The Mad King and The Red Carpet Premiere

History of Westeros - A Song of Ice and Fire | Game of Thrones | HOTD | AKOTSK

The hosts recount their recent 12-day journey through the UK, centered around seeing the stage play 'The Mad King' at the Royal Shakespeare

Key takeaways

• The hosts attended the red carpet premiere of 'The Mad King' and sat in close proximity to George R.R. Martin and Paris.
• Playwright Duncan McMillan revealed that work on the production has been ongoing since 2014.

Main topics

• Review of The Mad King play
• UK travel itinerary

Notable quotes

The tale grew in the telling, the trip grew in the planning.

Conclusion

An enthusiastic and detailed look at a new stage adaptation that provi

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:49) 12 days in the UK and saw the Mad King play three times. That was not the original plan, however. The tale grew in the telling, the trip grew in the planning, or the not planning in some cases. Things just happen. A combination of long-term planning mixed with last-minute changes. Seeing it three times is going to pay off for us and you as we deliver our coverage. But seeing Extra wasn't just about making sure we absorbed as much as possible of it. It was because we wanted to. We loved the journey. We loved seeing the play. We loved meeting all the people. We learned about what's coming. We learned about how it was made. We learned a lot, and we just had an overall amazing experience. No plot spoilers in this one, but we will build up to that in future episodes that are coming within the next few weeks. We are going to discuss a few things today that might count as mild spoilers. It really depends on what you consider a spoiler. In our long journey of this podcast, it really is a matter of opinion. Some things are very clearly spoilers, but where the line spoiler ends, that's where there is some difference, I suppose. But here, we're just going to talk about things like the making of, the structure, the logistics, the view from the top, so to speak, locations, approach. choices they had to make due to the nature of theater as compared to books or television. And Speaker 2 (2:12) how they made us feel. Speaker 1 (2:13) Yeah, just how they made us feel. Exactly. Just the experience, what it brought out from us emotionally. Yeah, that's a good way to put it, Ashaya. Absolutely. So it's going to take several episodes to cover everything we learn. This is where it begins. The overall, the look, the spoiler-free examination of it. The Mad King is, of course, the centerpiece here, but we are going to as well talk about... Other things we did in the UK are other adventures and experiences. We went to some castles and took a lot of photos, which will help us show you all all that fun stuff. The play, of course, provides us with models of how things might have gone during certain aspects of Robert's Rebellion and the Tournament of Harrenhal. Many mysteries have been given fitting answers. And George, if he didn't accept those, he didn't reject them either. We'll explain that more fully. I don't expect you to understand just from that one sentence. But keep listening. We'll explain all that and more on this episode of History of Westeros podcast. Speaker 1 (3:19) Hello and welcome. I'm Aziz. With me, as always, is Ashea. We do live streams most Sundays at 3 p.m. if it's not a TV season. If it's a TV season, we broadcast Mondays at 6. We still have a lot of content for 2026. I think we have about a dozen streams left. At least two of those will be Mad King spoiler coverage, but we have other things coming as well. We also have our usual game streams. Those have resumed after our long travel. Those are on 6pm on Twitch on Fridays. Right now we've just started a new House Umber campaign in the time of Robert's Rebellion. It's pretty cool. We were playing Great John's father and now we're Great John. And he is pretty great. And big. And great. And big. Speaker 1 (4:10) You can always check us out at historyofwesteros.com. There's good ways to support the show, find out what's happening, check out our old episodes, lots of stuff. It's just a good way to keep up with our show. You can also go to patreon.com slash historyofwesteros, sign up to become a member and or learn other things about what's coming from us. We do a lot of posting over there. We also have voting and bonus episodes, cool stuff like that. This is a good episode to watch, or at least keep your eye on the screen, because we have a lot of photos and fun stuff like that. But as usual, it's not required. You can just listen, and that will be very entertaining, if I do say so myself. Here is an overview of what we're going to talk about today. It's mostly just broken down into days. We have day one, or day one-ish, because it was kind of two days, rolled into one for us, given travel. Then we have our first set of production notes on the play itself. Then we'll cover days two through five, which includes some time in Birmingham. And then days six and seven, which were the second two days we saw the play. And that will become with a second set of notes. And then we're going to talk about meeting the actors. And we also went to