onto the walls, interactive dress-up areas and touchable displays. It's good, but sparse. There's a lot of empty floor space here, and there's a surprising dearth of furniture or treasures in the display cases considering the motherlode of stuff the long-lived queen left behind. The main reason to plough through these rooms is to get to the jewellery exhibit at the end, opened just four months ago. There are three tiaras, all breathtaking. Most significant is the emerald and diamond, accompanied by matching necklace, earrings and brooch, all designed by Prince Albert. If Vicky hadn't realised he was "a keeper" before, I'm sure this set locked the deal.

Even if you're not a Diana worshipper, the costume exhibition is interesting. They've made a real effort to get some of the most memorable items here: the tweed set she wore in the highlands for one of her first photo shoots, the casual outfit she donned on her land mine mission, the Northwestern purple gown she wore to a university-sponsored fund raiser in Chicago (everyone remembers that one, right?). There are photos of her wearing each item, and explanations of how each was designed for the specific event it debuted at. This suite of rooms is also a rare example of a fully air-conditioned space at a London tourist attraction which, this summer, might actually have been worth the admission price.

THE ROYAL PAVILION, BRIGHTON

The Pavilion may be the seaside town of Brighton's No. 1 tourist attraction, but I'd categorise it as one of the greatest ... and certainly most unique ... buildings in all of Europe. This was George IV's seaside retreat, far enough from London's prying eyes for the notorious libertine, spendthrift and gourmande to indulge his every whim. It's gorgeous, crazy, seductive and totally bizarre; like Coleridge's opium-fuelled poem, "in Xanadu did Kubla Kahn...", brought to life through architecture and interior design. You expect to run into Lord Byron cavorting around every corner. The exterior is Indian, the interior Chinese, the execution pure English. It's a Western, Romantic-era imagining of the exotic East that's as true to its source material as the Beauty and the Beast sets are to real French chateaux. And it's all the better for it.

There are dragons everywhere. A beast in full flight holds the dining room chandelier in his claws. In the music room they hold up the curtains and wind sinuously at corners to create oversized tie-backs. Surprisingly lifelike, 1/3rd-size figures of Chinese archetypes watch you in the main gallery; they're bobble heads whose mechanisms make them nod when people pass close by. Hand-painted wall papers and panels show an imagined world of Oriental fairy tale, full of gorgeous women and handsome men in sumptuous gowns. The furniture ... all classic English Regency at its core ... is lavishly accented by palm trees, bamboo, dragons and other elements of the Orient. Although George and his decorators, the august firm of Crace, weren't purists. Egyptian sphinxes and slaves creep in here, a few Greek gods there.

Even the kitchen is a joy. George enticed the world's most famous chef, Antonin Carême, to come work for him by promising him pretty much anything he wanted, including specifying the set up of his kitchen. Not only is the space beautiful .... elegant palm trees hold up a glass-filled cupola while serried ranks of copper pots reflect the sunlight pouring in from above ... but it was state of the art. That cupola and the high ceilings below it keep air circulated and cool the kitchen down. What's possibly the world's first extractor hoods arch over the stoves. Automated turning spits could roast four or five rows of animals at a time. And, unlike almost every aristocratic pile ever built in this country, the kitchen is right next to the dining room, meaning the food at George's famous parties would have been hot and fresh as Carême intended.

The Pavilion is in magnificent condition thanks to Brighton's consistent investment. Victoria sold the place to the town ... it was too outrageous, too small and too much in the public eye for her tastes ... after which it went through a variety of incarnations and crises. Aware that this is the anchor pulling international tourism to their town, Brighton lavishes time and money into regular improvements. Fixtures and fittings are in top condition, while pieces of furniture and decorative elements that were once dispersed are regularly found and returned. Since my last visit the vast swathes of curtains have been renewed to sumptuous effect, they've restored the gardens, opened a suite of rooms once used by Victoria and Albert and created a cafe on the roof, complete with a balcony where you can sit in the open air, take tea under the domes and look out at the gardens.

