Pinch Me, We're In Finchley

It’s just past 6 o’clock. The evening one. The sun is blazing. And I’m in Finchley.

This is weird. I haven’t been in Finchley at 6 o’clock in a good long time.

I’m not sure I even remember what this place looks like in daylight anymore.

Did I get the time wrong? Have I, perhaps, left work two hours too early today? I check my phone.

Nope. But I do have a message from Helen.

“I’m just walking from the station!”

“Me too.” I reply. “I’m next to the Barclays.” I pause. Barclays maybe isn’t quite the landmark I think it is for people who don’t actually live in Finchley. “Opposite Tesco,” I add.

There’s no missing the Tesco. It is honestly the single best thing about living in Finchley, that Tesco. It’s a nice one. Big enough that it has everything you could possibly need (from my favourite Sriracha, to a decent Kosher section for all my Bamba and halva needs) and yet not so big that you walk out of there staggering under fifty kilo bags of jasmine rice and an equestrian fly rug.

But I haven’t dragged Helen all the way to the end of the Northern Line to shop in the big Tesco. Oh, no. We have something far more exciting planned.

We’re going to the theatre.

My local one.

For once I’m going to be the one to stroll home post-theatre in time for an early night, curled up under my duvet and happy in the knowledge that Helen is still on a train somewhere.

I’m really quite excited.

“Oh okay I see a Tesco”

And I see Helen. Waving at me and standing out from the Finchley locals like a Bengal tiger in a pet shop. With her huge, circular, mirrored sunglasses, she looks like some sort of exotic bug. I doubt Finchley has seen the likes of Helen before. And I’m not sure they’re quite ready for her yet.

“I brought cupcakes!” I say, holding up the pink and maroon Hummingbird bakery bag. Its Helen’s birthday tomorrow, and we’re celebrating in style. Theatre and cake. A classic combo.

“This way,” I say, taking the lead.

It’s not often that I get the opportunity to walk someone around my home-town. It’s rather fun.

We’re not going to the theatre quite yet. We have to stop to make first.

Just to make sure that Helen gets the full Finchley experience, we’re going to meet a neighbour of mine. Someone who has made an uncredited appearance on the blog before, but now it’s time that you meet properly: it’s David. Arts writer extraordinaire, master of prose, tamer of choreographers, and most importantly, a Finchley native.

“Oh. My. God,” I say as Helen and I make our way into David’s kitchen and see the table laden down with plate after plate of food. There’s an asparagus and pastry thingy. A bean salad thingy. A beetroot and cucumbery doodad. And olives and almonds and bread and… I am suddenly the hungriest person in the world, because let me tell you, David can fucking cook, and this all looks proper amazing. He’s even used herbs from his own garden, which is just plain showing off if you ask me.

I would take a photo. I really want to take a photo. It’s all so damn pretty. But it feels like it’s probably wrong to take a snapshot of someone else’s cooking. So I don’t. Sorry. You’ll just have to take my word for the deliciousness of the spread.

The sun is still shining, so we take it all outside.

“I haven’t read Orlando,” says Helen, casually, as the subject of the show we’re seeing comes up.

“I’m sorry, what the hell?” How on earth has Helen managed to get through life without reading Orlando?

“Have you?”

“Of course!” Twice actually. But I don’t like to brag.

“How do you have time to write your blog, work full-time, go to the theatre every night, and still read all the books you do?”

Oh, Helen. Such a flatterer. But it’s true. I am a miracle.

Not that Helen’s a slacker. She’s currently finishing off a masters as is about to embark on a PhD.

“I’m not sure if you have this problem,” she says, as the subject of writing her dissertation comes up. “But I have trouble finding a way in. I know what I want to write.” She pauses. “Sort of. But it’s finding the…” she finishes with a jabbing hand gesture.

“You just need to start anywhere,” I say, as if I have any business giving writing advice. “Lay some words down and worry about the opening later. You find out what you want to write by writing.”

Thankfully David, an actual real and proper writer, is able to give some proper guidance on the matter. Plagiarism. Apparently.

“Now, Robert Icke,” says David, knowing exactly the kind of reaction he’ll get from the pair of us at the name of the young director.

Helen eagerly leans forward, keen to hear more. She loves Robert Icke. I, on the other hand, slump back in my seat with a groan.

It’s a good thing it’s time for cupcakes. Eaten in a hurry because we still have to get to the theatre. Honestly, I’m not mad at it. While a Hummingbird cupcake should probably be savoured, there’s something luxuriously hedonistic about chomping the whole thing down in two bites, and then running out without helping to tidy up...

But there was no getting away from Icke. I’m in the presence of two superfans. It was always going to come up.

“Look,” I say. “I just… don’t like the way he makes his characters speak. They sound. Asif. They. Were. Dropped. Onthehead. As. Babies. I mean, why do they have to talk so slowly? I can’t stand slow talkers. Not in real life. Not on the stage. I feel I’m a very tolerant person-“ Helen laughs…. rude. “-but I can’t deal with slow talking.” I pause. “Or cyclists.”

That matter now cleared up, and with the sun in our eyes, we race up to Tally Ho corner (“Finchley sounds bucolic,” was Helen’s reaction to that place name) around the bus depot, past the Lidl, and there we are: the artsdepot.

I scurry across the square to grab a photo. David and Helen aren’t waiting. There’s no time. They’ve gone in.

“You don’t even have to pick up your ticket any more,” David says wryly as I finally make it inside. “You have people to do that for you.”

Helen is at the box office counter. Presumably pretending to be me.

She must be doing a good job of it, because she’s been given the tickets and we’re off again, crossing the large foyer that seems to take up the entirely of the ground floor.

“Take a photo of those,” orders Helen, pointing to the pretty origami lamps above our heads.

“On it,” I say, pointing my phone in the lamps’ direction

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Almost like a Thursday

It seems to be my destiny to always book theatre trips during big sporting events.

I just got off the tube at Oval, and apparently there’s a thing going on.

Half the roads are closed, and the other half are crowded by people who don’t seem to be doing very much. But whatever they are doing, they are doing with purpose. There’s a lot of looking around and nodding with emphasis at one another.

Who knew London had so much sport?

I’m early, so I trot past the theatre to the other side of the road, and have a stroll around The Oval. Now, I may not know a lot about sport, but even I know there’s probably some cricket going on in there right now.

It’s a funny old place, isn’t it? The Oval, I mean. You can see all the backs of people’s heads of the crowds sitting in the stands down from the pavement. They look so venerable sitting up there, the backs of their necks reddening in the sun. I hope they brought some sunscreen with them.

There’s a general wail of noise coming from inside. It’s utterly intelligible. A wall of pure noise reacting to whatever is happening down on the field (ha! I knew that one. Not a pitch. A field). Over the tannoy I can make out the voice of a commentator. From what I can tell, he’s saying words, but I don’t understand a single one of them.

Nope. Sport isn’t for me. Words are hard enough as it is without adding this whole new language to the mix.

I’m heading back to where it’s safer.

Safer, anyway.

I loop my way back to the appropriately named Ovalhouse.

It’s very blue. Blue panes in the curved glass wall. Blue frames around the windows and the doors. An enormous blue sign tied to the side of the building, and sagging under the weight of its own massiveness.

Someone has been taking style tips from the Blue Elephant…

Inside, blue floors, and blue armchairs are added to the colour mix. There’s even a blue pillar stuck in the middle of this pleasingly oval-shaped foyer.

I may enjoy a touch of theme dressing, but I must bow before the master here. This is a level of commitment that I could never hope to replicate.

Doors lead off in all directions from this glass-walled oval, giving me intense hall-of-mirrors style dizziness. Thankfully, I don’t lose myself on my way to the box office window.

I complete the surname-in-exchange-for-ticket transaction, and then head over to the other side of the oval towards the cafe.

It’s nice in here. Quiet but not empty. There’s lots of rustic wooden tables giving off basement kitchen in Maida Vale vibes.

There’s a stage over on the far side, where I presume they have live music when it isn’t a quiet Wednesday night with a cricket match going on over the road.

I claim a table all to myself and have a look around.

There’s the door to the upstairs theatre, over by the bar. I won’t be visiting that one tonight, but I make a mental note of its location for my return.

I’m going to be in the downstairs theatre. The main space. At least I hope I am. Because I’m looking around and I can’t see it. Is it back in the mirror-maze like foyer? I don’t remember seeing a sign for it. Just the cafe, the box office, and the loos.

I could go back and check, but I’m comfy now. And besides, no one else looks like they’re in any rush to go anywhere. I might as well settle back and relax.

A few more people come in and take up the surrounding tables. Others head for the bar. But this is a hushed crowd. Or perhaps the better term would be: laid back. After spending last night having my pockets picked at the Aldwych, it feels nice just being sat here, by myself, and not being asked to buy something.

A young woman wearing a headset steps up onto the stage. “Ladies and gentleman,” she starts, and we all pull ourselves out of our daydreams to listen to her. “The doors are now open, over in the furthest corner of the bar.” She points the way into the next room, just beyond the bar.

Nice. I love it when an announcement comes with directions.

We stumble to our feet, gathering our things with the slow care of a hungover student attempting to clean their flat the morning after their first flat warming.

As one, we make our way into the next door. There’s a counter serving food on one side. And a door over in the far corner. Is that it? We all stop. The people at the head of our caravan turn around, eyes wide with confusion.

“Is that…?” one asks.

I’m thinking the same: is that?

There’s no sign. And no one there to check tickets.

But people are piling up behind us. There’s nowhere to go but forward. Onwards!

There’s a corridor through here. It doesn’t look very theatrey. If anything, it looks like the corridor outside a primary school classroom. I swear I see coats hung up on hooks as we press on.

Through another unlikely looking door, and there, thank goodness, is a ticket checker. He’s got one of those beeping machines to scan tickets so you know he’s legit.

That doesn’t explain the presence of the chalk board behind him.

“BRIAN. FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS,” it says, surrounded by tiny, fluttering hearts. The message, I’m sure, is connected to the show. The writing is too well done, the hearts too perfectly placed, to have been placed by anyone other than a theatrical. But the chalkboard? Does that always live here? I was kinda, but not really, joking about this corridor looking like a school earlier, but now I can’t shake the feeling that by day, this place plays host to a few hundred pre-teens intent on learning their ABCs.

I get my ticket beeped. Funny how I don’t mind the beeper when it’s a paper ticket on the receiving end of the beeping, and not my phone. Perhaps my reputation as a neo-luddite isn’t quite as deserved as everyone seems to think.

Into the auditorium, walking around the dark spaces formed by the bank of seats. The brick walls are painted black, but there are bright rectangles set amongst the gloom. I squint at them, trying to make them out. Lines of white, left by a thick brush, form the canvas to sharpie message of love. “YOUR LIFE MATTERS BRIAN,” one says. “KEEP SAFE BRIAN SEE YOU OX RIP XX,” reads another.