Warwick Castle. That's the Kingmaker Castle. Then days eight through 12, which we spent in Oxford and London. And we'll finish with the Mad King's future, where we discuss the play has finished its initial run, basically. And we discuss what we have heard about what's coming, where else it's going to appear, its chances of getting to the U.S., things like that. I have to warn you all that I have COVID, and I might just start coughing or sneezing or something during this. My voice might sound different to you. Yeah, Speaker 2 (5:52) big shock, because these went to England and California. to conventions and got sick out of it, but at least we work from home. So he's just home. Yeah. Speaker 1 (6:03) I think I got sick right at the end too. I think it was like the last few days of DragonCon. One of our friends shared a positive COVID test in the group chat. I didn't actually take a test. I don't need to spend 20 bucks to tell me that I have symptoms that I already know I have. It's not like I can do anything about it. Just get over it. So yeah, the show must go on quite literally. We haven't live streamed in a while. And even though I'm sick. We're going to keep going. Yeah, so this is a good one to watch. We'll have a good amount of stuff on screen as we move through. But let's get to it. So our story starts on Tuesday the 4th, which was originally going to be a few days. We were about eight days from traveling at that point. We were expecting to leave on the 12th. It was going to be eight days of travel to the UK. And then we were going to be home for four days in Atlanta. And then back on the road to California to Worldcon for almost a week. And then almost immediately upon returning home to Atlanta, we had DragonCon. So only about one day in between. So yeah, quite a run for us. Good times. Very fun. But also, well, that's a lot, right? Well, it Speaker 2 (7:10) became... You know, I don't think we've had this much since 2019 when we had the run where we did Worldcon and TitanCon in Ireland. And before that, we did Con of Thrones. And after that, we did DragonCon. which was pretty similar, I think. That was pretty Speaker 1 (7:23) similar. They weren't quite as packed together, but they was. Yeah, you're right. We haven't traveled that much since then. That feels like even longer ago since it was pre-COVID, which feels like some other era. But about four days before, or about three days before our actual trip, we didn't expect to be traveling for another eight days, as I said. A benefactor who shall remain nameless offered us a new plan. And we accepted that plan, which involved leaving on the 7th instead of on the 12th. The Speaker 2 (7:56) day after my birthday, the best birthday present ever for me. That's Speaker 1 (7:59) right. Shay had a birthday and then the next day it's all of Speaker 2 (8:02) a Speaker 1 (8:02) sudden we're changing plans. And yeah, I mean, actually, technically the plans and the planes, Chan changed two days before her birthday, before Shay's birthday, and then the actual trip began the day after. So yeah, it was a very good birthday week. altogether, given this kicked off this adventure for us and it's several days early. But Speaker 2 (8:20) yeah, we spent it scrambling to get ready and pack everything because we had not packed a week in advance, certainly. So we did all that. And then we took a red eye and flew all night and got in at like 630 in the morning and tried to cancel a party. We had a planned party Speaker 1 (8:38) here. We were going to have all our friends over to watch the finale of House of the Dragon. We're like, sorry, y'all, we're going to the UK. So that was. Not ideal. Like 12 hours Speaker 2 (8:46) after we planned it, we had to cancel it. Yeah, we're like, actually, guys, Speaker 1 (8:50) we're not having this party. Sorry. So that's too bad. But for our friends, we'll have a Night of the Seven Kingdoms Season 2 party as well. So, you know, the parties will continue around here. But that was the last minute change. And it meant that instead of about half the month traveling, it was a little more than half. It was going to push it into about two thirds of the month traveling, which for some people, that's not very much. For us. It's a ton. We're not, you know, we travel maybe more than most people, but I wouldn't say we travel a ton, you know, a few times a year. It just happens to all be so close together. So yeah, like I said, our flight was 5 p.m. in the, you know, from Atlanta to the UK. Now traveling home from the UK, maybe not so bad, but traveling there when you lose that time going forward, it can hurt a bit. And this timing was particularly not great. It was last minute, so we had to do what we had to do. It was well worth it, but this was the least pleasant part of it for sure. So we arrive eight and a half hours later. Quick math, that would be like 1 a.m. if there was no time change. So 1 a.m., that's a reasonable time to be going to bed or to be wrapping up your day, right? But with it being five hours later in the UK, that was actually 6 a.m. when we landed. So we were, that's the kind of trip where you don't really have time to get in a nap necessarily. It isn't really