Staff here were noticeably more cheerful and spontaneously offered more information than the people at Kensington. Maybe it's the civic ownership. You definitely feel their pride in their palace. One of the guides told me about opera nights in the winter, where you actually get to eat in George's magnificent dining room and adjourn to the equally dramatic music room for a recital. That's enough to tempt me to a return visit, even without the excuse of a visiting American.

If you fancy binging on Roman history, Imperium is for you

Despite the more than 1,500 years that have passed since the fall of their empire, Western civilisation has yet to shake off an obsession with the ancient Romans. We base our legal codes, government structures and grammatical constructs upon theirs. We borrow their architecture to express authority and their decorative patterns to convey elegance. We study them as role models. (Though who we lionise has a lot to do with how we see ourselves. Napoleon liked conquering emperors; America's founding fathers were fond of Cincinnatus, a statesman called out of retirement to meet a crisis who, once he'd put things right, laid aside the reigns of government and returned to his farm rather than holding on to supreme power.) I’m even drafting this article at a spa in the English countryside based, and decorated, on a Roman model.

Whether they really were like us or not is irrelevant. The ancient Romans have become the eternal mirror in which we seek a baseline for ourselves.

Thus it’s little surprise that the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Cicero plays, now in a limited run at London’s Gielgud theatre, feel as relevant as watching the nightly news. Together, they're called Imperium: the first is Conspirator, the second Dictator. Though they’re a good deal more entertaining and, despite our hero’s end by political assassination, send us home with an uplifting validation of trying to be the good guy.

The relevance comes from the populist uprisings at the heart of this chunk of history. After years of civil strife and economic hardship ... mostly caused by squabbling factions within the aristocratic families that comprised the Republic's Senate ... the people lost patience. They began to look for salvation in a line of strongmen: Clodius, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, Augustus. Each was an aristocrat, yet each managed to make the people forget that, getting the mobs on side by convincing them that they were men of the people. Paternalistic good guys who would, you might say, "drain the swamp". Whether the shift from Republic to Empire actually did help the common man is something historians still argue about. But there's no doubt that their support of these strongmen helped to bring on the change, and that in that evolution they got more "bread and circuses" but less rule of law. You can see why it's a hot topic for a modern London stage, and there were plenty of thinly-veiled references to politics on  both sides of the Atlantic that set off wry laughter throughout the theatre.

This production team has form. The Royal Shakespeare Company and writer Mike Poulton had already teamed up to convert Hillary Mantel's books about Cromwell into plays that later became a much-acclaimed BBC drama. Now we get seven hours of political intrigue, historical epic and witty repartee split into two plays, all drawn from Robert Harris' three-part fictionalised biography of the great Roman statesman, lawyer and orator Cicero. It's a brilliant fit. Cicero's life ... dancing back and forth between sides, bouncing in and out of power, trapped in impossible situations that give him no good choices ... is properly Shakespearean. The experience of seeing both of these plays is a close cousin to watching Henry IV parts I and II and Henry V in close succession. (We went on a Monday and a Friday. If you want to "binge watch" you can do it all on a Saturday. Whichever way you do it, book tickets all at once for a discount.)

Richard McCabe's Cicero (above) is a wonder. McCabe is one of those familiar faces you can't quite place; then you go to his IMDB profile and see that he's been a supporting actor in a long string of notable British TV dramas and films. Here, he is the centre of the action for much of the seven hours. Given that Cicero was one of the most famous word-spinners in history, that means he's spouting beautifully constructed, fairly complex prose most of the time. The sheer feat of memorising the lines of a role this enormous is mind boggling. Add acting that gives us a totally believable, emotionally complex character who rockets from heights of joy to the depths of despair. McCabe gives us a complex and totally believable self-made man who's never quite able to get past his humble beginnings. The self doubt in that situation also gives Cicero a towering ego and dangerous susceptibility. We love the man McCabe gives us, but we also often want to scream at him in frustration.

