Introducing Elizabeth Sharland's new book:
"Behind the Doors of Notorious Covent Garden"
In her new book Behind the Doors of Notorious Covent Garden, actress, playwright and producer Elizabeth Sharland shares her expert insight and some of the best stories about the famous theatres in this area, where Shakespeare, Coward and Beckett meet The Lion King and Oliver, and where Broadway meets the West End: The Lyceum, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, The Adelphi, The Strand, The Garrick…
Learn about residents of Covent Garden, like David Garrick, Ellen Terry, David Drummond and Cecil Court. Hear about those amazing Covent Garden restaurants frequented by British actors, like Rules – the secret meeting place for royalty – the Ivy, Sheekey’s and Mon Plaisir. Find hidden treasures in the area’s antique and specialty shops. Learn about historic establishments and their unique stories, including the Lamb and Flag, the Nell Gwynn, the Salisbury in St. Martin’s Lane, and of other special places like the Crush Bar at the Royal Opera House; interesting and notorious hotels like the Waldorf and Number One in the Aldwych and the Covent Garden Hotel near Seven Dials.
Don’t forget the ghosts: Take a theatre tour backstage to find your own, or down a side street. Behind the Doors of Notorious Covent Garden tells you where to find them!
Available on Amazon.com |
Love London? Guide to Covent Garden just for you
By Scott Eyman
Palm Beach Post Books Editor
March 19, 2010
I have a friend who’s a devout Anglophile, traveling to London every year to see some shows and, mostly, walk around town and bask. He will, I suspect, love Elizabeth Sharland’s Behind the Doors of Covent Garden, a book that covers the years from Bonnie Prince Charlie and Nell Gwynn to Princess Diana.
There’s a particularly interesting chapter here on the theaters of Covent Garden, among them the magnificent Drury Lane, which has housed everything from the great Ivor Novello shows of the 1930s to Miss Saigon, which ran for at least a decade.
The book also includes a lovely guide to interesting shops in the area, including Pleasures of Past Times in Cecil Court, my favorite London bookshop — actually, my favorite bookshop in the world.
Sharland, who spends part of the year in Palm Beach, knows every foot of the place — I didn’t know that the Palm Court of the Waldorf Hotel was modeled after the Palm Court of the Titanic! — and does justice to it in her rich and spirited book.
Elizabeth Sharland is an actress, author, playwright, musician and artist. Trained at the Guildhall School in London she toured Australia with the Old Vic Company headed by Katharine Hepburn and Robert Helpmann. She
worked for Yul Brynner on his final tour of “The King and I” as his PA across America, and she has had 2 plays produced in London and 3 in New York. This is her 10th book. She lives in London, New York and Palm Beach.