No Last Visit to London?

We attended a matinee performance on Wednesday afternoon of the play Giant, which stars John Lithgow as the writer Roald Dahl.  Running at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Giant focuses on issues of anti-Semitism and on Dahl’s fierce criticism of Israeli military violence against civilians in Beirut, which actually did engulf him in criticism in 1983 and which seem exceptionally timely in 2025.  The play also stars Elliot Levey and Rachael Stirling (who, by the way, is the daughter of the late Dame Diana Rigg).

We had intended to see the Ibsen-inspired play My Master Builder, with Ewan McGregor and Elizabeth Debicki at Wyndham’s Theatre, but there was a ticket mix-up, so we didn’t.  (For once, the error wasn’t mine!)  Instead, we attended an evening performance of (of all things!) Back to the Future: The Musical at the Adelphi Theatre.  Quite the contrast to anything with a connection to Henrik Ibsen!  Entertaining fluff, not very memorable music, very loud, enthusiastically received by the audience, spectacular special effects, reasonably fun.  Once is enough, though.  I prefer the movie.  I couldn’t see that having the story on stage as a musical added anything significant that wasn’t already present in the film, and better.

Given my incredibly advanced age and my extreme decrepitude, the possibility usually occurs to me when I leave a beloved and relatively familiar place (e.g., England, Egypt, Israel, Switzerland, or Hawaii) that it could, conceivably, be for the very last time.  I mean, someday it will be my last time.  And I will miss these places.  I take some comfort, though, in the thought that, according to the hundreds or even thousands of first-hand reports that I’ve read, the place to which I’m headed will put Hawaiian sunsets and Alpine vistas and the wonders of Egypt and England and Israel to shame.  And, if Brigham Young is to be believed on this point — I suspect that his claim was rooted in firsthand knowledge, via a personal near-death experience — it will be possible to see such places at will, instantly:

I can say with regard to parting with our friends, and going ourselves, that I have been near enough to understand eternity so that I have had to exercise a great deal more faith to desire to live than I ever exercised in my whole life to live. The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible. It is not encumbered with this clog of dirt we are carrying around here so that when we advance in years we have to be stubbing along and to be careful lest we fall down. We see our youth, even, frequently stubbing their toes and falling down. But yonder, how different! They move with ease and like lightning. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or, this, that, or the other place—and I presume we will be permitted if we desire—there we are, looking at its streets. If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are, and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. And when there we may behold the earth as at the dawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface. If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there; in fact, we are like the light of the morning, or, I will not say the electric fluid, but its operations on the wires. God has revealed some little things with regard to His movements and power, and the operation and motion of the lightning furnish a fine illustration of the ability and power of the Almighty. If you could stretch a wire from this room around the  world until the two ends nearly met here again, and were to apply a battery to one end, if the electrical conditions were perfect, the effect of the touch would pass with such, inconceivable velocity that it would be felt at the other end of the wire at the same moment. This is what the faithful Saints are coming to; they will possess this power, and if they wish to visit different planets, they will be there. If the Lord wish to visit His children here, He is here; if He wish to send one of His angels to the earth to speak to some of His children, he is here.

When we pass into the spirit world we shall possess a measure of this power; not to that degree that we will when resurrected and brought forth in the fullness of glory to inherit the kingdoms prepared for us. The power the faithful will possess then will far exceed that of the spirit world; but that enjoyed in the spirit world is so far beyond this life as to be inconceivable without the Spirit of revelation. Here, we are continually troubled with ills and ailments of various kinds, and our ears are saluted with the expressions, “My head aches,” “My shoulders ache,” “My back aches,” “I am hungry, dry, or tired;” but in the spirit world we are free from all this and enjoy life, glory, and intelligence; and we have the Father to speak to us, Jesus to speak to us, and angels to speak to us, and we shall enjoy the society of the just and the pure who are in the spirit world until the resurrection.  (From Journal of Discourses, volume 14, discourse 32)

Posted from London, England