Around towards the stage and up the steps to find a seat. There are more messages to Brian up here. An outpouring of loving words, written on luggage labels and tried to the metal railings.

I want to stop and read them all, but I’m blocking the way. And besides, seats are unallocated and I better hurry up and pick one if I want to score my favoured place: third row, at the end.

The cast are already on stage. Moving in slow motion. Their faces twisted into grimaces of despair.

This is not going to be a happy evening.

I’m here for Custody. A new play about a young black man (I’m guessing the famous Brian here) who dies in police custody.

Well, I say play, but with all this slo-mo going on, I suspect there is going to be more than a little, what they call in the biz, “movement.” I might go as far as to say, “movement” tipping right the way into physical theatre.

Everyone in the audience keeps their heads down, struggling not to make eye contact with the performers and almost visibly flinching whenever they creep a peek and spot one of the cast looking their way.

Instead they focus on their flyers. Everyone has a flyer tonight.

That’s what people do when they’re aren’t any freesheets available. They grab a flyer.

See? It’s not just me that wants a memento. Any bit of print with the title of the show on it will be picked up by an audience member, given half a chance.

A man sitting in the row in front of me flicks at the side of his flyer, expecting it to open up to reveal more information inside.

I can’t blame him. As information goes, the flyer is a little lacking. Marketing blurb and dates of the run are all very nice, but when it comes to matters of who is actually standing on the stage in front of you looking like they’re just stepped on a very sharp thumbtack, they can’t compete with a freesheet.

It’s starting now.

Layered words as the cast form a Greek chorus of grief. Brian is dead. And no one is taking the blame.

Mother, brother, fiancé, sister. They tote around bags, clutched tight to their chests, hugged under arms, and slung over shoulders, a literal baggage that will only be laid to rest at the end.

Except, they don’t leave.

While the performers in You’re Dead, Mate left us stranded and alone, as we clapped in the dark, the cast of Custody stay with us, returning to vacate state. The lights come on. An usher crosses the stage in front of them to open the door. The cast are unseeing, as all they see is pain.

We look around at each other. Are we supposed to leave now?

I tentatively grab my jacket and slip it on.

I spot a few others doing the same.

Small groups get to their feet, unsure of themselves as they make their way to the exit.

No one wants to look at the cast as we file our way past them.

We leave them alone in their anguish.

It’s palpable. Hanging in the air. Heavy. Seeping off of the stage.

No wonder they move so slowly.

I would credit them, but… well, you already know what I’m going to say, don’t you? Let’s do a thing. Let’s say it together. I would credit the cast but… 3…2…1… THERE ARE NO FUCKING FREESHEETS.

Ah. That was fun.

But seriously, there were no fucking freesheets.

“Feel free to write a message on your way out, if you'd like,” says the woman with the headset.

She indicates a small table in the foyer. “Please write a message to Brian,” says a small sign. There are luggage labels. And pens.

Someone is already jotting down her thoughts.

“What should I…?” she asks as she finishes.

“Just tie it up here,” comes the reply. There’s a string pinned up behind the table, waiting for the messages.

I move on. Words are hard.

The cricket must have finished now.

The tube is packed.

I head north, finally managing to get a seat around London Bridge.

Two men come and sit either side of me. They lean forward so as to continue their chat. Usually I would offer to switch. But I can’t move. I still feel the heaviness of the play pushing down on me.

“It's very busy,” says one, tacking in the still-busy carriage. “Something must be going on tonight. It’s almost Iike a Thursday.”

Almost.

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What's art got to do, got to do with it

There’s just so many characters that I don’t give the tiniest shit about. So many scenes that don’t drive on the action. Infuriating, when there is clearly such a strong three act structure buried under all this nonsense (the rise of Ike and Tina Tina, the fall of Ike and Tina Turner, the rise of Tina Turner without Ike Turner).

Legs stretched, everyone settles back in for an uncomfortable second act.

At least this one is short.

There’s a shiver of anticipation through the audience as Nkeki Obi-Melekwe quotes Tuner's most famous lyric: what’s love got to do with it.

Is it coming? Are we getting the big number?

We are. Thank the theatre gods.

After that, things start to perk up. Big tunes! Big ambition! And even bigger hair! This is what we are all here for.

Over by the far wall, the ushers have all crept in to watch the finale. Either it’s an unmissable show, or something serious is about to kick off in the audience. Either way, I’m excited.

As Obi-Melekwe blazes out some bangers, a few people get to their feet to bop along. But they are spread out thin up here.

It’s a different matter in the stalls.

Front rowers stretch out their hands to Obi-Melekwe, and she obliges them by coming forward to grab them. You can feel the crackle of connection between them. Even from up here.

That’s where the real Tina Turner fans are sitting. They’re having great fun down there.

These are the people who wake up and pour their morning coffee into their Tina - The Tina Turner Musical mug. They'll walk the dog in their Tina - The Tina Turner Musical, twenty-five pound glitter t-shirt. They'll stick the kids' drawings on the fridge with their Tina - The Tina Turner Musical magnet.

These are the people who genuinely want to hear more about Tina Turner’s grandmother.

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What Do We Say to the God of Death?

“Where are you going tonight?”

Bless my coworkers. They do try and be supportive of my mission, even if they think it’s completely bonkers.

“Katzpace?” It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. I think that’s how you say it.

“Cat space?”

“Katz-pace,” I try again, feeling altogether less confident about my chosen pronunciation. Perhaps it really is Cat Space.

They give me a look. “Are you going to a cat cafe, Maxine?”

“I don’t think so…?”

I mean, who even knows anymore. I’ve been some weird-arse places lately. Perhaps Katzpace really is a cat cafe masquerading as a theatre. I sure won’t be the one to complain if that’s true.

I check the website.

No mention of cats. Or even a cat.

They do have a tagline though. “London’s coolest theatre.”

Well. That’s something. I hope they’re being literal because it is very, very warm today. And I don’t do well in the heat.

And it’s not even sunny. Just muggy and disgusting. On my way south of the river I stop on Blackfriars Bridge to try and grab a blast of that cool air coming off the river.

The breeze remains resolutely still. Bastard.

Oh well. I make my way down onto Southwark Street, passing The Bunker and the Menier. Borough Market is looming just ahead. It should be around here somewhere. I carry on, eyeing up all the buildings on the other side of the road. Nope. Nope. That’s not it. Pub. Pub. Pub. Nope. Not that either. That’s a bank.

I think I’m gone too far.

I cross the road and double back.

The proximity doesn’t help. My eyesight surely can’t be this bad.

Just as I’m reaching into my bag to grab my glasses, I spot something. A crowd of young people gathered around a doorway. They look like the sort of people who might attend London’s coolest theatre.

They’re really pushing that tagline hard. It’s even written on the A-frame sign positioned out on the pavement, and stencilled onto the doors.

I’m beginning to get a bit worried.

Katzpace may well be London coolest theatre. But I am not London’s coolest theatre-goer. I barely scrape the top five.

The sign above the door is for Ketzenjammers. A bierkeller, apparently. I don’t know what a bierkeller is, but I’m guessing it has something to do with beers and cellars.

The stairs inside lead down. The walls are covered in a mural featuring beer steins in a battle with what looks like wine bottles. Ah yes, the great Wine War of 1262.

At the bottom of the stairs, I have a chose. Left or right. Both directions look equally deserted. Katzpace is supposed to a basement theatre, but we’re already below street level.

I pick a direction at random, and turn left.

More empty corridors. More turns. This time I go right.

There’s a door here. I go through.

Tables. And benches.

All empty.

Is this what a bierkeller is? Twisting corridors and empty rooms?

There’s another staircase. Very industrial looking and metal. It has a sign stuck right in the middle.

You. I've got you. Let's a programme. The bars open if you'd like to get a drink and take it in.

“Youre Dead, Mate. DOWNSTAIRS. BOX OFFICE & BAR @ 7pm. SHOW @ 7.:30pm.”

Thank goodness. It looks like I’m going the right way.

Expect, there’s another sign. A content warning one. You know the type of thing: this production contains nudity, forced religious indoctrination, and faeries offering forbidden food. That kind of thing. Except this one is followed up by the warning that readmittance is not allowed if you need to leave the theatre. After the gentle care taken at Bernie Grant to both warn and protect their audiences, this seems a little mercenary. We’re going to be throwing all of the words around, and you better be strong enough to handle it, because there’s no chance of a time-out here.

Further down I think I’ve found it. The bierkeller. Long curved ceilings mold themselves around the long rows of tables below. Lone theatre-goers sit at tables, not talking to each other.

There’s a table right at the base of the stairs. It’s after 7pm. This must be the promised box office. I wait awkwardly on the bottom step until the queue has cleared.

Eventually, one of the three young people sitting behind the desk looks up.

I give my surname.

She finds my name on the list and gives it a tick. “Yup. I’ve got you. Here’s a progamme,” she says, handing me a freesheet. “The bar is open if you’d like to get a drink and take it in.”

Getting a drink in a bierkeller is probably the thing to do. But it’s Monday. And I’m alone. And, well, I don’t want a beer.

I take myself and my freesheet to an empty table.

The freesheets may not be programmes, but they are pretty swish all the same. Decent paperstock. Nice full page print of the poster image. Printed in colour. Run off on a photocopier, but I’m not judging on that.

And could have done with a proofread. Katzpace is misspelt in the thanks (Katzspace), which doesn’t seem all that grateful. But you know, typos happen. As literally every post on my blog will testify.

Year 3000 is blasting over the sound system. It what seems to be an attempt to inject atmosphere in this vast, empty space.

Strangely empty, now that I come to think of it.

I look around. The lone theatre-goers seem to have disappeared. Instead, there’s now a queue over on the side of the room. From behind the line of people, a neon sign glows. “Katzpace Theatre.”

Looks like we’re going in.

I hurry after them, trying to stuff the freesheet into my bag while also attempting to get said bag over my shoulder.

The neon sign points the way to a pair of low doors. Tall people need not apply.

It’s dark in here. Really dark. The only light seems to be coming from a small lamp on stage.

I peer through the gloom, trying to work out the best place to sit.

There are three banks of seats.

The central tier is on a rake. That looks like the best option, but it’s full already.

The side options are empty. Three rows. No rake.

I take a chance and go for the second row, hoping all the tall people are kept at bay by the low hanging door frame.

A second later, someone sits in front of me.

She’s not even that tall, but I can’t see a damn thing.

I scoot along right to the edge of the bench, where I find a slither of a view between a pillar and the lady’s head.

That’ll have to do.

Others are not so content with their lots.

“We don’t want to spend an entire fucking hour in bad seats,” says a bloke sitting in the row behind me.

They get up and start testing out different locations.

They’re not the only ones.

People pop up and down in different rows, clambering into spare seats and darting back out again as they try to negotiate themselves the best possible view in a giant game of musical chairs.

