"You're wearing a fun coat!" says Martha as we hug hello in the middle of KFC.
She's just got off a delayed train from Birmingham and has rushed all the way from Euston to join me at the Hackney Empire for a touch of panto. Yes, I am quite aware I do not deserve her as a friend. It's okay. I know.
Hopefully I'm making up for it somewhat by feeding her before we go in.
Plus, of course, I am wearing a fun coat.
"I'm very cuddly," I say. That's one of the benefits of wearing a massive fur coat. It's like hugging a teddy bear.
The KFCer drops our food on the counter.
It's been one hell of a journey to get it. Three times in a single transaction she's managed to get distracted and wander off to do something else. Ending with her blinking at me.
"Yes?" she said, sounding more than a bit pissed off to see me still standing in front of her till.
"Err, can I pay?" I asked.
Turns out I could.
Honestly, Martha may have had to contend with delayed trains from Birmingham, but I had my own problems. The Piccadilly line was so damn busy tonight we almost needed those proffesional train pushers from Tokyo to get us all to fit in.
"No eye contact!" ordered the TFLer at Oxford Circus. "No smiling! Come on guys, you know the score. You will be judged!"
But at least we're both here. And have Fillet burgers to make everything just that tiniest touch better.
Plus, I already have the tickets, so all we have to do is finish our dinners and stroll in.
Oh yeah, that's another thing. The Hackney Empire might have those cute little box office windows I love so much, but they're no good if the microphone isn't working.
The box officer had to lean right in to hear me and I still had to repeat myself three times.
As for when she talked, yeah, couldn't hear I damn thing. I was working on guess work. Guesses borne of 284 theatre trips.
"Maxine?" I hazarded as she plucked out a ticket.
Oh well. It did the trick and I now have them, sitting in my pocket. Two tickets. For the stalls. Because I know how to treat a girl.
Burgers polished off, we make the short walk over to the theatre.
There are homeless people everywhere. Commuters peel off to one side in order to move around the man sitting on the pavement, begging for help. A woman is walking up and down, asking for people to buy her a cup of tea.
"The entrance is closed?" says Martha, stopping outside the theatre.
I look over. The steps leading up to the doors are now empty. Even the ticket checker seems to have moved on.
"Where's the entrance to the stalls?" I ask. I vaguely remembered the ticket checker pointing out the way to someone.
"It's there," says Martha. She knows this theatre well. She worked here back in the day. "But the door is closed."
A dreadful thought occurs to me.
"Did I get the start time wrong?" I ask, pulling the tickets from my pocket. "Oh shit. It's 7pm. I did," I say, bursting into laughter. We're ten minutes late. Almost the exact amount of time we just spent stuffing fried chicken into our faces.
Martha doubles back and heads for the main doors, me following on meekly behind. She takes the tickets and shows them to a front of houser. I stop, presuming that she'll hold us back until some latecomers point, but she just points us towards a side door.
"Sorry," comes a voice from behind us. "Can we search your bags please?"
We stop in our tracks. I don't know about Martha, but having a bag checker order me to stop has me feeling all guilty. I know full well I don't have any contraband in my bag. But suddenly I'm panicking that there might be a rogue protein bar in there.
The bag checker peers in. I spot my newly purchased water bottle lurking in the bottom and I try to remember whether the pre-show email from the theatre said that drinks were banned as well as food.
He lets it pass.
We go through the door, down the corridor, and without a single person stopping us, go through the doors to the theatre.
I let Martha lead the way, down the side aisle and towards the front. Up on stage two glittered-up characters are having a slanging match. I hope they don't spot us.
We make it to our seats, right on the aisle, thank the theatre gods, and we stuff ourselves in, cramming our coats under our chairs and listening to the roar of laughter around us to some off-colour joke.
As we settle down, I suppose I should admit that I'm not a fan of panto.
No. Wait.
That's not right. Not a fan suggests a passive disinterest with the genre. No. I very actively dislike panto.
I've managed to avoid going to one for a very long time.
I used to cry and beg as a child not to have to go to the panto, which as much passion and snot as I used to get out of piano lessons.
Yeah. A child begging not to have to go to see a show.
That's what we're talking here.
You've known me long enough by this point that you can probably guess the reasons: audience interaction, nonsense storylines, and shouting. So much shouting. I really hate shouting.
But I think I might be okay tonight. The Hackney panto is the granddaddy of them all. I mean, even I know that it's pretty much the gold standard. And besides, I've got Martha here to protect me.
She did manage to put herself in first so that I'm on the aisle though... Hmm...
But for now, I'm safe in this warm fug of laughter.
The crowd roars as the panto dame is rolled out on a trolley.
Martha leans over to me in confusion. "I thought Clive Rowe wasn't doing it this year?"
I had absolutely no intel on the matter so I just shrug and shake my head.
"Put the lights up!" orders Rowe. "I'm going down."
Oh dear.
As the house lights go up, I slink down in my seat.
Rowe is padding down the steps into the stalls. And he has someone in his sights. Someone very special.
"Come on, come on," he orders, pulling said someone out of their seat.
"Who is it?" whispers Martha.
I shake my head, I don't know.
Turns out, neither does Rowe.
"What's your name then?"
The man mumbles something back.
"What's that?"
The man leans in and mumbles again.
"Bernard?" says Rowe. "Berrrrnarrrdddd."
Bernard nods.
"I thought it was a celebrity!" says Martha.
Me too.
"Who are you here with, Berrnarrrrdddddd?" asks Rowe.
Bernard is here with his family. He points them out and they wave back grinning. They are loving this.
They love it even more with Rowe starts tugging at his zip. Rowe was that jacket off to see what Bernard is offering.