bedtime, but by the time you land, it is. But that's when you got to go do stuff. Michelle, what did you do on the flight? Did you watch TV? I read The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson, which I'll talk about that book and her later. She was up for awards at the Hugos. And we're going to talk about our Hugo experience. So I'll save it for then. I've read several books that won or were nominated. And that's fun to mention. Speaker 2 (10:34) Yeah, I watched a little TV, a smattering. I watched some of Widow's Bay, which is an Apple TV show that I've heard a lot about, and I've worked on that a bit. Honestly, my favorite thing to do on planes is I just like to listen to my music and kind of just have a peaceful, meditative state. I wouldn't call it sleeping, but I like to be restful and just enjoy time with my earbuds in and music. And I always, always put Curb Your Enthusiasm on the in-flight TV with the subtitles on, no sound. And I just look up and observe Larry David and continue listening to music. You could hear Speaker 1 (11:13) it in his voice anyway. Yeah. Speaker 2 (11:15) So, Speaker 1 (11:16) yeah, I love to read and mainline coffee. That's my travel plan generally. Luckily, with the Hugo packet, I had a lot of fun things to choose from. But like I said, more on that later. Couldn't check into our hotel right away because of the timing. We had a one and a half hour car ride from Stratford, from London to Stratford, Stratford upon Avon. There's a Stratford and a Stratford upon Avon. Yes, the hyphenated names that George loves to use in both his fantasy and sci-fi worlds. Yeah, a lot of those exist for real in England. So this was tricky because we left on the 7th, got there on the 8th. The 8th is the day of the red carpet premiere. And here we are on No Sleep. So we couldn't, when we were eventually able to check in, we told the hotel, just the first room you have available, we'll check in. Yeah, even though it meant Speaker 2 (12:04) we had to change rooms the next day. It was so worth it. I did take a little, I never do this, but I was able, I was so tired. I took an outdoor nap out in our hotel courtyard. which was very peaceful, but like I'm not the type of person to sleep in public. So it tells you how exhausted I was. Speaker 1 (12:21) Yeah. And it was early enough that it wasn't too hot. Most of our time in England, it was very hot. And unfortunately, England, like much of the world, isn't well prepared to have lots of air conditioning. Now, we come from the American South. We live in Atlanta. Ironically, one of the. best places to be in the modern world in terms of temperature. He's like, why this? Why is the South so great? Well, if you're outside, it's not. But we live in an incredibly well air conditioned state. Georgia is extremely well air conditioned. And we noticed that whenever we go somewhere else, it's partly because the buildings are all new. It was like, hey, the Civil War did Atlanta some favors by burning every single thing to the ground. All the buildings were rebuilt and some of them were built, you know, with. air conditioning infrastructure whereas all these buildings in london like they're a thousand years old you point at something at random in england and it's older than everything in the u.s and it doesn't that which means it doesn't have air conditioning so yeah uh climate change kind of messing with the world a bit in that sense but we uh we soldier on all of us do right Speaker 2 (13:23) I will hope to go to England in the spring or fall in the future is all I'll say about that. Speaker 1 (13:29) Our entire several weeks on the road was punctuated by lots of hot days. No matter what part of the world we were in, whether it was the UK or California, we was melting out there. Yeah, it's amazing that I'm not like very sunburned, but we did. We were smart about the sunblock at least. So. And we were almost zombies for that day. We got about three hours sleep. Then we had to start putting on our, like our nice clothes. Ashea is like putting on makeup and a dress and I'm putting on a suit. And we didn't get there in time for the red carpet photos. We'd use that extra time for sleep. Not a big deal. We wanted to make sure we had as much wherewithal as possible to remember the play, to get the details down. That's what we're there for. So, and our hotel was really close. It was only 0.2 miles. away. So we were able to just walk there. That was nice. Walking back was a little trickier, as I'll explain in a minute. We met up with Robert in Deep Geek and his assistant, Jen, who I'd never met before. Jen, that is. I'd met Robert plenty of times. Checked out the theater. It was pretty cool. Royal Shakespeare Company is where the play was hosted for its first run. It's a really nice spot. And we had fun with the theater outside of the play itself. More to come on that. Each of the three times we saw it, we had different seats, which is really useful for getting different angles. There's definitely a few things that you can't necessarily see, depending on what angle you're at, or you can see better, etc., etc. For example, in the first time, the first time we saw it, Rhaegar did something with