An impromptu visit to The Greenwich Royal Observatory led to an unexpected afternoon of entertainment at The National Maritime Museum. A leaflet detailing times for the Planetarium shows in the former also revealed a lunchtime performance of Chinese music, dance and magic at the latter, as part of the Greenwich Chinese Film and Arts Festival. "Hey, who wants to see some magic?!" I asked the kids, cunningly avoiding mention of music. "Yeah!" they both said. So we walked down the hill.
A large audience gathered in the Upper Gallery and waited for the show to start. The barrage of percussive music that signalled the arrival of the performers at the entrance of the museum was so loud it sounded like broadside gunfire from fighting galleons and caused Daisy to cover her ears, throw herself into my lap and sob. Oliver, meanwhile, ran off to see what was happening and came back up alongside the possession. By the time the dancers and musicians had made their way to the show-space, Daisy had recovered and ended up enjoying the performance, though she prefered the beautiful music of the trio in the bottom photo. I believe the instruments are, left to right, a pipa, a guzheng and an erhu; respectively a four-stringed lute-like instrument, a zither-like plucked instrument and a two-stringed fiddle.
And there was a magician.
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