Flags are waving. A drum is banging. Someone is giving an impassioned speech about trans rights.
I creep through the closed roads around Trafalgar Square.
An extinction rebellioner holds out a leaflet towards me, before thinking better about it and handing it to the bloke next to me.
I’m almost offended.
I recycle…
… when I remember.
The police are all lined up across the top of Whitehall, their hi-vis jackets gleaming under the street lights. They are quite the sight. A shuffling barrier between the party in Trafalgar Square and the deserted street beyond.
I stop to take a photo. I’m not the only one. The dome of the National Gallery rising up above the police and the protestors is one hell of a visual.
A cyclist sails through the blockade and whizzes past me.
It’s only then that I realise I’m standing in the middle of the road. We’re all standing in the middle of the road. Not only that, we’re standing in the middle of one of the busiest roads in London, and there’s not a car to be seen.
I am going to make full use of this.
Traipsing down a bit further, I stand right bang in the centre of the lane and aim my phone camera at the Trafalgar Studios.
Perfect.
I dither, looking around.
I’m kinda enjoying standing here, in the middle of the road, with the protest roaring in the background.
I do have to go in though. Watch a play. Get another theatre checked off my list.
I guess.
I mean, I could just go off and join XR. Throw this whole thing over with only three months left to go. I’d be well good at it. Always up for a protest me. And, may I remind you, I do, on occasion, recycle.
They might find out about that time I once said “bollocks to the planet,” which I fear would stand against me. But I was having a really bad day. And the theatre was refusing to give me paper tickets, which is something that even an extinction rebellioner would understand-
Yeah. You’re right. Probably not.
They would have done with paper tickets and programmes and freesheets and every else good in life, wouldn’t they. I am the antithesis of everything they stand for.
That sucks.
Oh well.
Best go to the theatre then.
“Bag?” says the bag checker on the door.
I open it for him, wincing as we both peer in.
I’ve just done a Superdrug haul. Toothpaste and hairclips and cough sweets float around on top of the more permenant detritus in my bag.
He does not inspect any further.
I can’t blame him really.
“Box office?” I ask an usher who is standing in the middle of the overcrowded lobby, trying to bring order to the chaos.
“Yup, that way,” she says, looking over her shoulder to indicate the well signposted desk just opposite the doors.
I join the queue.
At least, I think it’s the queue. There isn’t really room for a proper line, so we’re all just hanging about, trying not to tread on each other.
A box officer is freed up, and I nip forward into place.
But I’m so distracted by the mass of people around me, I total miss what they say to me.
“Err, the surname’s… Smiles,” I say, hoping that’s the correct response for what they asked. “Sorry, I had to think about that one.”
The box officer laughs politely. “Maxine?”
“Yup,” I say, making a mental note not to make any more attempts at humour tonight. I do not want to be that customer. As if ushers don’t have enough to be getting on with.
Paper ticket acquired, it’s time I got me a paper programme.
If I’m killing the planet, I might as well support my own industry while doing it.
And will you look at there, there’s a hatch right next to the box office marked programmes. You almost never see that anymore. The few hatched programme desks are usually bordered up. It feels like an artifact from another age. A gentler age. An age when we didn’t have to worry about our children fighting over the last cup of water.
I bounce my way over happily and ask for one.
The programme seller is holding a fan of all the options, but uses her free hand to point to the copies laid out on the desk. “Is it for Fisherman or Joe Egg?” she asks, pointing at each in turn.
“Joe Egg,” I tell her. Because that’s what I’m here to see. A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
“Lovely,” says the programme seller. “That’s four pounds fifty.”
That’s not even unreasonable. “Do you take cards?” I ask. I’ve just been to the cash machine and I’m feeling a bit protective of my lovely new notes.
“No,” she says with an apologetic shrug. “I can’t. But if you want to pay by card, then my colleagues at the bar…”
I shake my head. “No. No. It’s okay. I have cash.”
I can’t face dealing with the bar queue. Not when I’m so close to owning the papery goodness.
That done, I fling myself into the bustle of the foyer to get a photo of the hatch, but just as I’m bringing up the camera app, the programme seller is closing the little window, sealing herself in.
If I'd been just a few seconds later, I would have missed my chance to buy from the hatch.
Well, no use dwelling over things that never happened.
I slip back through the crowd and head towards the doors.
You’ve got to admire the ticket checkers at the Trafalgar. One set of doors. Two theatres. It would break my brain in seconds. And they handle it all with cheerful smiles pinned on their faces.
I show the nearest one my ticket.
“Great!” he says, all chirpy happiness. “Would you like a programme?” He holds out his little fan of them.
“I already have one!” I say a touch too proudly considering, well... it’s just a programme.
Still, he seems impressed. “Oh! Well done,” he says. I grin happily. At least someone appreciates me for my programme buying habits. “Right, you’re up the stairs here,” he says, pointing the way.
Up the stairs it is.
At the top, a sign points me over to the door on the left.