his sword, a plot-heavy thing that I did not catch, a very important thing he did during an important moment. And when we saw the play from higher up, I was able to see it. much more distinctly. The second time we saw it, we were like right up against the stage, like so close that we could see the detail on the Kingsguard cloaks, which was really, really nice. The Kingsguard armor and cloaks looked really good. It might be the best version of the Kingsguard that we've ever seen. Speaker 2 (15:31) Right, right. Fresh off of the Night of the Seven Kingdoms, having such good Kingsguard armor, I do think I like the Mad King armor the best. Speaker 1 (15:38) Yeah, it looked really good. Gotta say, for sure. And also... You know, we could see things like, honestly, we almost got hit in the face by Rhaegar's lance in our second showing, not this first one. We were down low in this first viewing, but not low enough to take a lance to the face. Yeah, Speaker 2 (15:54) we technically had a restricted view seat because, again, we were given the tickets last minute, but hardly restricted in my case. I just leaned, every once in a while I leaned because a pole was in the way. But the more important thing... was it was not a restricted view for me of George R. R. Martin and his wife, Paris. Yeah, we Speaker 1 (16:14) were sitting very close to George and Paris. Like, a few seats away. Like, literally, I was in the same row as them. Acheia was in a different spot with me, like two rows behind. So she had a better view of some things and not quite as good of other things. Yeah, I had a better view of Speaker 2 (16:25) George's reaction, which I was a little bit, more than a little bit distracting. I found myself, like, watching with two eyes, you know, one eye on him and one eye on the play. So I could never really get fully sucked into the play that night. It was distracting. How could it not be? But it was nice being in the stalls in one position from a little further back. And then the next week, we were exactly catacorner, you know, to it, diagonal from where we were, but very close. Speaker 1 (16:52) So this is a shot of George on the throne at the show. You can see they made their own version of it. You can't see the top of it, which is maybe the coolest part. It's got a really neat, like, top sword. So it might be the coolest version of the Iron Throne. I know the House of the Dragon kind of had to go with what the first show had already done. And the first show's a little, you know, it wasn't bad, but it's, this is cooler. The swords are jutting out more. It looks a little more metallic. You know, there's something about the show's version. The blades look a little muted. The ones that House of the Dragon added look more like real swords. So they spruced it up, but they were kind of stuck with what the original show had done. Mostly George seemed to be very pleased. He was... big smile on his face the whole time. Paris was leaning forward the whole time. She was clapping very energetically, shall we say. So they were very, very into it. Now we could, we weren't sure when we saw it the first time we suspected, and then we confirmed it when we saw it the second and third times. The theater, they kind of turned a little bit. The performers kind of turned just maybe a little five, eight degrees to face George and Paris a little more. We're like, are they turning a little bit to face the George? They're cheating Speaker 2 (18:01) towards them, of course. Of Speaker 1 (18:02) course they would. Of course they would. Why not, right? I would too if I were them or the program director. I would have suggested it if I was one of them if it hadn't been done. So yeah, smart choice. It was fun to observe that. So I was still very tired. A shame was to win it all. When we're getting to our seats, we're talking to people. I'm kind of like just going through the motions. I'm excited, but I'm exhausted. It's that combo of... energy fighting itself when you you're full of energy, but you're also full of exhaustion. We've probably all been there. When the lights dropped, I got an additional surge of energy. Like, oh my God, it's starting. And the music began. It was ominous. It was like a procession. You got some banners coming through. It's really just got me in the mood, got me in the zone. And I almost forgot how tired I was for a while. And, you know, it's the theater, right? The performers are full of energy. It's not like TV where you can put a microphone on somebody whispering or a book where you're reading thoughts and you're imagining the volume and the tone and the words are helping guide you and context are guiding you to what you expect the tone and the volume will be. Are they yelling? Are they whispering? But in theater, everything is loud. Everything is enunciated because people have to hear it. Right? You have to make sure everybody in the upper corners of the theater can hear it. That's how it's done. So theater performers, by design, by nature, are full of energy. They're lively. They're loud. They're projecting their voices as they should. They're enunciating immaculately. And, you know, if you don't go to a lot of theater, which I don't, I mean, I'm