Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
Travel and Religion
In Londinium

In Londinium

Last updated on: May 15, 2025 at 2:28 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

In Londinium 2025-05-15T14:28:02-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In London’s West End theatre district a few years back (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph). No, this is not a Latter-day Saint visitors center. But the same play is still being performed there, in the same Prince of Wales Theatre.

From the “Sometimes, You Can Only Laugh” Department: As usual on such occasions, I didn’t sleep on the non-stop trans-Atlantic flight from Salt Lake City to London. Instead, I read Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in which she first introduced the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot — I can’t recall having read it before — and then, to my shame, watched five episodes from the first season of the current television series Watson, followed by listening to a mixed selection of country and classical music during our final approach to London Heathrow.

We reached our hotel — the DoubleTree By Hilton (London – West End), in Bloomsbury, near the British Museum (so not altogether a roach motel) — just before noon. The plan was to catch a few hours of sleep and then to take in an evening play.

It was a good plan. A sound one. Except for the jackhammering that commenced about ninety minutes after we’d shut out the lights and that then continued without much let-up until roughly 3:30 PM. (We had set our alarm clock for 4:00 PM, so that we would have time to stroll over to the theater (or theatre), grabbing a bite to eat along our way.) And — oh yes, I mustn’t forget this! — except for the piercingly high-pitched fire alarm accompanied by a flashing strobe light that erupted in our room about an hour before the jackhammer ceased its ministrations.

I know. I know. Some of you will be thinking to yourselves “Oh, the poor dears. Suffering so, in London! Cue the violin music!” (In a sense, it’s analogous to what some would call “a very first-world problem.”) And at least a few over at the Peterson Obsession Board who monitor this blog with slavish devotion and who gave their lives over to Cthulhu at impressively young ages will be ecstatic at the thought of my receiving at least a tiny portion of my just desserts. And their faith in the view of me that they have so assiduously cultivated over the past fifteen or twenty years will be confirmed by the fact that, at certain points between about 12:30 PM and 3:30 PM, London time, this song was going through my mind over and over again and I was contemplating homicide. “When a man is tired of London,” Samuel Johnson is reported to have said, “he’s tired of life.” I can now confirm his sentiment: I was tired in London and I was certainly tired of somebody’s life.

A view of the Phoenix Theatre in London, not very far from the Tottenham Court Road tube station

We did, in fact, attend the play, after grabbing some really good thin-crust pizza at a little street cafe en route to it. My wife, a theater major, had already booked the tickets. The play was Stranger Things: The First Shadow, at the Phoenix Theatre on Charing Cross Road. It’s a theater with almost a century of history behind it, having opened on 24 September 1930 with the premiere of Private Lives by Noël Coward, who also appeared in the play, along with, Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier. Noël Coward had a long and repeated association with the theater, and the foyer bar was named for him on his seventieth birthday in 1969. More recently, Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods ran at the Phoenix, as did Michael Frayn’s wildly funny Noises Off and a revival of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire.

To my own considerable surprise, I didn’t fall asleep — heck, I didn’t even feel sleepy — during the play, which lasted slightly more than three hours. Of course, my wakefulness probably wasn’t hurt by the fact that, with all of its special effects (e.g., lightning, gunshots, crashing thunder, screams, growls, shouting, and the like), Stranger Things was even more noisy than our hotel room had been.

Its high quality notwithstanding, and despite its enormous global popularity, the Interpreter Radio is not entirely without competition. Here, for example, is the BBC’s “Broadcast House” in London. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

Here is a trio of new items that have recently appeared on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation:

Interpreter Radio: Come, Follow Me in Context: May 19-25: “That Which Is of God Is Light”: Doctrine & Covenants 49 and 50. In the 27 April 2025 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Radio Show, John Thompson and Martin Tanner discussed the Come, Follow Me Doctrine & Covenants lesson for 19-25 May 2025 covering Doctrine and Covenants 49 and 50. A recording of their discussion, shorn of distracting commercial interruptions, is now available for your happiness and delight. The other segments of the 27 April 2025 radio show can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-april-27-2025.
Interpreter Radio Show —May 4, 2025, including Doctrine and Covenants in Context: “A Faithful, a Just, and a Wise Steward” covering D&C 51-57 For the 4 May 2025 installment of the Interpreter Radio Show, Martin Tanner, Hales Swift, and Brent Schmidt discussed the Come, Follow Me Doctrine & Covenants lesson for 26 May-1 June 1 covering Doctrine and Covenants 51-57. An edited version of their conversation is now available to you at no charge. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.
Come, Follow Me — D&C Study and Teaching Helps (2025): Doctrine and Covenants 49–50: May 19 – 25: “That Which Is of God Is Light”

The Hyde Park Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

And, finally, lest the mood here become too optimistic and bright, I share a couple of specimens retrieved from the effectively inexhaustible Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:

Posted from London, England

Travel and Religion

History and Religion

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 11, 2025

The "Practical Man of Action"

Next Post

May 14, 2025 Of Heavenly Councils and Heavenly Books

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"I have cpnsidered in my mond if the 4 volume Saints could be made into ..."

John Pack Lambert

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

"DP: “But Mr. Sutherland worries about the fact that our time, when we can communicate ..."

Theodore Brandley

Learning more about a region of ..."

"Another class of memories are of individuals who previously lived. Some of these remembered individuals ..."

PlasmaMiasma

Accounts of Premortality?

"Sutherland's lecture sounds interesting. He seems to restate the Washington consensus that trade brings peace ..."

B. Wilson

Learning more about a region of ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the Greek word 'Kurios' mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Redeemer Lord King Messiah