And they’re all so young.

I don’t think I’ve even been in an audience where the average age is this close to twenty.

In three weeks I’ll be turning thirty-three. Thirty-fucking-three. The same age that our lord and saviour, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, had Fleabag 2 and Killing Eve on our tellie-screens. Oh, and Jesus was crucified. But no one cares about that anymore.

And it’s fine. Totally fine. Like, I’ve been Googling what people have accomplished by the age of thirty-three. But you know, whatever. We all go at our own pace. Some people write era-defining scripts or start religions that span millennia, and other people go to watch a lot of theatre and write silly blog posts about it. It’s all good.

I mean, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women at thirty-three, laying the foundation for feminism, and I have a This is What a Feminist Looks Like t-shirt that I sometimes sleep in. So, I’m doing my bit to the continuing efforts to crush the patriarchy. Sort of.

And Amelia Earheart flew the Atlantic, which is something I’ve yet to accomplish even with the benefit of easyjet.

Samuel Smiles gave a speech that was to become the foundation to his book, Self-Help. A book which went on to sell 20,000 copies in its first year, and is still in print 165 years later. And I’ve… been bested by my own ancestor.

But it’s fine.

All. Fine.

It could be worse. Alexander the Great was already dead by my age. And yet still managed to conquer the known world.

I can’t even conquer the known theatre-world.

Turns out though, I’m at the perfect play. Cos our hero is having a similarly angst-filled evening.

But even worse, because like Alexander the Great, he’s dead.

Twenty-three years old (because of course he is) and he’s having a crisis. Unable to go back, and not ready to move on, he’s having to be comforted by the only entity available - Death himself.

Not exactly who I’d want as a councillor, if I’m honest, but deaders can’t be choosers. And he’s met everyone. Literally everyone. Even Alexander the Great. I suppose if anyone has any insight into the human condition, it’s him.

It’s a brave writer who takes on that character. I’m not sure I would have had the guts in a post-Terry Pratchett world. But it’s an even braver writer who decides he also wants to play the part. I mean, good on you, Teddy Morris.

The young people seem to be enjoying it too. They’re laughing themselves sick. The kind of hard, explosive laugh that you only get from audiences that are mates of the people on stage. The kind of laugh that’s filled with the shock and surprise of finding out that your weirdo friend is actually pretty talented.

Death and his patient leave the stage and we’re plunged into darkness.

“Are they coming out?” someone asks as the applause stretches out into eternity.

Turns out they’re not.

They’ve moved on.

And we’re left to make the most of our lives.

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The Secret Language of Flowers


With cautious glances at one another, we take up places around the edge. Balancing on knees, or curling around our legs.

A few people decide that sitting on the floor is more than they signed up for, and head for the benches by the wall instead.

Angelique keeps on talking. The party isn’t going so well. She’s spotted her boyfriend with another girl, and his dealer, the one she really doesn’t like, is there.

And… oh god. Her voice sinks as she tells us what happens next. I clutch tight at my knees, twisting around to follow her as she moves around us, wanting to look away but at the same time not being able to take my eyes off her.

There’s a crash.

As one, our heads snap towards the window behind Dennis-Edwards.

Another crash.

A young girl peeks through the blackout curtains. It’s the boys with their football.

The girl’s mother gives her a look and the curtain is dropped back into place.

But the lure of the teenage boys and their football is too much for her, and soon she is peeling open the edge of the curtain once more to look outside.

Angelique moves around the space. She wants to show us the vase of blue flowers she has put in her new home.

They're basic but bright, she says. But perhaps more than that, they embody new beginnings, and hope. Of sun-filled days. Of her own shop. Her own life. Away from those who see her as a resource and not a person.

Outside, it’s still swelteringly hot. The party next door is still going. The music still blasting.

But the streets are empty. Deserted. I walk towards the tube station, swinging my jacket from my arm.

Everything smells of heat and tarmac and fast food.

Despite the pain, I miss Angelique’s world. Her lack of nonsense. Her drive. And the lush freshness of her flowers.

I should really go buy some.

Maybe for my birthday. That’s coming up in three weeks. Three weeks and one day. Not that I’m dreading it or anything.

Still, flowers would help. Peonies, I think. They’re my favourite. I wonder what they mean. Angelique would know.

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Under My Roof

This is it. This is the big one. The theatre I've been most excited for, but also really dreading.

I'm only going to Sadler's fucking Wells tonight.

The theatre I'm most familiar with. The home team. My pad. The place I'm been spending the majority of my days for the past three years.

The place I haven't seen a show now for over five months. That's been a fucking nightmare, let me tell you.

I've spent the whole day feeling a little queasy. Five months in the making and I still don't know how I'm going to write about this one. Like, how am I supposed to talk about the place I work? Without getting fired I mean...

It's almost a relief to be spending my afternoon hiding in the photocopier room printing out castsheets for the weekend performances. Oh gosh, am I supposed to review these? I pick one up and give it a critical once-over. They look good to me. They should do, after the amount of back and forth needed to put them together. I only just got off the phone with the company - talking through the final changes before I fired up the printer.

Okay, perhaps they are a little too overstuffed on the content side of things. There are a lot of words packed into these two-sides of A4. But San Francisco Ballet is a big company, with lots of dancers, sponsors, and egos, that all need to be mentioned. There's even a line about one of the violins in there which is a first for me. But then, it's not every day that we have a Stradivari in the Sadler's orchestra pit. I'm really rather excited about that.

I start piling up the stacks of paper, one for each of the four performances that will be taking place over the weekend, ready to be picked up by front of house and distributed throughout the building and handed out to the audience. Of which I'm going to be one. Oh, god. I feel really fucking nervous now.

I keep an eye on the printer. We had to get an engineer out this morning. The pages were coming out yellow. And that would never do. No one wants yellow castsheets. Diseased, that's how they looked. But now they are pristine white. Perfect.

Right, those are printing. And I've ordered the reprint for the programmes.

Wait, have I? I double check my emails. Yes. Thank goodness. That was scary. We sold a fuck-tonne on the first night. I'm not surprised. They look luscious. Our designers did a really good job on this one. And they sure had there work cut out for them. I gave them the longest brief I've ever written. Over ten thousand words. Excluding the article. That came later. But it was worth it. They are seriously swanky. And heavy. Poor front of house. They're never going to forgive me for all this, are they?

Oh well. No time to think on that. I'm meeting Helen for a pre-show dinner. We're going to Kipferl. An Austrian cafe in Camden Passage. The type of place where they serve hot drinks with a small glass of water on the side. I'm not sure what the purpose the small glass of water is. But it looks very sophisticated with its small spoon balanced on top.

We order schnitzels. My favourite food in the whole world. With potato salad. My second favourite food. And some sort of shredded pancake thing for afters, which I have yet to rank in the food-stakes, but I'm suspecting will come out very high. It comes to the table in a large metal pan, served with a dish of the thickest and sweetest apple sauce I've ever seen. For dipping. Helen and I fish out the leftover crunchy bites from the pan with our fingertips.

"We've got time," I say as we pay the bill and get ready to leave. I check my phone. "We just have to walk fast. Very fast."

We walk fast. Or at least we try to. Walking quickly with a belly full of veal and multiple forms of carbs is tricky.

We stumble our way down Upper Street, catch our breath at the traffic lights, then plunge our way down St John Street, from where you can already spot the massive sign for Sadler's Wells peering out from behind the rooftops. Round the corner, onto Rosebery Avenue., past the stage door, and here we are.

"Where are the loos?" asks Helen.

A perfectly reasonable question to ask someone who has worked here almost three years, and yet I still have to double-check the signage before answering.

I try to cover this embarrassing gaff by grabbing a couple of castsheets from the nearest concession desk. Can't go wrong with a castsheet.

We're sitting in the first circle this evening. Prime celeb-spotting ground if your idea of a celebrity is Royal Ballet dancers and the odd choreographer. Which it totally is for me. And, thank goodness, for Helen too. We give each other significant glances as people we recognise take their seats.

Within minutes we're waving across the circle at our favourite dance critic who is sitting on the other side.

The lights dim.

Out comes the conductor. We all clap. I have to try hard not to bounce around in my seat with excitement.

Nope. Can't help it. "There's the Strad," I say.

"Where?"

"In the middle," I say, referring to the orchestra pit. "She's standing up."

"That's the Strad?"

"That's the Strad!"

I am definitely bouncing in my seat now. I've never heard a Stradivarius being played before. Not live anyway. I can't wait.

An orange sun hangs low over the stage. The dancers flit around in iridescent outfits, covered in glittering veins like an insect's wings. Across the Infinite Ocean. That's the name of the piece. A title that feels incredibly distant. The divide between the living and the dead. But it doesn't feel that way. The Strad sounds so sweet, so yearning, I can almost feel it reaching up from the pit towards me.

And I'm crying.

I don't know why I'm crying. If I did I might be able to stop. But there is no way these tears are ending before the ballet does. They're proper tears. Snotty and fat and utterly unstoppable.

Is it the music? Probably. The effortless grace of the dancers? Most definitely. The achingly lovely choreography? For sure. But also, perhaps, the tiny little scrap of knowledge that I was a part of this. The tiniest cog in the mighty machine that is Sadler's Wells.

"So beautiful," sighs a person sitting in the row behind us as the first pas de deux comes to a close.

Did they book after reading the copy I wrote about the show for the season brochure? They might have done. They may have even bought a programme. Lots of people have. I can see the orange covers sitting on people's laps all around us. I want to turn around and offer this person my castsheet, just in case they didn't pick one up. But I stop myself. That would be weird. A crying woman turning around in a dark theatre to offer you a piece of paper. They can pick one up in the interval, if they really want one.

"Do I have mascara on my face?" I ask Helen as the lights come back up.

She frowns at me. "Why?"

"I was crying, so hard."

She frowns even harder. "From that?"

"Yes, from that. Didn't you like it?"

She pulls a face. "No!"

That's alright. We never agree about anything. Well, except for ponies, Sexy John the Baptist, and Emily Carding. Gives us something to talk about, I suppose. Although it is rather tiresome having a friend who is wrong all the time.

In the interval, we gatecrash the press drinks. I probably shouldn't be telling you this. But I'm trusting you not to blab your mouth here. Anyway, it's nice being able to catch up with all the writers I spend my days emailing.

Plus, it gives Helen the chance to show off about a principal dancer saying thank you to her.

"He said 'thank you' to me," she tells everyone who will listen.

"Such a gentleman," I agree, as witness to the fact that he did indeed thank her.

Next up is a Cathy Marston narrative work. Always a cause for celebration around these parts. Except, I'm not at all familiar with the story, and within minutes I'm totally lost.

"I loved that," says Helen after the applause has died down.

"I... did not understand any of that."

"Oh?"

"Were they dead? I thought they were dead. But then they got up... Were they not dead?"