Inside, there’s an usher waiting.
“Hello!” she calls over as I walk into the auditorium
“Hi!” I show her my ticket.
“Up the stairs and you’re in the back row.”
More stairs.
At least I’m getting some cardio in, I guess.
But as I make it to the back row, a couple of women are leaving. And there’s someone standing in front of my seat. She’s dressed very smartly. Excessively smartly.
“Where are you sitting,” she asks, just as I twig that she’s an usher.
I tell her.
“Would you like to sit further forward?”
“Err,” I say, for a lack of proper words. I was not prepared for this. No one told me there would be a quiz.
“I think you should,” she says encouragingly.
“Okay?”
“How about F1?” she says, drawing a line through one of the highlighted seats on the map she has in her hands.
“Okay?”
“Great!”
“Oh, wait. Can you write it down for me. I have a terrible memory.” And terrible anxiety. I need a paper trail of this discussion before going anywhere.
I offer her my ticket and she scrawls the new seat number on it.
Perfect.
Back down the stairs.
The front of houser by the door glances over as I traipse past. “Got an upgrade!” I say to explain my reappearance.
“Lovely!”
I find my seat. Right on the end of the row, and much closer to the stage.
I think I’ve lucked out, even if I do have to get up every thirty seconds to let someone into the row. At least half of those passing by step on my foot. Only one of them turns around to apologise.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, still wincing with pain.
It’s not, but you know, I appreciate the acknowledgement.
To distract myself, I start taking pictures. First of the stage, and then twisting around in my seat to capture the auditorium in all it’s... can we call it glory? I don’t think so. Not that there is anything wrong with the main house at Trafalgar Studios. Studio 1 is just fine. The seats are fine. The sightlines are okay. The stage is reasonable. But that’s it. It’s modern. Ish. And clean. Ish. There’s nothing to irritate. But also, nothing to inspire. No fancy twirly bits. No chandelier. This is not a temple dedicated to the performing arts. It’s just a theatre. Plain and simple. Does what it says on the tin. Makes no promises, and doesn't break them.
As I twist back, I catch a front of houser’s eye. He’s holding up a no photos sign. I put my phone away, shamefaced.
The play’s starting anyway.
Toby Stephens comes out, in full teacher mode, telling us to be quiet, ordering eyes front, hands on our heads.
A few people in the audience oblige.
I am not one of them.
I’m really not into this. School was bad enough the first time around.
Still, I do like Toby Stephens. I feel like I have a story about Toby Stephens, but I can’t remember what it is, or even how I might have come by it, as I have never worked on any of his shows. So, I’m probably just imagining it. But even so, I feel like my story about Toby Stephens, if I do actually have one, is probably very charming and shows us both off in an excellent light. Which is nice.
Not sure about this play though. Bit depressing. And I’m not really in the mood for depressing right now. Especially this brand of depressing. The hopeless, bad ending, kind. I can tell it’s going to have a bad ending already. There are too many jokes for it to end well.
In the interval, half my row disappears down onto the stage to get themselves an ice cream.
It is way too cold in here for that nonsense. I pull out my scarf and wrap it around me like a shawl, trying not to shiver.
What is it with theatres still blasting their air conditioning? It’s October. It’s time to put the heating on, people.
As the interval nears its end, my row starts to make its return.
They each, in turn, stand on my foot.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” says one. “I’ve done it again. Was it your’s again?”
“It was. It’s okay,” I tell her. Again, it’s not okay. But like, at least she remembered it was me.
“What was that?” cries out one of the leftovers as her friend returns. “I thought you’d disappeared!”
The friend hands over an ice cream and slumps back down in her seat. “They all melted, and they went off to get some frozen ones!”
The ones they’ve got now don’t look all that solid, but they make the best of it, polishing off the tiny tubs with their tiny spoons, just as the house lights dim for act two.
I was right.
It didn’t end well.
There’s plenty of applause but we’re all curiously silent as we file out towards the exit.
“I’m never going to a play ever again,” says someone standing near me. “I’m sticking to musicals after that.”
As if to lift our mood, music is pumping out after us.
A man stops the usher. “What’s the music?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “No idea.”
“Oh.”
We go down the stairs, but the man still has his question.
“What’s the music?” he asks the bloke behind the merch desk.
The merch desk bloke doesn’t know either.
But I’ve been checking my notifications, and my phone is claiming to know the answer.
“It’s Dear Mr Fantasy by Traffic,” I read off my screen.
“Dear Mr what?” says the man, rounding on me.
“Fantasy.”
“Traffic,” says his wife, helpfully. “We can just look up Traffic.”
“We’ll look it up on Spotify,” he tells me. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
I don’t know whether it’s the play or the song he’s referring to, but I quickly say ‘yes’ and then make my escape.
Extinction Rebellion are still roaring. The flags still waving. The police still lined up across Whitehall.
I bet they’re the ones that unplugged the ice cream freezer.
Good for them.