not a newbie to it, but I'm definitely not a regular either. I had to kind of remind myself of these things. Last Speaker 2 (19:46) thing you saw was Hadestown, which is a traditional onstage theater, you know? Yes, true. A Speaker 1 (19:53) musical with some similar things to it. Speaker 2 (19:56) Whereas this is, you know, theater in the round, but not just theater in the round. It's like a crosswise, like traverse stage style, you know, where it crosses through the audience. You're not just surrounding it, but they cross through you. So it was a really immersive, unique. custom-built stage. Yeah, Speaker 1 (20:14) it is almost like a T. So they would cross one way or the other and you've got spots on the side for people to hang out. And this would work really well for scenes where there's lots of, like, a crowd and there's people talking, like there's a dance. They had a dance at the Tournament of Harrenhal, which is, of course, they did. That's part of what we know already. And that enables people to be standing off on the side, kind of acting like they're having side conversations, where the spotlight... could focus on two people having a conversation and you're meant to believe they're whispering you know they're not actually but they're projecting loudly because it's theater and you need to hear what they're saying plus Speaker 2 (20:49) up at the top level at the circle there would also be actors that would appear with the spotlight and have a conversation on balconies and such yeah Speaker 1 (20:57) we were just like standing there sitting there watching the play i think it was the third time yeah and all of a sudden Arthur Dayne is standing there, like, next to us. Like, oh, hey, Arthur Dayne. Arthur Dayne on Speaker 2 (21:07) one side, and we had a Night's Watchman on the other. The Wandering Crow. The white and the black on either side of us. Yeah, that was really cool. Speaker 1 (21:15) So, yeah, they just, like, appear in the crowd at some points to sort of give the appearance of the size of this. It increases the scale and the dimension of the performance. You can see things that you might not expect or hear things from a direction or corner of the room that you wouldn't expect. Which makes the whole thing seem a little bigger. So it's pretty cool. Very immersive. Again, it's good that we saw it three times because this first time, I always watch as a fan first. I am a fan. Ashae is a fan. We do this because we love it. We would not be as good at this, at podcasting or covering this, if we weren't such enthusiastic fans of the material in the first place. I don't think we would travel so much to go see this. I don't think we would see it three times. I don't think, yeah, I don't think we would be so excited about it. You know what I mean? Speaker 2 (22:01) It's been announced that it'll be coming next spring to London and I'm already eager to see it again. It was so such a good live experience. Yeah, Speaker 1 (22:10) it really was. So I was fully immersed, but not in an active brain way you'll say, or I could say because of the exhaustion. So it's good that I was watching it as a fan the first time, cause I wouldn't have absorbed all that much memory wise anyway. Like I'm going to remember a lot because it was memorable, but my analytical brain was not operating at full capacity. But I was just so, so happy all the way through, and that filled me with energy and helped me remember. I think memory, we all know this. Think about things like trauma or your favorite memories of all time. The more emotion you attach to a memory, the more memorable it is, right? Emotion makes memories last and stick out. That is kind of the mechanism of trauma, but it's also the mechanism of good memories, which is what we're talking about here. I mean, it was just a privilege to be there. It was also just incredibly good. So I just was filled with good vibes, good positivity, and that really helped keep me awake. So you could say it was a long working vacation that started early in the best way and kicked off with just a blur of activity that ended or capped off that first night with almost four hours, by the way. It is very long. That's a good thing. and just being immersed in something that we have been wondering about for more than 20 years. Some of these answers, or at least semblance of answers for a lot of mysteries were given to us. More on that in a minute. Let's talk a little bit more about just these first parts. Speaker 1 (23:41) We went to the after party. There was two after parties, really. There's a regular after party with all the cast and just everybody who was there on that first night. But there was also a secondary after party for George and his team. And we were lucky enough to be invited to that. We got to see a lot of our friends and meet some new people. First of all, shout out to our friends, Mateo and Taffney, who got engaged recently. Not at the play. A few weeks later, actually, at Worldcon. I just want to mention it now. Speaker 2 (24:11) And Matteo was published in the newest iteration of the Mad King program. That's Dr. Matteo Barbagallo. That's right. He also did a presentation at Worldcon, but we'll talk about