"Have you read Ethan Frome?"

"No."

"Ah."

"But I shouldn't have to!" This is the one thing we always agree on. No one should have to read the synopsis in order to understand a ballet. Ballet isn't school. You can't assign the audience homework. Everything should be there, on the stage. Not in the castsheet.

"No. Of course but..." Helen goes on to explain what happens in the story. It all makes a lot more sense now.

Back to the mezzanine bar and we're scoffing a dance critic's birthday chocolates. It looks like I'm in the minority on the Marston. Everyone is gabbling excitedly about it and I'm just nodding along as if I have any idea what they are talking about. I really should read that book...

The bells are ringing. We need to get back to our seats.

Helen and I rush towards the stairs. A front of houser gives me an exasperated look. I should really know better than to leave it so late.

We make our way back to our seats, apologising to the poor folks sitting at the end of our row who have to get up once again to let us past.

Next up is the Arthur Pita. I adore Arthur Pita. And this Arthur Pita is the reason I picked this show to attend for my marathon, out of an entire year's worth of programming at Sadler's.

As we go back to our seats, I look around to check he isn't sitting near us. That might sound like an odd thing to be doing to you, but believe me, I have my reasons. I love Arthur Pita's work so much, that it is hard for me not to talk about Arthur Pita's work when I am attending an Arthur Pita work. Once I get started, I can go on hugely long screeds about the man, his quirky wit, his surreal manner of storytelling, his use of music, his... well, you get the idea. So passionate do I get, that I wouldn't even notice if Arthur Pita himself had been sitting behind me the whole time that I've been gabbing. And I'd be left to sink into my seat in shame, praying that he had gone temporarily deaf for the duration. And if this all sounds like something that has happened, then I am delighted to tell you that it has. Three times. Three times I've gone off on one of my Arthur Pita lectures, only to discover that the Arthur Pita has been sitting just behind me.

Three. Bloody. Times.

And if you're thinking, Max - so what? At least you were saying nice things. It's not like you were slagging him off. I mean, wouldn't you enjoy overhearing someone else saying how marvellous you are?

Well, yes. That would be fine. Embarrassing. But fine.

But you may have noticed over the past five months, that when I love someone, I really fucking love them. Like: intensely. I say things that no artist should ever have to hear. You may roll your eyes, but like... When I tell people the things I've said, the general consensus is that I really need to start checking to see who is sitting behind me before I start talking.

So, that's what I'm doing.

He's not there.

Thank god.

"I'm really looking forward to this one," says Helen.

"Me too."

"I love Bjork."

"Oh." Okay. "Yeah, me too." That's true. I do. But Bjork's music isn't the reason I'm here.

The curtain turns blue.

"What colour is the curtain here?" asks Helen.

"Grey?" I chance. "I think it's the lights that make it look red. Or... blue." The curtain isn't usually down during the day. I haven't had the chance to inspect it without the lights on.

The blue, or possibly grey, curtain lifts. The orchestra starts playing.

I sink back into my seat and enjoy the pretty.

Everything is so shiny. The stage is mirrorlike. Tiny metallic palm trees gleam from the ceiling. The dancers look like they have rummaged in the Christmas decoration box to put their costumes together.

There's an electronic crash. Helen jumps. Her body expanding at the noise. Her elbow connecting with my ribs.

A shock of laughter pours over the audience at the startling sound and then retreats, pulling back like a wave leaving silence in its wake.

Bjork's voice fills the void.

A ballerina is carried in on a palanquin. It tips up, and she slides off into a dancer's arms before being whirled away.

A masked dancer carrying a rod sits on the end of the stage, he casts his line into the dark orchestra pit and fishes out another mask for him to wear.

The corps flutter around like exotic birds. Shimmer like fish. Scamper like insets. Anything, everything, other than human.

Helen is hugging her knees, curled up in her seat and she holds herself tight with the huge effort of not exploding.

I feel the same. Everything is glitter and magic and fantasy. I don't know where to look. I want to see everything at once. A thousand times over.

"I could watch that all over again," Helen says, still clapping. The curtain has long fallen. The dancers have left the stage. But we're all still applauding. No one is ready to stop quite yet.

But eventually, we have to stop. It was getting a bit weird.

"I thought it was going to be orchestral all the way through. I jumped!" exclaims Helen.

"I noticed!" I exclaim back.

"I'm a jumpy person."

"I'm glad I didn't take you to The Woman in Black..." I stop. "Hang on, that's pretty." I go over to the windows to take a photo of the faerie-lights strung around the trees on Rosebery Avenue. I realise I haven't been taking any photos. It's hard to see what's interesting about a building you see every day.

I consider taking Helen up to the second circle, where there is currently a mural of a cat painted on the wall. And the portrait of Edmund Keen dressed as Richard III, up in the Demons' Corridor. But the stairs are packed. There's no easy way up there. Likewise, the well on the ground floor is out. Besides, she's probably already seen it.

We chatter all the way to the tube station. It isn't often we both love a show. But when we do, there's no shutting us up.

"Have you decided how you're going to write this up?" she asks.

Nope. I've no idea.

We part at King's Cross, and I sink back against the tube seats.

Seven months. There are seven months left of the year. Seven months before I can justifiably see another show at Sadler's.

That's... not good.

I've been thinking a lot about what's missing in my marathon. I've gone in search of things to make me cry, things to make me feel. But I wonder if what's missing, isn't the emotion, so much as the connection.

I work in the arts because I want to be part of it. To be part of the machine.

And, while I don't create the art, I do go some way to creating the experience. Perhaps that's why my blog is the way it is. There are a thousand people out there writing about the art. I might as well be the one to critic the castsheets.

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Attack of the Vapours

I’m taking you somewhere exciting today. Somewhere I’m fairly confident that you haven’t been before. I know I certainly haven’t.

It’s just down here. On The Cut.

No, not The Old Vic. Carry on, keep on going. Yeah, yeah, not the Young one either. We’re crossing the road here.

Yup. That’s it. Over there. Or at least, I think it is. I have to admit that I’ve marched up and down this street a thousand times as I make my way to one theatre or another (the aforementioned Vics, young and old, the Union further down, and the neighbour-theatres of the Menier and the Bunker further still, not forgetting the Vaults and and Network over on the other end) and I have never, not once, noticed this place.

I mean, sure. I could see there was a bookshop here. A theatre bookshop even. But I had no idea that there was a theatre lurking within.

I hope you didn’t either, or I’m going to feel rather stupid showing you this.

I stop outside, just to double check that I have, in fact, got the right place. I’m looking for the Calder Bookshop Theatre and the big shop sign says THE BOOKSHOP THEATRE. Ah, close enough. I go in.

There’s a wooden desk over on the right. I’m guessing that’s the box office for the evening. There’s a laptop sat on top, and that’s usually a sign of box officeiness in the lack of… well, an actual sign.

There’s a group of woman standing in front of it. They are all talking busily. Are they in the queue, I can’t tell.

A second later, the man behind the desk spots me.

“Can we move over?” he asks the ladies. They shuffle half a pace to the left and start chatting again.

I make full use of this small concession of theirs and squeeze my way over to the desk.

“The surname’s Smiles?” I say. “I emailed a few days ago?”

Ah, yes. The email.

Here’s the thing. The Calder Bookshop Theatre doesn’t have online booking. Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered such a thing on this marathon. But it’s the first time that I’ve actually attempted to negotiate such a system. I’ve still yet to tackle Baron’s Court and their utter lack of a presence on the old interwebs. Thankfully, the Calder does have a website. And a note directing you to either call or email them if you are after some ticket action in your life.

Well, there was no way I was calling. I haven’t willingly picked up the phone since 1989, and even then it was the Fisher Price variety and I was lured in by the grinning face printed below the rotary dial. So email I did. A few days ago. Basically just asking how one goes about this whole process, as I have never negotiated a ticket purchase via email before. Turns out it’s easy. And someone emailed back that evening saying that a ticket had been reserved for me and I could pay on the door when I arrived.

Brill.

The man behind the desk taps away at his laptop. “Ah yes! Paying full price?”

Yes. I mean… I guess…

I handed over the cash.

“How much are these?” I ask, indicating a pile of handsome looking programmes on the desk.

“Please take one! They’re free!”

I perk right up. The only thing better than a programme is a free programme.

There’s no need for tickets. So I’m left to wander the shop.

Wander is perhaps too strong a word. Shuffle would be the more accurate descriptor. It’s rather busy in here. Turns out the Caldor is not quite the secret I thought it was. Plenty of folks have managed to not only hear about this place, but also negotiate the tricksy ticket buying procedure.

Who are these people? And how did they get here?”

Calls of “how very nice to see you!” ring around the shop, growing ever more high-pitched.

“Have your performed here?”

“No. Gosh no. Oh, wait… have I?”

“I’ve just finished on the poetry festival.”

“… the actors’ workshop.”

“… the writers’ retreat.”

They’re all bloody theatre people.

It always makes me cringe a bit when the entire audience is composed of people who make theatre. It feels so insular. So self-congratulatory. Like a private members’ club. A bit… “this is a local theatre, for local people; there’s nothing for you here,” if you get my meaning.

When I’m in crowds like this, it does make me question this whole theatre thing. If the only people coming to your show are other theatre people, then really, what are we all doing here? Are we really such an isolated industry? Creating shows for our friends? Our in-group? Our tribe?

Just the thought of that being the case makes me feel all squicky.

And even worse, I’m a bloody theatre person too. So, I’m just perpetuating the problem by being here.

I go off to the far corner and have a look at the books. Books are good. Books are quiet.

There’s a curtain back here. That must be the entrance to the theatre.

A woman emerges.

“It’ll be about three minutes until we let people in,” she says to the nearest person. “We’re waiting for people to arrive.”

I commented on this holding of the curtain for latecomers back in my Blue Elephant post, and the artistic director ended up tweeting me to explain it. But no justification is necessary. I think this is a great and wonderful thing for small theatres to do. Latecomers cause so much more havoc in small spaces, it’s far better for everyone involved to wait a few minutes. And besides, if your audience really is drawn from such a small community, you might as well do your damndest to serve it.

She disappears back behind the curtain, only to pop out a few minutes later. This time holding a torch.

“Are you happy to wait?” she asks the nearest person. “I just have to pop to Sainsbury’s to get some batteries for the actors that they can see.”

Well, it would be churlish to say no now, wouldn’t it?

She leaves the torch on top of a convenient bookshelf and leaves. Supposedly to get batteries.

I spend my time looking at the programme. “Victorian Woman in Bed,” it says in a curly script on the front cover.

I look at it very hard, so as not to get distracted by the books. You see, I have a problem when it comes to books. It’s not that I don’t like books. Quite the opposite really. I’ve got shelves and shelves of the damn things at home. Double stacked. With piles of them on the floor. On the window ledges. On my pillow. In the bathroom. The kitchen. On the stairs. You think I have a problem with programmes? You wait until I show you how many copies of Rivers of London I own (Three. People keep on buying it for me. It’s a great book. But please, I don’t need anymore).

