I have exactly seven minutes to get off this train, navigate my way through the station, get myself over to the theatre, pick up my ticket, and find my seat.
It's fine. It's all totally fine.
And so not my fault. How dare you.
I left a good hour ago. For a journey that Citymapper assured me could be done in thirty-eight minutes. So you see, I was being responsible. Leaving extra time. Just in case the District line was being... well, it's usual District line self.
What Citymapper failed to account for, was me getting on the Westbound train, instead of the Eastbound one which I should have got on. Because I just started a new job and I'm a little sleep-deprived at the moment and pretty much working solely on autopilot right now.
So you see: not my fault.
It's pelting it down as we pull into Richmond.
The exit to the station is clogged by crowds trying to escape the downpour.
"Oh for gawd's SAKE," I growl at a group of shoppers blocking me in and forcing me to climb over their mountain of bags.
But I'm out.
Shaking my umbrella into life with one hand and bringing up Google Maps with the other, I splash my way through the puddles, not waiting for the lights to change before crossing the road. I duck and dive between slow-moving pedestrians, and jump over a very small dog who is too busy delicately sniffing a lamppost to notice the woman in a too-short velvet dress and a grim-expression baring down on him.
Round the corner. And the next one.
Is this it?
That's a fucking fancy building over there. All red stone pillars and carvings everywhere. Definitely a Frank Matcham building if ever I saw one. There can't of been two architects like that. The whole city would have collapsed under the strain of excessive twiddly-bits.
Just time for the quickest of photos then I'm running up the stairs.
A front of housers steps out, blocking my way with a smile.
"Do you have your ticket on you?" she asks, her cheerful expression only faltering slightly at the sight of my red and puffy one.
"No, I'm collecting," I tell her.
"Just this way please," she says, pointing the way down to a sunken box office.
I trot down the steps and go over to the counter.
"Hi! The surname's Smiles?" I tell one of the box officers.
He finds my ticket in the ticket box and looks at it carefully.
"We put you in the Dress Circle," he tells me.
"Great!" I say enthuasitically.
"We've closed the Upper Circle today."
Oh. Well, that's not so great. But between you and me, I was rather counting on it. When I booked my ticket, the seat plan didn't look all that full, so I took a punt and bought myself the cheapest ticket I cound find. Twelve quid. Well, sixteen and a bit once you add all of ATG's outrageous fees on top. But still, not bad for third row in the Dress Circle if you've got the nerves to play that game.
He hands me a pile of tickets. My original one, with the receipt and all that attached. And the new one. Comped through, with my name handwritten across the top.
Back into the little foyer and up towards the stairs. No time to stop off at the merch desk. Go directly to your seat. Do not investigate the existence of programmes. Do not pass go.
"Just this way please," says one of the front of housers positioned on the stairs when I show her my ticket.
She has the poshest voice I've ever heard in my life and I feel my legs processing the instruction before my head has even got a handle on them.
Up more stairs and then into the auditorium.
I have a general impression of... Edwardian exuberance. But there's no time to take any of it in. Down to row C, and an apology to the woman sitting at the end.
"I knew there'd be another one," she sniffs disapprovingly as if she'd been waiting for me to turn up.
"Sorry," I say again. "I got caught out in the rain."
I have no idea what that excuses, but it's what I had so I went with it.
I move along the row and find my seat, dumping my bag and umbrella in relief.
The man sitting near me dives forward and grabs the glass of beer I'd nearly toppled.
"Oh, sorry," I say.
"No, no. It's all me," he says.
I don't argue. It is kinda all him. We have a whole seat acting as buffer between us. There was no need for his beer glass to be sitting there.
Finally, I can sit down and catch my breath.
I look around me.
Usually when I'm in a Matcham theatre, I fall to the cliche simile of saying the place looks like a wedding cake. But ain't no-one getting a cake like this made for them unless they have HRH in their name. There isn't a single inch of wall that isn't covered in decoration.
Fat babies line up above the curtain swags to hold up garlands of flowers.
The boxes either side are topped by chubby faces sprouting wings out of their necks.