that in that episode. But yeah, just big congrats to Matteo and Taffney, and it was nice to kick off our trip hanging out with them. Speaker 1 (24:30) Yeah, so there was a nice little squad back there. We got to meet Ira Parker, the showrunner of Night of the Seven Kingdoms. introduced to us by Team Mikkel, who has been our friend for a very long time. And she's moved from being one of George's writing assistants to writing for everything. She wrote for House of the Dragon. She wrote for Night of the Seven Kingdoms. She's both producer and writer. She's just doing so many things. Speaker 2 (24:53) She did the finale Speaker 1 (24:53) of House Speaker 2 (24:54) of the Dragon with Ryan Condal. That's Speaker 1 (24:56) right. So she's just become... Such a big part of the fandom from a creator perspective. Yeah, she Speaker 2 (25:01) was so sweet because she's like, do you want to meet Ira? We're like, yeah, Speaker 1 (25:04) we Speaker 2 (25:04) want to meet Ira. Yeah, I do. And I immediately fangirled to Ira. Yeah, you were muted. I muted you. But yes, I did. But it's because A Night of the Seven Kingdoms is my favorite of the three shows. I felt like I had to tell him that. But also that I appreciated his work on the show Better Things with Pamela Adlon previously, and I like Better Things so much, so I wanted to tell him that. And then I reined it in and I was like, well, let's go back and let's talk about how good the play we saw tonight is. Let's talk about your work another time. And so I think we will have him on to interview him, hopefully around just ahead of the second season, I think is what we're going to try to aim for. He seemed very down. And he was very friendly and funny and he had just a good time. But we also talked to the people involved in the play's creation as well, huh, Aziz? Speaker 1 (25:57) Yes, we did. We met Duncan McMillan, who was the main writer. T was a go-between. She helped with a lot of the writing and she would pass things on to George and George would say, yes, no, maybe. And what that means is that everything in the play was at least yesed or maybe by George. Anything that he said no to was cut out. So there's some things that he wasn't sure about. He hasn't decided. But there's a lot of things that they added. Rhaegar, Lyanna, Tournament of Harrenhal, Robert's Rebellion. Lots of these mysteries were filled in. And maybe they're not the final answer. Maybe this isn't what George will go with. But some of these things will be because he said yes to some and maybe to others. Now, we don't know which or which, of course. We weren't part of that process. But we know that nothing in the play was something that he said no to. So he had a chance to basically veto any plot point, any dialogue, as far as we know. And so what was kept in there is all of it at least passed that level of muster through George and through T. And they did such a good job of the writing. We'll get into some more specific details, but the way they connected the characters, the way they created dialogue for these scenes that we know happened, but we don't know what happened during them. was just really well done. And the dialogue overall may be the strongest part, which I know y'all love to hear that because that's one of the most important things there is. Character interactions are all fueled by dialogue, and that's the main thing that fuels those sort of things. Obviously, there's love and hate and war and all these other things, but all that stuff is facilitated by dialogue. Bertie Carvell was there. That's Baylor Breakspear. We didn't actually meet him, though. We didn't see him. He was around there somewhere, but somehow we missed him. Speaker 2 (27:38) But you did meet Shay, Sybil. I Speaker 1 (27:40) met Sybil Kikelli. I got to hang out with her for a while, sat down and chatted for a good half hour with her and with Matteo and Taffney and Sybil's husband, whose name is escaping me. But they're just really friendly and cool and spent quite a bit of time chatting with them. Oh, I forgot to mention, when talking with Duncan, he had heard of us. He had listened to our show already. So that was a real moment of, oh, hey, made me stand a little straighter. That was very... surprising and fun, but it makes sense. He did a lot of research and... You Speaker 2 (28:10) can tell he did a lot of research. Speaker 1 (28:11) You can tell he did a lot of research, yeah. You can also tell kind Speaker 2 (28:13) of the era in which he did the research because of kind of the headcanons and fanon ideas in it, you could say. And I'll Speaker 1 (28:21) say, like, a lot of these things we just maybe never know, you Speaker 2 (28:24) know? Like, I don't necessarily think we get a personality for Rael the Targaryen in canon. So if you want to go with the personality they crafted... Good for you. If you don't want to, you don't have to. But that's just one example where I just don't imagine I really ever know that. Speaker 1 (28:41) Yeah, exactly. That's how I think of it, too. It's like, well, this is a very, very good take on this character. It might be what George had in mind. It might not, but it fits. It's really smart. And it belongs. Most of