I’m not going to pretend that it’s not an uncommon problem. I’m not one of those twats on Twitter that likes to pretend they’re quirky just because they have a pile of unread books waiting on their bedside table. There’s even a Japanese word for it: tsundoku. And if there’s anything to kill the eccentricity of a trait, it’s having its own special word to describe it.

And actually… I read my fucking books. So, there.

The battery-buyer returns. Avec batteries.

I get jostled further into my corner as she retrieves the torch and starts slotting them in.

“Right,” she says, with the air of a job done. “I’ll go get the actors ready.”

They must have been prepped and ready to go, because the curtain is drawn back and we’re going in.

Gosh, it’s tiny in here. Really small, and rather cute.

The walls are bare brick, and the seating is upholstered in plum coloured velvet.

There’s only four rows. With a slim aisle down the middle.

I head to what is now officially my favourite seat: third row, right on the end.

The actors are already on stage. All dressed in their finest Victorian nightwear. One of them is even in bed.

Has there ever been a play more perfectly designed to attract me? Victorian women. In bed. I mean, fucking hell. That’s my soul, my dream, my aesthetic (as the kids say) in one simple sentence. It’s what I yearn to be.

But what kind of Victorian woman in bed am I? That’s the question.

I’m glad I’m going to get four examples tonight to help me choose.

First up is Charlotte Brontë. Now obviously I’m a huge Brontë fan. Charlotte especially. Jane Eyre is my gal. Whenever I’m feeling poor, obscure, plain and little, it’s Ms Eyre I turn to for a dose of no-nonsense snappy comebacks. Although when I get to that quote, I have to stop, because I am actually soulless and heartless.

Charlotte’s taking-to-her-bed involves pregnancy. And a lot of throwing up. And a lack of clean nightclothes.

Not sure I’m really up for any of that.

My fantasies are more of the frilly-nightgown variety. Vomit need not apply.

Moving on. And it’s Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The poetess (a word I am determined to bring back, alongside aviatrix. Now, usually I hate gendered job titles, but these ones are so damn great I think they should be brought back with such enthusiasm and force, they take over and dominate to become gender neutral). She has squirreled under her blankets and she’s absolutely determined not to come out. Her bed is her sanctuary. Her defence against the world. I can get behind this. Except staying in bed means spending the rest of her life with a nosy sister, and an overbearing father. Whereas getting up means being whisked away to Italy by a handsome man.

Hmm. Not sure about this one. Let’s circle back to it when we see what else is on offer.

Next up: Emma Hardy. Wife of Thomas Hardy. Now she has some faboulous hats. An I do enjoy a hat. And she’s a writer. This one has definite potential. Except there’s the whole Thomas issue. And the being unappreciated, unpublished, and unhappy.

Maybe not.

Thankfully we still have one left.

And it’s the lady with the lamp, the ministering angel, the saviour of Scutari: Florence Nightingale. I do like Florence Nightingale. She invented the pie chart, you know. And I love a pie chart.

I think we might be onto a winner here.

Now, I’m not good at that whole, you know, caring thing. So being a nurse is out. But we’re past that by this point. Florence is at home. In bed. And I am totally on board. She’s dictating letters. Ordering men about. And generally being the boss from the blankets. There are even cats keeping her toes warm. And you know how much I adore cats.

Yes. When I take to my bed, I shall be doing it in true Florence style. Bonnet and all.

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Go directly to hell; do not pass go

“I like this,” I say, peering at a large metal contraption outside the Brunel Museum. “It looks like a borer, or something…”

Helen comes over to stand next to me. “It’s a pump,” she says very confidently.

“Well, someone read the label.” I pause. “Or have you just not told me that you’re secretly an engineer?” One never knows with Helen. She’s an expert on things that I haven’t even heard of.

“So, what is this place?” she asks. She’s clearly not an expert on the Brunel Museum. Nor am I, to be honest. I kinda knew it was a place that existed in the world, but have never been here before or even know what sort of thing goes on inside.

“Where do you think we need to go?” I ask. There are some double doors open just ahead of us, with seats laid out in rows inside. Was that the theatre? No, the seats were all facing the wrong way, facing the doors. Somehow that didn’t seem likely for a dance performance.

“I’ve seen people going in there,” says Helen, indicating another building slightly further down. We follow the path around as is slopes down and around a squat tower.

It’s dark in here. Very dark. But I can just make out the silhouette of a table against the gloom.

“That looks like a press table?” says Helen, doubtfully.

It does look like a press table. The type set up on press nights to greet their invited guests away from the faff and queues of the box office. But I’ve been to enough makeshift theatres this year to know that this homespun look often extends beyond the PR-game.

I go over and give my surname. He looks at me. I look at him. “S-M-I-L-E-S?” I try. My name is hard. I get that.

“Smile?” says the man behind the desk.

“Yes.” Close enough.

He applies a monocle to his eye and starts flipping through the tickets.

“Maxine?” he says, still sounding doubtful. But he hands over the tickets anyway.

But my attention is elsewhere. I’ve spotted something very exciting on the table.

“Yay! Freesheets!” I say, grabbing a couple and handing one to Helen.

“Yay,” says the monocle-guy, managing to sound both deadpan and sarcastic at the same time.

There’re not letting people into the space, so Helen and I both traipse back outside. It’s raining.

“He was…” I start.

“Yes,” agrees Helen.

“Frankly, I expected better from a man with a monocle.” A thought occurs: “He was not a fop.”

“Not. He was definitely not a fop.”

We decide to go for a walk.

The original plan had been to find food, but there’s nothing here. Rotherhithe is desolate. Streets and streets full of flats, but not a single cafe open.

“Shall we try the bar?” suggests Helen.

There’s an arrow pointing upwards. We follow it.

“Those stairs are really narrow,” she says, getting out of the way so that I can take a photo.

I’m about to tell her that while I enjoy a stair-photo as much as anyone, I’m not sure I’m going to need an image of some rando-outdoor staircase in my blog, but then I see it. It’s really fucking narrow. Like the stairs to get onto a little boat.

“Are people supposed to go up and down these things when they’re drunk?” I ask the world in general.

The world declines to reply.

“Oh! It’s nice up here,” I say when we reach the top.

We’re standing right on top of the squat tower now. There isn’t much of a view, but it doesn’t matter. It’s really pretty here. Roses climb a blue picket fence and torches blaze amongst the greenery.

We stroll over to the bar to see what’s on offer.

“Just look down there,” says the barman, pointing towards the lower of two chalkboards.

We lower our gaze.

Wine. Beer. Vodka.

“To be honest, I’m not overly enthused by the sound of any of those,” I say.

“I could have a vodka, but…” Helen lets the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

We turn to leave. “You know on Fridays they have fires up there,” I say. “To melt marshmallows over,” I add quickly before she thinks the people of Rotherhithe are very into arson of a weekend. “That’s what the other chalkboard, the one with the cocktails was from.”

“So why are we here on a Wednesday?”

“Yeah, well. You know. It’s not my fault. If they have all those people coming for a show on a Wednesday, maybe they should have a mid-week marshmallow meeting too.” I’m feeling a little defensive, because I knew about this, and yet still failed to book for a Friday. But to be fair to me, I’ve already got a theatre planned for Friday, and it’s a big one. “Shall we go look at the river?” I say, changing the subject.

We go to have a look at the river. It’s all beginning to feel a bit Ancient Mariner. Water, water everywhere, but nor any tea going begging. There’s even an Albatross Way around the corner. I try and make a pun, but I my brain is sodden with drizzle.

Someone is down by the water, working their way through the grimy pebbles.

“I’d like to try that,” says Helen.

“I would too.” I consider this. “But only for like, five minutes. And then I’d like to have a bath, please.”

“A little mudlarking, then lots of hot water to wash my hands.”

“Yes please.”

“And not having to get on the tube while dirty.”

“Oh, definitely not. Mudlarking with a flat overlooking the water. That’s the way it should be done.”

We carry on walking. Towards the Mayflower Pub.

“Do you wanna go in?”

“Nah, we’re just killing time.”

We hang around on the pavement outside the pub.

I glance up. Something in an upstairs window has caught my eye. “Oh my god, look at that!”

Three costumes. Lined up on mannequins.

“Look at that cloak!” says Helen.

“Look at that dress!” I say.

“Ruffles!”

“I would have loved that dress when I was-“

“Now,” says Helen. “You would wear that now.”

It’s true. I would wear that now. If it came in black.

“What is this place?”

Turns out, it’s the Rotherhithe Picture Library. We peer in through the windows. Tables are laden with books about embroidery. There’s a quilt covered with a patchwork of signatures.

I want to go there.

“Look at the hand-painted signs!” exclaims Helen. “I love hand-painted signs.”

I can tell.

“We should probably head back now…”

There’s a queue snaking its way down the path from the entrance to the museum. Quite a long queue.

While Helen pops to the loo, I join the end of the queue.

“Do you have your tickets?” someone asks me.

“I do,” I say, showing them to her.

“So, is this the queue to get in or…?”

“I have no idea…”

 “The loos were super weird. I got caught up in a history talk while I was waiting,” says Helen when she reappears.

“This place is strange. I feel very under-prepared. People have flowers. Should we have brought flowers?”

People do have flowers. White roses from the gentlemen in front of me, and some dazzling red ones further up.

“What even is this show?”

We look at the freesheet. Helen points at one of the character names. “Jokanaan.”

“Right,” I say, weakly.

The queue is moving. We’re heading inside.

“Should I read the synopsis?” asks Helen. “I usually don’t believe in reading the synopsis, but maybe for this one…”

“Don’t you know the story of Salome?” I ask, surprised. I thought Helen knew everything.

“Well… sort of.”

“I think you’ll be fine.”

I say this with hope. As I also sort of know the story, and have no intention of reading the synopsis.

We’re inside now. There’s a staircase. The red balustrade glowing through the gloom. We wind our way down to the bottom of the tower.

It’s freezing down here. And dark. With the daylight from the doorway growing fainter and fainter as we make our descent, I begin to feel a kindredship with those witches thrown into dark hole-like prisons. It’s enough to give anyone the shivers. Or at least it would if it wasn’t for the…

“Blankets!”

Each chair set in a series of concentric circles around the walls has a bright red blanket folded up and placed on it.

“These are nice. Better than the ones at the Rose,” says Helen, immediately pulling hers up to her chin.

“Yeah, those were blue and a bit… old lady on her way to the hospice. These are way fancier.”

Fancier, but not quite as warm. I tuck mine in around my knees and decide to keep my jacket on.

A woman comes over to tell us to turn our phones off. I’m surprised there’s even any reception down here. It feels like we’re sitting in the bottom of a well. A very large well.