Ladies who haven't quite mastered the art of pinning their togas also demonstrate a lack of understanding as to how to play a tambourine, lifting up their arms in very elegant, almost balletic gestures, while their instrument sits uselessly at waist level.
Elsewhere, a skinny bearded man wearing a crown, stares at a woman's arse, which I'm sure is a reference to some myth or other, and not just Matcham getting overexcited.
All of this is topped by a stone plaque proclaiming "To wake the soul by tender strokes of art," which if you ask me, doesn't explain anything. What on earth is doing the stroking? Is it theatre? Or the skinny bearded man? The plaque does not say.
The lights flicker around the auditorium, and then go out.
It's starting.
It's 1947 and sadness snaps at the heels of everyone who made it through the war.
"Can you see?" a man whispers in the row behind me.
"Yes," comes the reply. "Can you see?"
"Yes, yes. I can see."
As if this exchange wasn't pointless enough, the man then leans over to the next person in their group. "Can you see?"
After a bit of back and forth, it's established that they can all see, and we can get on with the business of being stroked with art.
From what I understand, Night Watch is an adaptation of a Sarah Waters novel, so I'm sat here waiting for the gay to start and... yup. There we go.
You know, thinking about it, I haven't seen many lesbian scenes on this marathon. This might well be my first. Even when going to plays that are specifically pitched as 'gay' it's always been of the male variety. There just doesn't seem to be that much lesbian-action happening in theatre. Which is a shame.
Down my row, there's a great rumble. A snore.
I look over.
The lady who was all pissy about my turning up not-late is asleep. Hands clasped in her lap. Her head drooping forward. Snoring.
Once. Twice.
The third one is a snort so loud she wakes herself up, her head and shoulders shaking as she pulls herself back into consciousness.
Just in time for the interval.
I suppose I better go find the programmes.
I head back out to the foyer.
The merch desk is covered in piles of Waters' book. Eight pounds, according to the sign. There are also mugs, and a teddy. For reasons.
"Hi! Are there programmes?" I ask, looking down at this packed table.
"There are programmes," says the merch desker. "They're just here." From behind a stack of books, she points to a small pile of programmes. "They're four pounds."
Half the price of the original text. Honestly, when you say it like that, you realise how expensive my programme habit is.
"Brilliant!" I say, ignoring the screams coming from inside my purse. "Can I pay by card."
"Of course you can! There's a card machine just in front of you. Would you like a receipt?"
I would not.
There doesn't seem to be much else happening down here.
I go back to into the auditorium. Not many people have left. A few have made it to the back to get themselves an ice cream, but for the most part everyone is still in their seat.
My end-of-rower has got herself an icecream. I hope the sugar will keep her energy up for the second half as we are plunged back in time to 1943.
Soon enough. The snore returns.
First from the end-of-rower, and then my beer drinking neighbour.
They bat their snorts from one to the other, like a sleepy game of ping-pong.
My neighbour is the first to awake.
"Sorry, sorry," he announces to the theastre in general before slumping further into his seat.
The end-of-rower's head quivers then sinks back down into her chest.
Not sure how either of them could be sleeping. Yes, it's very warm in here. And the seats are well comfy. And it's mid-afternoon on a rainy and miserable day. But there are frickin' bombs going off on stage! Of both the literal, and emotional kind.
Good thing this lot are all a fraction too young to have served in the war. They'd have snoozed their way through every air raid.
As the applause dies, I pull on my cardie, and my jacket, and get my umbrella ready for action.
The end-of-rower has already stormed her back up the steps to the back of the Dress Circle and has fallen into conversation with one of the ushers.
"You haven't seen it?" she asks, incredulous.
The usher explains that, no, she hasn't been posted inside the auditorium during the show as yet.
"You must!" the end-of-rower goes on. "It's very good."
I mean... it's a fine story, but I'm not sure I'd be trusting this lady to provide criticism of it. If she was tenderly stroked by art, it was only to soothe her dreams.
I stop in the foyer to make some notes on my phone. Through the doors I can see the downpour and I have no desire to step out into it quite yet.
"Thank you!" calls the merch desker over to me.
Okay, I guess that's my prompt to leave.
Umbrella up, here I go.
