The Westend is like a year-long festival that keeps you enthralled. London theatre scene is varied and vivacious offering brilliant performances, scintillating direction, and the fact that there is so much to choose from. Traditional to subversive, musicals to mimes, absurd to orthodox, the Westend is like a magic box of goodies where you get exactly what you want. Check www.officiallondontheatre.co.uk for details. The Society of London Theatre runs tkts booth at Leicester Square where you can get tickets at three-fourth or half their price for same-day performances. Expect to pay anywhere between £15 - £50.
New Year's Eve
London is a bubbling cauldron of nationalities from around the world and on New Year's Eve it brews magic potions. Stand at any centrally located point in London at any given time of the day and listen - you will be able to catch at least five different accents. On the 31st of December every year, multi-ethnic Londoners (and tourists) gather by the Thames in the Waterloo area to start the countdown for the next year.
There is barely any space to move around as people chill with their friends singing and laughing, drinking from flasks and dancing to the beats of portable music systems. Bonhomie is the flavour of the evening, although some over enthusiastic South Asian men might spoil it a bit for the ladies ("Hallo madam, where I see you before? Let's be friends!") Ignore the pleas and soak in the atmosphere. As the clock nears 12, all chatter dies down, the music is stopped and the crowd of hundreds falls silent. The moment is almost spiritual. And as the clock strikes 12, the sky explodes in a riot of firecrackers and the crowds erupt into wild cheers. You are wished a happy new year in innumerable accents. It's a New Year's Eve like none other.