That role is played, instead, by his slave ... eventually freed and clearly his best friend ... Tiro, presented here by an energetic and amiable Joseph Kloska. He's an essential narrator to the action, and as a foil to Cicero's character weaknesses he gives us some of the plays' best humour. One of the joys of this adaptation, in fact, is just how much humour Poulton pulls out of the books. It was all there (and, indeed, in Cicero's writing in the first place), but didn't stand out as much in the vast sprawl of the plot. The clever wordplay here is front and centre.

Inevitably, of course, you lose a lot when transferring three huge novels to the stage. The first, which gave us Cicero's early battles to establish himself in the capital, is covered in a few summary lines. About half of the plot of the third book also hits the cutting room floor. The stage play narrows the action down to the rise of the Caesars ... Julius, then Augustus ... and Cicero's role in their story. It works. I missed the private lives, however. To wedge this into even seven hours, Imperium becomes a political drama. Cicero's wife Terentia and daughter Julia are important to the first play and have only bit roles in the second. Their stories are much more interesting in the book. The good news? Book and play are very separate things, both totally enjoyable. Do both and double your satisfaction.

I understand, however, that seven hours of Roman political drama and admirable wordplay isn't exactly popular entertainment (despite the populist themes). Despite the staggering quality of the production, there were good tickets available on both nights. I suspect that will be the case through the close of the run in early September. So ... if you've ever binge-watched the TV series Rome, or love Shakespeare's history plays ... catch this while you have a chance. If Love Island is as much intellectual stimulation as you can stand over this long, hot summer, best to give this one a pass.

Traviata outshines the English sun, while Hampton's gardens seem confused beneath it

It's been a remarkable summer in England. Consistently clement since early May, memories of our miserably wet winter and spring's surprise snows have been banished by an atmosphere that feels positively Mediterranean. The smell of barbecue lingers constantly in the air. Gardeners report bumper crops of berries. Pub gardens are packed. The national team is still playing in football's World Cup. Commuters into The City have shifted down to Bermuda shorts, polo shirts and deck shoes.

It is, of course, not all good news. The global warming that's brought this weather is wreaking havoc in more extreme climes. Arguably, as we down another Pimms in our sultry gardens we're fiddling while Rome burns. Water companies are having difficulty processing enough supply to meet demand. A large chunk of Saddleworth Moor is burning and brush fires closer to home are disrupting the train network. An unexpected carbon dioxide shortage is endangering the supply of fizzy drinks, meat and packaged salad. Worst of all, in a country where the average summer high is just 18C (66F), air conditioning is rare. Our buildings are designed to retain heat. Public transport rarely offers more than a weak fan. Any temperature beyond 27C (80F) turns London into a miserable heat trap. The underground system is like the sixth circle of Dante's hell.

One inevitable effect: the weather has eclipsed all else in our consciousness. Longborough Festival Opera's La Traviata was both one of the most innovative and enjoyable productions they've ever staged, but our sun-burnished picnic and worries about surviving the heat in the un-air-conditioned opera house dominated. At the Hampton Court Flower show, finding shady places to drink and rest exerted a more powerful pull than the show gardens.

LOVE AT LONGBOROUGH
That Traviata deserves to be remembered, however. It is, of course, an opera that rarely disappoints.
Verdi's tale of the the scarlet woman who proves herself the most virtuous of all, then dies for love, is one of the genre's most enduring crowd pleasers. It's also packed with one exquisite tune after another, making it one of opera's most approachable productions. (Indeed, it was delightful to see several families bringing children to this show.) Director Daisy Evans' re-imagining of the story as the tale of an exhausted, clinically depressed Marilyn Monroe type in 1950s Hollywood was fascinating and worked surprisingly well. The party scenes in acts 1 and 2 were re-imagined onto film sets, with action bouncing between "filming" of movie scenes and the between-take banter of the actors and crew. This was particularly effective when we got to the gypsy and matador sections at Flora's party in Act 2, which usually seem bolted on to give the chorus and corps de ballet something to do. Here, instead, it was riveting as our heartbroken heroine tried to stumble through the "movie" she was supposed to be making as her world collapsed.