“What is this place?” asks Helen.

“Like a pump room or something?” I suggest.

“Those diagonal lines in the bricks… are they the original staircase?”

I’m beginning to realise that I should probably have done some research before coming here.

“I thought this was a museum,” contines Helen.

“I thought so too. I thought there’d be…”

“Like display cases and things.”

“Yes, things.” There is a distinct lack of things down here. Except for what looks to be a department store’s worth of broken up mannequins cast around the floor. Arms and legs and torsos, piled up and upside down. It all looks very undignified.

A dancer appears. He leans back and rolls his stomach, making full use of his shirtless state. Is that Jokanaan? I can’t tell. I should probably have read the synopsis.

There’s someone else. Another bloke. This one dressed in black and wearing dangly earrings. He looks like he should be some sort of drug lord.

And then… ahhh. That’s Salomé. I see.

It’s all happening now. Musicians step out from behind their music stands and join the dancers for festival of hedonism within the circle. Masks are handed to audience members. Broken bodies are kicked aside. Sex, death, and power circle each other, never letting their gazes waver for a moment.

“That was…” Helen pauses. “Really fucking good.”

“Oh my fucking god, yes. That sexy John the Baptist dude…” I can’t bring myself to call him, Jokanaan.

“Oh yeah! I mean… I would.”

“Like when Salomé and sexy John the Baptist were dancing, and he was totally not into it… I totally was.”

 “Yeah, but totally.”

The man sitting in front of us turns around in his seat to look at us.

We both burst into laughter.

“I think having him murdered just to get a snog was a bit much, but like, I get it… you know?” I say, ignoring the man and his judgemental gaze.

Helen nods in agreement.

Which just goes to show, that while Helen may be about to embark on a fancy-as-fuck PhD, knows everything about everything, and could quite possibly be a secret engineer, she’s still just as low brow as the rest of us.

Well, for a while.

“I like how she was both the predator and the victim,” she says, reclaiming the intellectual high ground as we make our way back to the surface.

I flounder, trying to keep up. “It’s a very basic plot,” I say. “I mean… you can tell the whole story in three sentences. But here they’ve made it entirely about the characters. Predator. Victim. Everyone is a bit of both.”

“And the way they used the space! That moment when Salome is up on the staircase, looking down…”

“And the massive shadows cast against the walls!”

“I thought it would be like that place under the pub. You know, Ellen’s worst nightmare,” she says, referring to a mutual friend who has an absolute horror of intimate theatre.

“Vaulty Towers,” I say, knowing exactly what she means.

“Why can’t dance in small spaces be like that? I know a small space doesn’t always mean that it’s crap, but…”

Yeah. But.

“That’s the one amazing thing about this marathon. It makes me find all these gems in places I would never usually go.”

“No, I would never have come here if it wasn’t for you suggesting it.”

“No Sexy John the Baptist…” I really need to stop calling him that. “Who is he?”

Helen gets out her freesheet. “Carmine De Amicis,” she reads.

“He’s really good in that role.”

“He’s really good in that role.”

“Something… not quite human. Something, separate. Like he’s from a higher state of existence.”

“A purity.”

“Here’s the thing,” I say. “Sometimes not having the money forces artists to really work, to think about how to tell a story. They can’t waste a penny on props or sets. If that was a big name schmany ballet choreographer, you just know there would have been a half-hour feasting scene, with coordinated dancing harem girls and all that shit.”

“Yes! It all has to come from the body. Here, they didn’t have anything. Nothing. Every little bit of characterisation came directly from the body.”

We lapse into silence, thinking about their bodies.

“It was good.”

“It was so good.”

So, there you have it. Salomé is fucking great. Carmine De Amicis, Harriet Waghorn, and Fabio Dolce are fucking talented dancers. And fucking talented choreographers too, because those fuckers not only performed this fucking piece but also created it. The Brunel Museum is weird as shit. And Helen and I are going straight to hell.

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Lost in Space

Is Streatham Space Project the newest venue on my marathon thus far? I think Streatham Space Project is the newest venue on my marathon thus far. Not even a year old, it opened in June last year. I doubt they’ve even taken the plastic wrap off yet.

And, yup. It is very shiny. Very shiny. Golden even. The walls are positively gleaming in the evening sun. I don’t want to insult the people of Streatham by saying that it looks like a little gleaming nugget within a pan full of gritty river water, but… I’m just going to leave that sentence hanging there.

There’s a little laminated sign stuck on the sliding glass doors. “We are… OPEN to the public. C’mon in!” it says. I’d love to know what incident prompted the creation of this sign (probably lots of locals sticking their head around the door and asking if the place is open to the public, and can they come in) but as someone with the anxiety, who even five months into her theatre marathon, still gets a little nervous going into new places, I really appreciate it.

For all the millions the Opera House has spent on their Open Up project, a simple sign on the door can do just as well.

I follow the directions and go inside.

It’s nice in here. Less of the shiny and more of the earthy, as branches circle the ceiling lamps, and photographs of trees crowd the walls. Signage is big and clear and in caps. STAGE one way. BAR and TICKETS the other.

Now, that’s a question. Tickets. What am I needing to do on that? I have an e-ticket. But one thing I’ve learnt on this marathon is the stuff you get sent by theatres aren’t worth the pixels they’re printed on. E-tickets are confirmation emails, confirmation emails get you admission passes, admission passes are stickers, and stickers are brill. Nothing means anything, and it is always best to ask.

The box office and bar take up the back wall of the cafe space. I head over and join the queue. There doesn’t seem to be any differentiation between the two spaces, as the two blokes behind the bar jump from one side to the other, box office to bar, and back again, as each person in the queue asks for different things. Tickets or drinks, or some tasty combination of the two.

It’s my turn.

“Do I need to pick up a ticket?” I ask. “Or is it just e-tickets?”

“Just e-tickets. We’re completely paperless here,” says one of the blokes behind the bar.

“Great.” I mean, not great. I fucking hate this paperless trend. It’s the red flag of a dying civilization. The end of a golden age of theatre that stretches back centuries. A victory of bean-counters over memory-makers. But, still. Great. At least I know the situation.

Although… completely paperless? Oh dear. That doesn’t bode well for potential freesheet action.

Oh well. I’m not going to think about that.

Instead I step into a side room. It looks to be a gallery and there’s some pretty amazing photos of trees by Mark Welland on the walls. The kind of photos I wouldn’t mind owning, and certanly don’t mind taking a few minutes to look at and ponder over. I do like a tree.

I get distracted by a bing-bong. An actual bing-bong. The sort of bing-bong that would open an episode of Hi-de-Hi! on a Saturday morning.

“Welcome to Streatham Space Project,” the voice on the tannoy says. “Just to let you know that show tonight, Freeman, will start at 8 o’clock, and the doors will open at 7.45. So you have plenty of time to queue at the bar. If you could make your way to the Stage at 7.45 that’ll be great.”

Oh. See, now. I was sure the start time was at 7.45. I was rather banking on it, as, let me remind you, we’re in Streatham. And that’s a long way from Finchley. Which is where I live, and more importantly, sleep. Those fifteen minutes could well be the difference between me just having a cheeky late night, and being so tired that I want to die.

I double check the website. Yup, start time 7.45. No mention of doors. So either the Space Project is still working on out some issues in their communications, or the performance is running behind.

Bing-bong!

“The house will be opening in a few minutes for Freeman. Please have your names or tickets ready to be ticked off the list. Please make your way to the auditorium.”

My quiet corner next to the fire safety equipment is soon overrun with people flapping around A4 pieces of paper that they’ve printed-at-home their print-at-home tickets (paperless my arse).

“Is this the queue?” someone asks. We all shrug in response. It is now, I guess.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” says one of the blokes from the bar. He squeezes through us, holding a laptop in his arms. “Excuse me.”

He makes it through to the other side and with the laptop balanced in the crock of his arm, beams at us all, ready to take names and check the not-so-paperless tickets.

Well, here I am, the paper-whore with only my name poised and ready to give at the door.

“Smiles?”

“Err…”

“It’s S-M-I-L-E-S.”

“S-M-I…” he types up with one finger, the laptop wobbling on his arm with every key-press. “Maxine?”

That’s the one!

I go in.

I’m running out of words to describe black box theatres. They’re black. They’re shaped like a box. There’s a single bank of raked seating. The stage is at floor level. I’ve been to at least a hundred of these this year. Probably. I haven’t actually counted.

The stage is actually surprisingly small given the amount of seat there are in here. It feels a little out of proportion. A little squashed. Like a pug’s snout. Still cute, but makes you wonder about the conduct of the people who created them.

I plonk myself down at the end of the third row. That seems to be my go-to seat in unreserved theatres at the moment. Just far enough away from the stage so that you don’t feel exposed. But closed enough that it still feelings incredibly intimate.

Someone comes to sit next to me, and the intimacy increased by an alarming factor. He manspreads out his knees, bumping and jostling my own knees out of the way. Then, room cleared, he pumps his legs together, as if working away on an invisible Thighmaster.

The lights dim and the leg exercises finish. Thank goodness.

Thirty seconds later, he’s checking his watch. He sighs. Deep and shuddering.

Something tells me this is going to be a long evening for the both of us.

He sighs through the performers creeping around after one another to Grieg’s In The Hall of the Mountain King and shouts of “Tory scum!”

He sighs as the names of black people who have been killed by police officers are projected up the screen. So many names they overlap and merge into one another, forming a solid wall of white.

He sighs through the Equus-style horse made up of dancers and ridden around the stage. The horse ride that would lead to William Freeman be imprisoned, and beaten brutally, for five years.

He sighs through the shadow puppet failed-assassination of Edward Drummond. The failed assassination that would lead to the M’Naughten rules.

He sighs as Sarah Reed undergoes the most harrowing assault scene I’ve ever seen on stage.

He sighs through the lindy hop. Through the gospel singing. Through court testimony and horrific murders.

He sighs. He sighs. He sighs.

He sighs as we laugh. He sighs as we cry.

He sighs through it all.

I’ve never felt so sorry for someone in my entire life.

An hour later, we’re out.

“More info on the show if you’re interested!” says a front of houser, standing by the exit and handing out leaflets.

I am very much interested. I take one.

Outside, I stop to have a look at it. It’s full of information about mental health. Signs, symptoms, courses of action. All good stuff. And nicely printed too. But not a single thing about the show. No cast. No creatives. I write this post ignorant of the names of any of the performers who sang and danced and wretched out hours for a full sixty minutes.

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Behind Closed Doors

It’s bank holiday Monday and having a roast in a fancy pub sounds pretty swell right about now. But unfortunately I’m not here for food. I’ve got to go watch some theatre.

There’s another chalk sign above I door that's just beyond the bar. THEATRE it says, in all caps with an arrow pointing up.

