Extramural sights

Scarborough Fair

Disappointment: on Sunday no car rentals are available in York. Quite a surprise, as a lot of shops are open. Maybe it is consistent, come to think of it: with the shops open, you wouldn't want potential customers to drive out of town? Whatever the reason, of the five different rental companies I looked up, none were in business.

That was Castle Howard and Whitby out of the window, but there still was the train as an alternative mode of transport, with Scarborough on the other end. Since Elise had never been there (and like myself, had had no idea that it was located anywhere near here) this was not such a bad second. Another day of going around in York did not particularly appeal since both of us have already seen the really touristic sites: the Minster, the walls, the railway museum.

While looking up the text of the well-known ballad on Scarborough fair - well-known to us from the Simon and Garfunkel song but based on a traditional English ballet - I discovered to my amazement that it is not a love song at all but a breaking-up song. If you see my former love he says, tell her I will come back to her when she makes me a shirt without seam, using no needle, and washes it in a dry well. OK she says, you find me some land "between the sands and the salt sea" and reap it with a sickle of leather; when you're done the shirt will be ready. That song will never sound the same to me.

King John's castle, ruined during a Civil War siege in the 17th century

I didn't see much of Scarborough either of the times I went there before, as I was intent on getting out of the town as quickly as I could. I had seen there was a ruined castle on a high peninsula, so that is where we made for this time, after passing through Scarborough's sad excuse for a Christmas "market" (stalls along the main pedestrian street). It turned out to be a very worthwhile visit, there's some interesting English history bound up with it about which we once more knew very little. In any case, the castle originates from the early 12th century, which is venerable even to English standards.

Between the sands and the salt sea

Down from there we headed south instead of north, to the harbour and a Victorian hotel and spa. The waterfront at the harbour reminded me quite a bit of Whitby: the same row of casinos and game parlours, but they were not quite so pervasive here, and there was some evidence of an active fishing industry. A bit nicer. Further along the beach there were these grand 19th century buildings, more than a little dilapidated but still in use, though probably (hopefully) much more in summertime than now. This must have been a popular bathing resort in the early 20th century, There were some furniculars up the cliff, one of which, claiming to be the oldest one in Britain still in operation, was in operation; we took it up, then walked along the esplanade back to the harbour.

Fish & Chips vs. the Traditional Fry-Up

Finding a decent lunch spot among the fast food sheds was not entirely trivial, but after some wandering around we managed. The schedule for the afternoon evening, involving the train back and then the pantomime which was due to start at 18:30, left only a brief slot for dinner before the show, so the plan was to take a sizable lunch and then go to an Indian restaurant afterwards. We hadn't had a proper dinner yet in York, and this being the last night that sounded like a good plan.

The Pantomime Phenomenon

More than 20 years ago, when Elise and I were not yet married and my parents were living near Cambridge for a few years, we visited them over Christmas and they took us to a pantomime. I think this is one of the most closely guarded secrets of English culture; indeed I had never heard of this and have not heard of it since, except through some references in Monty Python's Flying Circus, which has several episodes involving "pantomime horses" (two men with a bedsheet) and once a "pantomime Princess Margeret" (I think it was). That doesn't tell you much.

A pantomime is a mixture of a cabaret and comic theatre, hung loosely on the frame of a well-known children's story such as the Grimm fairytales. Ours was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It is very much a family thing, with a lot if interaction of the call-and-response type (Yes it is! No it isn't! Yes it is! and so forth) and is part of the Christmas/New Year's rituals. Lots of nods to popular culture and recent events, lots of winks to the adults. You can call it cheesy, corny or any other type of foodstuff; I think no Englishman would contradict you. Maybe this is the English answer to the Weihnachtsmarkt, come to think of it.

The show began at 6:30, and it immediately became clear that for a large part of the audience it would be a late night out: numerous small children decked in their Christmas best, complete with blinking coronets and twinkling staffs. I was asked before the show even started, very politely too, by the 8-year-old sitting behind me if I could sit a bit lower please. Fortunately this performance was not sold out, so there was room for reseating and in the end there was no need for back-breaking antics on my part.

A larger contrast with last night's opera is hard to imagine. Well, not quite true: if that had been one of the dramatic ones the contrast would have been even greater; but in terms of extreme ends of serious cultural events it was very odd to see these on consecutive nights. The pantomime was even more unruly than I remembered from last time, probably because it was a pre-Christmas show; indeed it was chock full of Christmas references, to the point where the story just halted mid-stride and the actors began to do a persiflage of the Twelve Days of Christmas (maybe better known as the Partridge and the Pear Tree), with the audience joining in. The "five gold rings" of the original were replaced by "five toilet rolls" which soon disappeared into the audience and until the end of the song were being thrown back onto the stage and kicked back into the audience; one disappeared into the balconies. All to the huge enthousiasm of the kids, obviously - and the parents as well, frankly. I even confess to being very much amused myself.

Für Elise

There were songs (One Direction, Psy, Bruno Mars); dancing by a troupe of around 16-18 and another much younger group of around 10, both quite good in fact; gags and jokes galore as expected. Elise and I probably missed a lot of references. The emphasis on Christmas did steal some time off the actual story: the kiss of life and the wedding were both very much abbreviated. The low point was when the prince began to read off some names of children who celebrated their birthday, and other messages that parents probably paid for to have declaimed. Apart from that though it was really great fun.

Afterwards we went to Akhbar, an Indian restaurant which is also the first I went to when I came here; the one where they hang the nan bread on a stand. It was past 21:00 when we finally had something to eat. That made it a bit late for our unpractised stomachs, we didn't manage to do full justice to the meal; even more so when I arranged a desert with a bit of fireworks to celebrate Elise's birthday in a few days. Ah well, sometimes you just have to work a bit harder...