The references to Marilyn Monroe were obvious (though soprano Anna Patalong looks more like Maria Callas than the blond bombshell), and the shift of Violetta's death to an irreversable overdose rather than the traditional tuberculosis made everything seem more real. Her final cry of "I want to live" plugged into the poignancy of every soul who's ever squandered their life, then realised they wanted redemption when it was too late to take it. Patalong is one of the best sopranos I've ever heard at Longborough, with a real star quality that enhanced ... or what enhanced by? ... this particular role. Her acting was as fine as her singing, giving us a persuasive picture of a mentally-fragile woman imploding. My only complaint: her compelling death scene played out from the floor, where much of the audience couldn't see her over the tops of the heads in the next row.

Peter Gijsbertsen sang a wonderful Alfredo, entirely credible as he rockets from adoration through betrayal and regret. In fact, all of the voices were top notch and the acting equally compelling; something essential in Longborough's intimate space where facial expressions, or lack of them, are glaringly obvious. The Hollywood trope also provided the costume department with an unusually bright moment in the spotlight. From the Marie Antoinette setting of the first "movie" to the black and white surrealist of the second, with gorgeous late-'50s looks to tie it all together, they gave us a feast for the eyes.

LIFESTYLE AT HAMPTON
Having survived the hottest Hampton Court Flower Show on record three years ago, we had a plan for this one. Go slowly. Pause often for rest and liquid. Make no attempt to see it all. Instead, compile a short list of shopping needs in advance and stick to it. It was efficient, though expensive, as I was completing the garden furniture hunt I'd begun at Chelsea. Some unusual pelargoniums to complete my Cordoba-inspired patio wall, a few showy dahlias and one clematis to to fill specific blank spaces followed. On the whole, I was a master of restraint.

As if anticipating our unusual hot spell, this year's gardens evoked warmer, dryer places. The best in show garden featured so many impatiens and semi-tropicals that I felt like I was back in Texas. Other gardens featured palms and bananas, canna lilies and grasses, garish yellows and flaming oranges. The soft pastels and lazy drifts of England's green and pleasant land weren't much in evidence this year. The other big trend was "lifestyle gardens". Outdoor rooms with fireplaces, kitchens, bars and clusters of furniture, with block planting more notable for its decorative effect than its horticultural interest. Too many gardens this year looked like the landscaping in corporate hotel chains. Pretty, but uninspiring.

In recent years the concept gardens have become the most noteworthy part of the show. They're not all beautiful, but they do make you think. Witness the garden making a point about de-forestation of the Amazon: you started in a walled enclosure full of Amazonian plants, moved on to another full of tree stumps, then to an empty abattoir still stained with blood, ending in a processing pen where one plant struggles up through the sand floor. In case you missed it in the heavy-handed setting, the main reason the Amazon is disappearing is to feed the growing South American desire for meat.

Both beautiful and thought provoking was a garden commenting on the dangers of social media addiction. At the front, a normal suburban garden with a ragged lawn scattered with toys and some surrounding borders in need of attention. Someone's abandoned an iPhone on a table. The back of this plot is outlined by a giant iPad frame. Step through it to the very kind of lifestyle garden we've seen elsewhere in the show. Everything is perfect. But look closely! The grass is plastic, the flowers silk, the hanging chair would be impossible to get in and out of. It's a beguiling but unobtainable illusion, as are ... the designers imply ... most of the posts on social media we're led to believe are typical slices of our friends' lives.

My favourite garden in this section, and in the show, made a simpler point. On the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, a large plot started with dusty, grim trenches and morphed into an exquisitely-planted wildflower meadow. Out of anger comes beauty. Time heals. And, it turns out, in the middle of a sun-drenched English heat wave, a wildflower meadow both survives well, and looks like it belongs here.