You just can't make this stuff up...

[mrstater]

Came across this wonderful tidbit yesterday while researching the Royal Opera:

By the 1830s, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert would frequent the Royal Box up to four times a week in high season. However, in 1856, disaster struck once again. The theatre, hired for a masked ball by a man known as the ‘Wizard of the North’, burned to the ground

Comments

[epea_pteroenta]

Researching the Royal Opera? I approve. :) (And if you need any info on music or opera or singing, come at me!)

[shimotsuki]

It’s like The Wizard of Oz-meets-The Prestige-meets-Harry Potter-meets a circus sideshow.

LOL! It is, it is! Truth is stranger than fiction yet again.

Last night I was on Wikipedia researching the Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer ballads and various legends related to fairies in order to get a handle on this interesting, but complicated, fantasy novel I'm reading with some of my f-list. Anyway, you know how one link leads to another? Well, I eventually learned that there are legends that Sir Francis Drake leads a headless hunt on the moors of Dartmoor. (!!!)

[mrstater]

OMG. That is brilliant. WHAT DID WE EVER DO BEFORE WIKIPEDIA??

[gilpin25]

They just don't do drunken revelry like they used to!

His life would make a great film: The Wizard of the North starring... They'd cast Hugh Jackman, wouldn't they!

[mrstater]

He looks more like Paul Giamatti, though. ;)

SPEAKING OF. WE HAVE NOT DISCUSSED HIS CASTING AS HAROLD LEVINSON.

[gilpin25]

He looks more like Paul Giamatti, though. ;)

He does. So they'd cast Hugh Jackman!

WE HAVE NOT DISCUSSED HIS CASTING AS HAROLD LEVINSON.

Cora has a million appalled faces at the ready? Much more likely Robert does. *sighs*