Bernard willingly relinquishes his jacket. He less willingly strikes a strong-man pose. But when Rowe goes for the second layer of clothing, Bernard twists away. That's a bit much.
"That was cruel," I say to Martha as Bernard is allowed back to his seat.
She nods vigorously.
Probably because we are both now in fear of being dragged out of our seats. A fear not allayed even when Rowe starts chucking sweets about.
But both Martha and I make it to the interval still in our seats.
"I need to get a programme," I say, leaping up as soon as the house lights release me.
I look around, and spot something strange at the back of the auditorium.
"I didn't know the bar was in the theatre," I say.
"Oh, yeah," says Martha. "It's cool, right? I really love this theatre."
"It is beautiful."
I squeeze my way through the crowds to the back of the stalls. There's a merch desk back here too, and I can already see the spread of shiny programmes fanned out on the counter.
"Sorry," says a woman, stopping me. "Is it over, or are they on a break?"
It takes me a moment to figure out that we are not having a conversation about the Ross and Rachel saga.
"It's the interval," I tell her. "Don't worry, they'll be back."
She nods. Suspicions confirmed.
Leaving the group to return to their seats, I make it over to the merch desk.
"Can I get a programme please?" I ask, doing my best to ignore all the flashy lights and other items that want me to buy them.
I can, for the very reasonable price of three pounds.
I grab my purse to get the money out. Or try and get the money out, anyway. I can't. The zip running down the back of my elephant shaped purse is broken.
"Sorry," I tell the programme seller, as I jab my finger in the tiny gap and try to wrench the thing open, silently apologising to my poor Fred the elephant as I yank at him. After a long struggle, the zip pulls away, just enough for me to get a couple of fingers in. I feel around, and pull out three pounds coins from amongst the other, inferior, coinage. You see. This is why I like pound coins. They are chunky. Or thicc, as the kids might say. That's what makes them so pleasingly reliable, even when your zip is broken.
Still, my poor Fred.
I place him back in my bag, with the care of a nurse lifting a hospital blanket over a recently deceased patient.
Transaction complete, I turn around to find Martha.
"I can't find the ice cream!" she wails.
"Are they not selling it at the bar?"
"No!"
I look around, spotting a huge mass of people over in the corner, down near the front of the stage. "What about there?"
Martha goes off to investigate, returning a moment later with the news that yes, that's where the ice cream seller is hiding.
"I'm getting a Double Chocolate," she says. "What do you want?"
Well, gosh... Can't turn down a free ice cream now, can I?
I go for a Strawberry, because yes, I am that basic.
We go back to our seats, chatting about the production.
"I loved that ship," I saw, taking about the massive ship that had taken up the entire stage, and split open to show the interior. As sets go, that ranks right up there with the stage rotating upside down in Wild at the Hampstead. Or the white walls turning into Mao-posters when they were washed in Wild Swans at the Young Vic. Something about the word 'wild' brings out the best in set designers. The Hackney panto is certainly a wild ride. Dick Whittington has managed to step off the Windrush without knowing his namesake and immediately accepts his destiny to become mayor of London by leaving the city.
I am enjoying the whole-hearted anti-Brexitness of it all. Including the rat called Boris.
"I know I'm biased," says Martha as she digs into her Double Chocolate. "But I just love this theatre so much."
I look around. It is quite the spectacular venue. Not an inch has gone undecorated. It looks like a Victorian Christmas card. Leaning my head right back, I notice something. "The ceiling is glittery," I say.
Martha sighs. "I love this theatre so much."
"What do the fours mean?" I ask, pointing to the number 4s written over the doors on each side.
"I don't know," says Martha, sounding annoyed at her own ignorance. But she recovers quickly. "It's a Frank Matcham theatre."
But of course.
"Clive Rowe," she goes on. "You know, the mum, is the only person to win an Olivier for a panto. He doesn't do it every year, but when he does, it always sells out."
I laugh. "I love how much trivia you know."
"I ran the social media for nine months..." she says, darkly.
"He's great," I say. "I loved how even the stage hand was grinning away in the wings."
"I saw that!" says Martha, suddenly all excited.
A voice comes over the soundsystem. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the performance will begin in five minutes."
I get up to put my empty ice cream tube into one of the plastic bin bags tied to the railing running around the stalls.
And then we're launched back into the story, joining Dick and pals down under the sea.
There's a mermaid swimming across the stage.
The girls sitting behind us gasp.
A short trip via a desert island (compleate with King Kong) later, we're back in London Town. And the cat wants to teach us how to talk as cool as him.
A board with lyrics descends.
Oh dear.
A short demonstration of moves later, and we're ordered to our feet. As Kat B sings the Cool Cat Chat, we get out paws out, our claws out, shake our tails, clean our ears, and take a cat nap.
With relief I sit back down. That wasn't too bad. Not with Martha here to shake her tail beside me.
But we don't get away that easily. We were rubbish, and need to do it again.
"For fuck's sake," says Martha as she gets back to her feet. "I'm so tired!"
Paws, claws, tails, ears and naps are all shown off and we sink back down into our seats.
"I love panto!" says Martha as the cast crouch down to wave at us from beneath the descending curtain.
"I have seven more to see..." I say, the enthuasism very much lacking from my voice.
"Lucky!"
"Yeah, but would you want to see them alone?"
"Oh, yeah. Not alone! But I'll come to another one."
We start walking towards the exit.
"Well, I'm going to Hounslow tomorrow. And Catford. And, shit, where else... Oh yeah, I've got to go to Harrow!"
A woman walking in front of us turns around. "I don't have to go to Harrow!" she cries out in horror.
Martha and I share a confused glance as we push our way out into the Hackney night.
