"I'll be five minutes!" I text Allison. "Grab a table?"
Allison texts back in the affirmative. She's on it.
I run up Kingsway on my own mission.
I stop at the corner of Portugal Street and pull my phone out of my pocket, taking a picture of the theatre as I catch my breath. Right, that’s done. It's time to pick up the tickets.
I have to hang back as young people pour of the long line of doors. Very young people. Children. The matinee must have just got out. I have timed this spectacularly badly.
They look happy though. The young people. Must be a good show.
Eventually the flow stills and I manage to get inside.
The Peacock is a funny old theatre. It spends most of it's time as a lecture hall for LSE. I've even been to a lecture here. Back when I thought doing a PhD might be a viable way of escaping my career crisis. Turns out it wasn't, and instead I chose the route of quitting my job and taking an unpaid interneship in the arts instead. Not quite sure that worked out either...
Anyway, I'm here. At The Peacock. A venue I technically work for, so I need to be on my best behaviour.
Up the steps and over to the box office, lurking in the shadows at the back of the foyer. I head over to the box officer I recognise.
"Can I pick up tickets for Smiles?" I ask. "Staff tickets," I add, just in case I look different outside of fierce yellow light of the office kitchen.
She grabs the pile of staff ticket forms and pulls mine out before going back to her seat to start tapping away at her computer.
"At least it's warm in here," I say, doing my best to fill in the awkward silence. "It's freezing out there."
"The weather has changed," she agrees. "There you go. Two pounds."
Bloody bargain.
I look at the tickets. Two of them. Central stalls.
Epic bargain more like.
All that friendly kitchen banter has clearly done the trick. Moral of the story, always be nice to box officers. They have the power, and should be respected.
A message comes through from Allison. She has a table.
Fuck. Okay. Better run.
Tickets stuffed in pocket, I pull my jacket tight around me, brace myself for the cold, and hurry back the way I came, hopping from foot to foot as I wait for the traffic lights to change on Kingsway, rounding the Aldwych and slipping through the doors of the Delauney Counter.
I love the Delauney Counter, with its old fashioned gentility, and attentive staff, and schnitzel sandwiches.
I think it might be my favourite place in London. Instant calm as soon as I walk through the door.
Even with the counter covered in white chocolate ghost masks for Halloween.
Allison has a table, as promised. And we both spend far too long pouring over the menu before deciding that the perfect accompaniment to schnitzel sandwiches is a salted caramel hot chocolate.
Bless the waiter. He didn't even wince the teeniest bit as he takes our horror-show order. He has truly got into the Halloween spirit.
"I'm going to take a photo of you," says Allison, getting out her phone.
Turns out, the fact that I'm wearing my Greggs t-shirt in a fancy-arse Austro-Hungarian cafe is pretty darn amusing. I do my best to pose, but you know I'm not good with photos.
At least the salted caramel hot chocolates are good. So thick you have to eat them with a spoon. And surprisingly, alternating sips with mouthfuls of pickles doesn't make you want to boak.
Which is a bonus.
A waiter comes over and very sweetly tells us that they are closing in five minutes, and would it be alright if we pay our bill and leave please.
It would. But could they add one of those darling bags of Halloween biscuits to it, please very much and thank you?
"Look!" says Allison, as the waiter brings it over and sets it reverently on the table. "It has a witches hat! And a black cat!"
It does have a witch’s hat. And a black cat. But more importantly: "It has a severed finger in it!" I squeak, way too excited by the idea of a bloody finger sitting among my snacks.
Bill paid and scarves on, we venture back outside.
"It's. So. Cold," I complain as we make our way to The Peacock, regretting with every step that I didn't order another hot chocolate to go.
The foyer is now buzzing with slightly older children. The under-tens shifted off for an early night, while their teen brothers and sisters take over for the 6pm show.
At the top of the stairs, a front of houser stands, holding up a handful of programmes, spread out in a fan.
I stop.
I don't need to buy one. Someone will leave a pile on my desk at some point. But I can't help but look all the same.
I made those. Well, I mean. I wrote the brief and asked people more talented then me to make them. But still. I did that. I made that happen. And I won't be doing it again. I'm leaving my job next week, and that programme was the last one I sent to print. My last ever programme, quite possibly.
As we head down the stairs I stop to take a photo of the merch desk, with its long line of programmes just waiting to be bought.
I hope people do.
"Where are we sitting?" asks Allison.
"Stalls," I say proudly. It's not often that I get to take people to the good seats.
"Stalls is one level down," says a programme seller as we pass. "Or the circle is just through here."
"Thank you!" we say as we pass, breezing down another level to the fancy seats.
The bar down here is busy. But I have to say, it's not very nice. Even the long mirror, with it's row of globe-lights can't help lift the grey walled basement we're in right now.
"I might go to the loo?" I say. This show isn't short. And we did just drink a small vat of chocolate.