The door itself has its own sign. In gold. THROUGH TO THE GENTS. Gotta love a venue that sorts the latrines with the mise en scène.

Anyway, I go through. Not to the gents, but up the stairs. There are lots of frames gracing the stairs on the way up, which in any lesser pub-theatre would be show posters from all their previous productions. But the Drayton Arms doesn’t stoop to such vulgar exploits, and instead have old maps, and a portrait of Ellen Terry advertising Allen & Ginter’s cigarettes, and what looks like a Toulouse Lautrec print

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Because we're Addamses

, if I say the Broadway in Catford, what kind of mental image do you conjure up in that wee head of yours? Some sort of grotty arts centre that hasn't been painted since 1972 perhaps. Or maybe a tower of glass and steel and fingerpaintings. Either way, I'm willing to put money on your not picturing this gothic extravaganza, complete with stone gargoyles and pointy windows, and a grimy slate roof, and a grass-fringed canopy, and, and, and... it's like a theatre built out b-movie off-cuts, and I love it.

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Cover Me In Dead Stickers

"You look really cool standing there with your sunglasses," says Helen by way of a hello.

Leaning against the outside wall of the Rose Playhouse in the early evening sunshine, wearing my sunglasses, and my 49er jacket, and my stompiest boots that are so worn the leather is peeling away at the heel, I do feel pretty fucking cool. Not gonna lie.

"Have you seen the ruins of the old Globe?" she asks.

I haven't, so we wander down the road together to take a gander.

"They're just over here," she says, pointing at exactly nothing.

"It looks like a car park?" I say, peering hard at the empty courtyard.

"You can see the circle there," she says.

"Ummm," I say. There is a circle on the ground, made from the pattern of the cobblestones, but it isn't exactly what I'd pictured from the word 'ruin.' "Unless Richard the third is buried under there, I don't really see the point..."

"Honestly, I just wanted to see the disappointment in your face when I showed it to you," she laughs.

Well, jokes on her because I still attempt to take a photo. But whoever set this place up clearly did so without Instagram in mind, because it's impossible to get a shot of all the lettering set into the stones. And the railings are very unphotogenic.

That done, we return to the Rose.

It doesn't look like much from the outside. There's a wall, made from the type of polished grey stone that looks like it belongs in a premier league footballer's bathroom, and the doors. You can't miss the doors. Large. Red. Panelled. And definitely the portal to hell.

"I think we're just meant to push them?" I say doubtfully.

Helen does so.

They open.

It's dark and cool in here. Not what I expected from hell's foyer. The walls are white. And covered with a woodcut design on one side, with a big scrolly banner reading "Welcome to The Rose. Bankside's First Theatre." Well, at least we're in the right place.

The other side is all glass. There's a counter. And people sitting behind it. The box office then.

"Are we too early?" asks Helen.

One of the ladies behind the counter frowns. "No?" she says, as if the doors to this place look as if they were designed to keep out a raging hoard of peasants for at least a century.

Helen looks at me. I look at her.

She's waiting for something.

"You booked," I say, finally realising what's happening.

"Oh!" she says, jumping into action and giving her name.

"For health and safety, I need both your names," says the lady behind the counter. "In case there's a fire."

"My name?" I say, leaning over the counter. "Smiles."

"Yes?"

"Shall I spell it?"

"What's your name?"

"It's Smiles."

"Name please?"

"Max Smiles?"

"I need your name."

"It's Maxine. M-A-X-I-N-E."

She writes this down, then looks up again expectantly.

"Err, Smiles? S-M-I-L-E-S."

"Oh! That's a nice name."

It is a nice name. But it's not an easy one to live with.

She places two freesheets on the counter. "Here you go. And your tickets. You'll need to hand these back when you go in."

XXXADMISSION PASSES

We're allowed through the door then, into another foyer. This one is far more interesting. There's a model of the old theatre ("The Globe totally ripped this place off," is my thought on the matter) and there are display cases full of tasty little knick-knacks.

"I really like that ring," says Helen.

I go over to look at it. It's Helen's birthday coming up soon and I have not a clue what to get her.

It's pretty. And not overly expensive. I wonder if I can distract her long enough to buy it.

I read the information card.

"Umm. Here's the thing," I say. "I would get it for you, but the inscription says 'think of me, god willing' and I'm not sure we're quite there yet in our relationship."

"Maybe next year," says Helen, thankfully not sounding too disappointed.

More people are starting to arrive. We find ourselves amongst a group of people peering into display cases.

From behind the black curtains comes a voice.

"I will murder you and all your ancestors."

Blimey.

"What was that?" asks Helen.

It's Emily Carding. Warming up.

That name may sound familiar for a number of reasons, but in marathon-world it's because this is the fourth time Carding has featured in this here blog. Yup, you heard right. Fourth. Little bit stalkerish of me, but what can a girl do? Not go to plays with a talented actor in unusual spaces? Hardly. And if you're wondering whether Carding is aware of my - shall we call it 'loyalty'? - then I am happy to inform you that yes, she is. And she approves. Or is at least sweet enough to pretend that she approves. Now stop asking.

A front of houser appears. "It's very cold in the space, so if anyone wants a blanket, we have some." She points at one of those stripey bags that students use to heft around their laundry. "I would advise that you take one."

"Oh my..."

Helen laughs. "You look so excited."

That's because I am so excited. "They have blankets!"

I don't tell Helen this, but there's a reason that I'm so excited. I've been pitching the idea of ordering logoed-up slankets at my work for years. I mean, picture this: You're in the theatre, watching a play, or... as this is my idea and my theatre, some high-quality contemporary dance, and you are all snuggled down in your seat, comfy because you are covered neck to toe with a great big fleecy blanket, with sleeves. We cannot forget the sleeves. You need your arms free so that you can read your, very reasonably priced, and beautifully edited, programme. Now, isn't that the dream? And the Rose has made it happen! I'm almost annoyed that they got there first. But no matter, my ones will have sleeves. That's still an innovation and I'm claiming it as one.

"Would you like one?" asks the front of houser offering up a folded-up fluffy blue blanket.

I definitely do.

"Now," continues the front of houser once the business of the blankets is complete. "Before you go in, please switch off any non-Elizabethan devices.

"You're very lucky. Richard of Gloucester himself will be showing you to your seats."

"Do we need to curtsey?" someone asks.

Apparently, curtsies are optional.

We form a queue.

From the other side of the curtain we hear the greetings being passed out as people are taken in and we inch ever closer to the door.

"Let me take that from you," says the front of houser on the door, reaching for my ticket.

I'm next.

Carding appears, all hunched of back and black of suit.

I kind of want to curtsey.

She grasps my hand and gives it a firm shake as she welcomes me in with a frenzy of words.

She holds out a placard. I duck my head under the red ribbon.

I'm to be Buckingham for the evening. Duke of.

She motions me to a seat. I'm sat next to a small boy. One of the Princes in the Tower. Of course.

On the other side is the King. I can tell he's the king because he's wearing a crown. It's made of paper and has more than a touch of a Burger King feel about it.

Helen's next.

She's to be a queen. Elizabeth. The Woodville one. She gets a crown too. She looks very happy about it. I'm a bit jealous.

You may have guessed by now, but this rendition of Richard III doesn't follow standard procedure. With only one actor (Emily Carding), the audience has to get involved in order to bulk out the cast.

I've done one of these before. You remember. The Hamlet one. I was Ophelia. It was... terrifying.

But, as this blog will testify, I'm a glutton for punishment. And besides, I'm a touch more familiar with this play. I've seen it before, for one. It's even featured in this marathon. I'm hoping that will help.

Except, who is Buckingham again?

Am I a Yorkist or a Lancastrian?

Whichever one I am, I hope it's the red rose side of the Rose Wars because I'm wearing a dress covered in the damn things. After the success of my Over My Dead Body dress at Hamlet, I thought I'd made an effort this morning and try a touch of theme dressing. And, as I don't own any dresses with white roses on them, it appeared I had no choice but to align myself with the red rose cause.

Something I only realised might be problematic when I was heading out to vote this morning, as I'm fairly confident that you are not allowed to wear political symbols inside the polling station. I really didn't want to be turned away. Partly because I didn't have time to go back home and change, but mostly because I wasn't even voting for Labour this time around. But, as it turned out, no one noticed. And I got my cross in the box without issue.

Thing is, I'm starting to suspect that Buckingham was not in the white rose gang.

I pull the blue blanket across my lap to hide my shame.

It looks like we're all seated now, ready to go.

This place is small. Long and narrow, with seating on three sides. Nothing interesting there.

But the fourth side. Now... that's something.

As Carding takes her place in the middle of the stage and starts her opening speech, the void of the old Rose theatre glimmers darkly behind her. The architectural dig, covered from the elements by a thinly walled building, is open behind her. The stage effectively a viewing platform for the ruins. Proper ruins. Not like that shitty car park Helen tried to fob me off with earlier.

Carding is a very modern Richard. And it's not just the snappy suit. She's armed with an iphone and she's not afraid to use it. She reads allowed a series of constantly pinging texts, takes a selfie with Lady Anne, and fixes me with an intense stare as she has a phone call with Buckingham.

And no one is safe from that stare.

As Queen Lizzie comes under its forcefield, I look over at Helen. Her fringe is all squashed down by the paper crown. Her face is rapt.

And then the dead-stickers come out.

I was very excited about the stickers. Ever since I saw Carding tweet about them this morning. I love a sticker. Any sticker. But a macabre sticker? Fuck me. That's a whole other level.

I was so excited I messaged this to Helen.

XXX

And yes, that avatar I'm rocking is indeed Edmund Keen in the role of Richard III. How very observant you are. Well done.

It's actually from a painting at my work. I love that painting. It's in a part of the building that I call the demon's corridor because it is always freezing there. I like to think it's haunted. Possibly by Edmund Keen. I have no evidence of that. Other than the painting. But I take my theatre ghosts where I can find them.

The king is the first to go. After Carding checks my neighbour's pulse, she declares him dead and slaps a sticker, printed with the word DEAD in big capital letters, on him.

He's not the last.

Stickers are getting stuck all over the place.

Carding orders Lady Anne to be by her side for the coronation. The dutiful wife. She doesn't look happy about it. I'm impressed. She's really good.

I'm ordered up too.

I leave the safety of my blanket behind and walk onto the stage, taking up a spot to the right of the throne.

Carding hands me the paper crown. This is my big moment. I'm feeling both more terrified and more powerful than I ever have in my life. A emotion-combo that probably goes along with the job. I never thought I'd feel close to the Archbishop of Canterburys, but this marathon has been taking me to some weird head-spaces. But I bet the Archbishops of old never had to contend with a paper crown. It's so cold I'm shaking. I'm not sure I can move my hands. I do my best, plonking it on Carding's head, but she has to rearrange it to get it to stay down.

When it comes to it, can someone let the royals know that I won't be available that day? It turns out that I'm not quite cut out for kingmaking.