these belong in the pantheon of best ideas, if not best idea, for a lot of these scenarios that fall under the play's umbrella. Speaker 2 (29:02) What did she say? She's like, well, what choice do we have? Speaker 1 (29:05) Yeah, what choice do we have? For some of them, yeah, we got to do something. Speaker 2 (29:09) You got to do something that makes them engaging and good play material, as you talked about a little bit earlier, right? Speaker 1 (29:16) There's so many things going on. There's the personal, the political, and the prophetic. So the big three Ps, right? There's the personal, meaning the relationships between all the characters, whether it's Rhaegar and Lyanna, or whether it's Lyanna and Ned, or Ned and... Benjen or Lyanna and Howland or Rhaegar and Aerys or Rhaegar and Elia or Elia and Azshara. A lot of these combinations that we know existed, but we really don't have a whole lot to go on. Like we have a decent amount to go on with Rhaegar and Lyanna, but with Rhaegar and Elia, I mean, it's interesting they're a married couple, but like, what did they think of each other? Were they a match of love or were they a political match? Something in between? Well, this is the sort of thing the play has to weigh in on. And if the writing is good, then it's good. And it's good. If it's not good, then things get lost, things get missed. But we did not have that experience. We did not sit here going, well, why did they make that choice? Now, not everything perfectly fits in canon. It is an adaptation. So we'll be a little more specific with that as we move forward. To Speaker 2 (30:20) be clear, just like a couple of timeline things. Speaker 1 (30:23) Yeah. Just like timeline Speaker 2 (30:24) that just could not possibly work with canon. But it's good for the play. Yeah, Speaker 1 (30:29) exactly. So that is basically the Speaker 2 (30:32) process of adapting. Yeah. Speaker 1 (30:34) Now, what you're seeing on screen here, there's several cast members here, like in the extreme left, close to the camera. That is Lewin Martell, I believe. Yeah, it is. He still has his Kingsguard white on, in fact. Speaker 2 (30:45) Cutting the cake is Daisy Franks, who played Cersei and Golda Wendt, the daughter, who the attorney is for in Harrenhal. But I believe I saw that she made this Iron Throne cake, which you can't see the throne at the top. That's what I believe I saw. You can also see Oberyn across the way right here. Closer look at the cake here. And I think there's some other cast members around here. But yeah, this was just at the main after party. Speaker 1 (31:12) So what they did with the casting was pretty clever. If y'all saw cast photos, you saw... a diverse group, which is very normal for theater. Unlike many people with lack of imagination and or racism, there is, this is something that theater's been doing forever. They just cast the best actors. Skin color doesn't really matter most of the time. It does matter sometimes. What they did here was it wasn't just mishmash though. The Starks were all light skin. So you could really recognize who was who. It really helped keep track. The Dornish folk were all very dark skin. with Martells and Danes. So that also really helped be able to identify them as family or from the same part of the country. And then pretty much everybody else was white. And the Targaryens really looked like Targaryens, like Aerys and Rhaella and Rhaegar. They looked more straight from the books. Whereas there were some, maybe some slight changes from other characters. Robert really looked like Robert, but yeah, the Starks looked a little different. Brown Speaker 2 (32:08) of Speaker 1 (32:08) hair. Yeah, brown of hair, not black of hair. But yeah, most of the, we knew who everybody was. It was really easy to tell. And of course, the way they did the casting kind of helped to pair them up as having similar skin tones as to represent family and ethnicity. Yeah. That was clever. Yeah. Speaker 2 (32:24) People love to get on their case about the casting. I'm like, tell me you've never seen a play before. Speaker 1 (32:30) It's so normal to do that in plays. It's very Speaker 2 (32:33) normal. It can be normal for anything, in my opinion. But they did it with a consistency that helped to define the characters well. So like I think it did. helped to really show like this family versus this family. Speaker 1 (32:47) Yeah. Yeah. It worked. It worked quite well. So it was not just for that reason, but the cast was just incredible. One of my favorite cast stories was the actor who played Varys. This actor did not watch the TV show, did not watch it. So did not see Conleth Hill's presentation of Varys. Nevertheless, his presentation was a lot like Conleth Hill's. It wasn't identical. He did a little more of the tittering, which was good because that's straight from the books. But he had the similar voice. The way he presented was, you know, a little feminine. And he just felt really similar. Of all the characters in the play, he was the most familiar because we'd seen a version like that on TV. Yet it wasn't a repeat. It was still a little different. He still made it his own. And of course, it was from a time period that we've