Geotagged at home (51.427051,-0.333344)

Cartography, The Musical

I like maps. Even if you've never read posts on this site, the name "Mostly Maps" should probably be a giveaway. What you may not know is that I don't really like musicals. Now granted I've seen Rent and Spamalot, but that's because Alison and I were in New York and the former was recommended by one of my best friends and for the latter I'm a massive Python fan. Maps and musicals aren't something that go together. But that may be about to change.

Cast your mind back to the dawn of history, before mobile phones were smart and when GPS was just an Australian rugby club, which is sometime in the very early 2000's. If you lived in London, your essential navigation guide wasn't a maps app, but a copy of the A-Z as the Geographer's A-Z Street Atlas was better known. This was the map you carried around London rather than a mapping app on your phone. I still have several editions on the bookshelf at home, each one being bought when its predecessor got so dog eared as to be unusable or just started falling apart.

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The probably apocryphal backstory is that the A-Z's founder, Phyllis Pearsall got lost in 1935 following a 1919 Ordnance Survey map on the way to a party and decided to make her own map. To do this she got up at 5.00 AM and spent 18 hours a day walking the 3,000 odd miles of London's 23,00 or so streets. This tale is disputed, with Peter Barber, the British Library's Head Of Maps, being quoted as saying "The Phyllis Pearsall story is complete rubbish, there is no evidence she did it and if she did do it, she didn’t need to". Given that Pearsall's father was a map maker who produced and sold maps of London, he's got a point.

But regardless of the accuracy of the legend around Phyllis Pearsal, it's a great story, especially for those of us who used the A-Z each and every day around London. But is it a musical story? Neil Marcus, Diane Samuels and Gwyneth Herbert seem to think so and they're the team behind The A-Z Of Mrs. P, a musical about London's iconic street atlas and its founder that's currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse. Reviews have been mixed, but anything that throws some attention on the A-Z is welcome in my book, even if it is a musical.

A-ZofMrsP

You may have noticed that at the foot of each post I always try to provide source and attribution for photos or images that I use. I think I'm going to have to expand this to include the inspiration for each post. In this particular case, credit is due to Alison. If it's not a sign of true love when your wife texts you to tell you about something map related she's seen, then I don't know what is. I guess you don't spend nearly 15 years being married to a self professed map nerd without knowing a good map related story when you see one.

The A-Z Of Mrs. P poster by Su Blackwell.

Gary
Gary Gale

I'm Gary ... a Husband, Father, CTO at Kamma, geotechnologist, map geek, coffee addict, Sci-fi fan, UNIX and Mac user