Turns out, that's not such an easy thing at The Peacock. Oh, sure. They have them. There isn't even a queue. But when you get yourself in one of those cubicles, those loos are...
"That was a really weird toilet," I say to Allison when we find each other back in the bar.
"That was a really weird toilet," she agrees. "It's like... are we on an aeroplane?"
It was like being on an aeroplane. There was a lid that needed to be unclicked. And then reclipped. And buttons. And vacuum suction.
It was really fucking weird. I can't believe I haven't been to the loos here before. All these years, and they've been there. With their lids. And their vacuum. And I didn't even know.
I get out my phone to make a note of that.
Allison laughs. "Are you making notes about the really weird toilet?"
I roll my eyes. "Yeah. Sorry."
"It's like: what on earth?!"
Yeah. What on fucking earth?!
I get out my compact to powder my nose. Those loos were so baffling I hadn't wanted to stick around in there to use the mirror.
"You're such a lady," says Allison, laughing as she imitates my actions.
Yeah, well. Some of us have shiny noses that we have to contend with.
"Shall we go in?" I suggest.
We both look at the nearest door into the auditorium.
"Is it this one?" I ask. "What does it say on the sign?"
At this point, I should probably put on my glasses. But you know how bad I am at wearing them. And besides, I've got Allison with me.
We decide that this is, actually, the correct entrance and I show our tickets to the front of houser on the door.
"Yup," she says. "Turn right at row J."
So we do, walking past all those rows of red velvety seats until we reach row J, and then turn right.
There's a family sitting behind us. They look very excited.
And even better. They have a programme.
I like them immediately.
"Please try not to crease the pages," says the mum, handing it down the line.
It's nice to see paper products being properly handled. It's what they deserve. Trees died to make them, after all.
I look around.
There's quite a lot of programmes being flicked through and read in here. It's very pleasing. I find myself watching a couple read the biographies section together. One of them looks up, and I have to turn away very quickly before he realises I was creeping on his reading habits.
Thankfully, the lights are dimming and we're off.
Some Like it Hip Hop.
It's fun, but I'm not a big fan of dance shows having a narrator. Like, either your choreography has the power to tell a story, or it doesn't. And if it's that latter, then maybe it's not the right medium for the narrative. Ya know?
In the interval, the girls sitting next to us try to get out.
"Sorry, darling," one says to the other. "I don't know where to stand!"
The first one struggles over the second's knees, stumbling as she does so. "Sorry, I'm sitting in your lap!"
The safety curtain comes down, and I stare at it.
"There's projections," I say, as a rotating carousel of show trailers plays up on the beige curtain. "I swear they didn't do that the last time I was here."
I mean, I know I've been neglecting my own venues this year. What with having to go to every other fucking venue in London. But my lack of knowledge about this theatre is starting to get embarrassing.
"Ooo!" I say, as the trailer for Galactik Ensemble comes up. "We should go see that one! It looks amazing. The set is trying to kill them!"
"Like The Play That Goes Wrong?"
"I guess..." I mean, sure. More circusy and French. But sure.
As the interval draws to a close, Allison and I stand up to let them pass.
"Don't sit down, we're leaving again," they say, grabbing their coats before slipping back the way they came.
A pile-up forms in our row, as they round on those trying to get back in.
"What's happening?" asks Allison.
"I have no fucking idea. Are they going-going or just moving?"
Whereever they are, the lights are going down again and they're going to be missing the second act.
Time slips by quickly in a torrent of song and dance, with way more story than my stupified brain can cope with. But the loud music and mega moves are keeping me awake.
And when the audience jumps to their feet for a standing ovation, I'm more than happy to join in with them.
That is, until the cast wants to get us moving.
I back against my seat.
Allison looks over at me and laughs. "You're not joining in?" she asks as everyone around us waves their arms over their head.
I shake my head. "I am not joining in."
The cast busy themselves teaching everyone a few moves and I hold myself very tightly until it's all over. I can't be having with that sort of thing. It's too much to ask of someone who can't even clap a beat.
"That was great!" says Allison.
"It was fun," I agree. "Bit heteronormative, but fun."
Allison nods. "Yeah. That scene with the daughter..."
"They could have been such a cute lesbian couple!"
"Yeah, she could find out that the other one is actually a woman..."
"And then still be super into it!"
And we're off. Dramaturging our own version of the show all the way to the tube station and deciding that we would be really good at it.
"How do you become a dramaturge?" asks Allison.
I have no fucking idea... How do you become a dramaturge?
On the tube journey back to Hammersmith, I pull the ribbons free from my Delauney bag and nibble on the witch's hat.
Turns out that biscuits covered in black icing are really not suitable for consuming in public.
As I wash my face before bed, I find my lips have been stained completely black.
Which, I've got to admit, is a look. But not sure one I'll be rocking again any time soon.