I'm sent back to my seat and the safety of my blanket.

Carding rolls her chair over to me and asks what we should do about Hastings. I pull a face. What is to be done about him? She runs her finger across her throat. Well, yes. We could do that. I copy the gesture and nod my head.

Dead-sticker.

Dead-sticker.

Dead-sticker.

Carding hands two dead-stickers to a young woman and orders her to kill the princes.

The young woman walks over. "Sorry, you're dead," she whispers to the young boy sitting next to me, as she gently sticks him with his dead-sticker.

I'm feeling very alone now in between all these corpses.

It doesn't last for long.

It's soon time for my execution.

Carding comes over, hunched of back and intense of stare, and sticks the dead-sticker to my left side, just above my heart. She slaps it into place with the back of her hand.

I should be sad, but I can't stop myself from grinning. I really wanted a dead-sticker. I'm so pleased.

Also, turns out my red rose dress wasn't so inappropriate after all... double-crossing demon that I am.

Eventually, there's only one dead-sticker left.

The paper crown slips from Carding's grasp. She reaches for it, but it's too far away. She looks done for. But she has the just enough left in her for one more act. One more dead-sticker.

I hold my breath.

Silence.

And then a second later, applause.

Carding gets to her feet.

I breathe again.

She grins. All traces of Richard left lying on the floor.

"Please return the placards. The stickers however, are yours to keep," she says, pointing at me.

Yeah, there was no way I was giving up my dead-sticker.

"I can't believe you didn't die!" I say to Helen as we are released from our seats.

"I can't either! I really wanted one."

"Oh, take one. We have lots," says Carding, stepping in to give Helen a sticker. That's fair, I suppose. Elizabeth Woodville is dead, after all. She has been for a good long time.

"Let me take that from you," says a front of houser, relieving me from my blanket. "Are you staying for the talk?"

There's a talk after the show, about the Rose.

"Do you want to stay?" I ask Helen.

She doesn't.

We leave.

"Hang on, the door's locked," says a front of houser, rushing out of the box office in order to let us out.

As the door opens, warmth hits us. I stop shaking.

"Shall we get pancakes then?" says Helen.

I had previously suggested pancakes as part of my post-immersive theatre plan. Interaction really takes it out of me. The slightest sniff of audience-engagement sends me crashing as I burn up every little molecule of adrenaline in my body. And after something as intense as this... well, I knew that I'd need sugar, and I'd need it STAT.

We begin walking, up the stairs to Southwark Bridge Road and off to get us some carby goodness.

"She's really amazing," says Helen. I'm relieved. I knew if anyone would like this kind of thing, it would be Helen. She managed to enjoy You Me Bum Bum Train. Immersive Shakespeare is nothing to her. But still, there's always the worry when taking friends to shows like this. "The way she brings you into the text..."

"You know what I find amazing. That you know what to do, you know? Like, I'm bad at people. We know I'm bad at people. Especially reading people. And yet... it's totally clear what's expected. Like, when she was taking people's hands, and they stood up, I was confused about how they knew to stand up, but..."

"She tells you. Without having to say a word!"

"Exactly!"

"Like when she handed you the crown. It was obvious what you had to do."

"Totally."

"And that bit with Lady Anne and the gun. Where she said 'seriously, this is going to be messy,' so Lady Anne knew what to do."

"Yes! I don't think I've ever seen anyone so hyper-aware of their surroundings. Playing off everything, and everyone."

"There was this moment, at the end, when she's dying and there was some kind of noise in the distance, and it was actually had this perfect synchronicity because she reacted to it, bringing it in and..."

We're nearly at the pancake place now, so our conversation turns to one of tables and menus and drinks and ordering.

"Are you both alright?" asks the waitress, looking at us with concern. "You are both dead?"

"Yup!" we say cheerfully. We're both still proudly wearing our dead-stickers.

She waits for further explanation, and seeing that no more was coming, laughs and plays along.

"You must be hungry, being dead," she says, taking our order. Two dutch babies. One sweet. One savoury. And two hot chocolates. Laden with whipped cream.

Almost worth dying for.

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BLT with extra lettuce

It’s taken a tube ride, two Thameslink trains, and a quick march up a steep hill to get here, but I’ve finally made it to the Bromley Little Theatre.

It’s nice.

Tucked off a small side street behind a… gosh. I don’t know what to call it. My brain is serving up the term porte cochere, but I’m fairly confident that really only applies to Downton Abbey and its ilk. What I mean is, that the short path between the road and the courtyard beyond is covered by an extension of the building, arching up over my head as I walk below it. It’s the type of construction that makes me instantly think of it should belong to garage in a provincial town, for reasons that I can’t identity right now and don’t want to question too hard.

There’s a handy sign pointing to the right door, which is much appreciated as there seems to be doors everywhere.

There’s steps in here. I start climbing. They’re very steep steps. Very, very steep steps.

And I’m wearing a very short skirt. A very, very short skirt. Made even shorter by the fact that I’m a little bit chubbier than when I bought it.

I look behind me and yup, there’s somewhere there. A bloke at the bottom of the stairs.

Thank god I put my big girl pants on today. Fucking hell…

There isn’t much of a landing at the top, but what space there is is taken up by a man sitting on a stool.

He’s busy dealing with someone else, so I hang back, surreptitiously trying to pull down the back of my skirt.

When it’s my turn, I give my name.

“Smiles! I remember that name,” he says in response.

They always do.

“Here you go,” he adds, handing me a lanyard. “Would you like a programme? 50p.”

“Bargain,” I tell him, looping the lanyard over my arm and reaching for my bag.

My purse has, of course, worked its way down right to the bottom, so I step aside and let the person behind me get lanyarded up while I dig around in search of it, find it, chip my nail varnish, pull out the purse, locate a pound coin within the detritus of pennies and cough sweets, and then when the name checker is free, hand it over, get 50p in change, and walk away with my programme.

I’m exhausted and I haven’t even got through the door yet.

Thankfully, there isn’t far to go, as the show I’m watching is in the foyer bar. Now, when I saw this, I thought it was just a cheeky name for a space cordoned off from the main bar. Perhaps with the use of curtains, or some kind of sliding wall situation, but no. We are literally in the bar. There, it is, over on the far side of the room, positioned right next to the box office. Chairs are positioned in two sets of rows, one on the bar side of the room, one on the entrance side. Benches are tucked against the walls. And in between, resting on tables that fill what little free space there is, are bowls of crisps.

All around people are munching away and laughing.

It’s quite the crowd.

There may not be a lot of room but almost every seat is taken.

I spy one free spot, in between a row of chatting ladies and a bowl of crisps. A prime spot.

“Is this seat taken?” I ask one of them. It isn’t.

I plonk myself down, careful not to knock over the crisps.

In really is small in here. Or rather, it feels small. Cramped even. The ceiling is low, and made even lower but the presence of heavy wooden beams painted an inky black and playing double duty as a lighting rig.

The tiny bit of free space in the middle of the chairs contains an office desk and, well, even more chairs. That’s our set for the evening.

There’s a TV on the wall. It’s playing one of those dreary financial channels where men in suits talk sternly in acronyms to each other for hours on end. An odd choice of viewing material for a bar, I think. I didn’t have Bromley pinned as an outposts for city workers, but then, I don’t hang out with city workers if I can help it.

Everyone is wearing their lanyards. I’ve just spent a whole day wearing one, and I’m not feeling overly keen about putting on another for the evening, but everyone else has, even the staff, so I duly duck my head down under the red tape and put it on. I’m a guest here, after all. A non-local in what feels like a very local place. It wouldn’t due not to play the game.

I look down at what my lanyard actually says. VISITOR, in fat green letters, cementing my position here.

I look around. We’re all visitors.

Except, no. There are some who have something different on theirs. I watch them, trying to work out what makes them different. Behind ones belonging to the blokes behind the bar are red. They say STAFF.

Except, hang on. I spot something. Across the top, in the black banner, instead of saying Bromley Little Theatre, or the like, it has: British Universal Industries Ltd.

“Don’t forget the five aside this evening,” says a sing-song voice over the speakers. “Team work makes the dream work.”

I almost laugh. I’m such an idiot. The TV. The lanyards. And those creepy inspirational words stencilled onto the walls. They are all there for the play.

Now, I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I saw Mike Bartlett’s Bull last, but this is slow work on the part of my brain.

“It must be starting soon,” says a woman sitting behind me.

“How can you tell?” whispers back her friend.

“The lights in the bar have gone off. The lights in the bar always go off just before they start.”

Gotta love that quality insider info.

She’s right too. A few minutes later, and we’re plunged into a meeting room at British Universal Industries. Three candidates. Two jobs. It’s going to get nasty.

As the audience sip their drinks, they become more and more vocal as the play progresses. Biting words are greeted with winces and hisses through teeth. But it takes one the actors taking his shirt off to turn the chorus to vocals.

“Very nice,” says the lady sitting behind me.

She’s not wrong.

But her appreciative comments don’t last long. He’s a wrong’un and treating poor Thomas abominably, and she’s not having it. “Why doesn’t he hit him?” he hisses furiously at her friend, as Thomas suffers the ire of the shirtless-wonder, XXX, one too many times. “He should leave! I would leave! Why doesn’t he just leave?!”

Similar whispered comments circle around the room.

We’re all rooting for Thomas. To fight back. To have pride.

We’ve all been there. Felt powerless in the face of people cleverer than us, quicker than us, more attractive, more confident, more charismatic. We are all Thomases.

It’s Isabel’s turn, with her pristine pencil skirt and precise pixie-cut.

XXX

I get up to leave. I’m one of the few that does. People lean far back in their seats in order to talk to people down their row, behind them, walking past, everywhere. A frenzy of conversation buzzes around the space.

I wade through it, back towards the landing.

There’s a box out there, ready and waiting to receive the lanyards.

I dither. I don’t need to tell you why, do I? Don’t make me admit it. You know I don’t like talking about my habit of pilfering audience-props.

No one would know if I just slipped it into my pocket and walked away.

But I can’t. I just can’t.

The ticket was only a fiver. And everyone here was so nice, so into it. I just… can’t. It would be wrong.

I dump my lanyard in the box and scuttle down the stairs before I have the chance to change my mind.

Probably for the best. I need to go back to get their main space ticked off the list. It wouldn’t do to get barred.

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Behind the Pink Elephant

I have two thoughts as I make my way down to the Blue Elephant Theatre. Firstly, that it was a lot further south than I had anticipated. A lot further south. I thought it was close to Elephant & Castle tube, but I passed that ten minutes back and I’m still going. The other is that it after all this walking, it better bloody be blue. I’m willing to accept that my fantasies of it being shaped like an actual elephant may not come to pass, but a lack of blueness is will be unbearable.

“Watch it,” shouts a cyclist as he screams past me on the pavement.

Fucking hell. The cyclists of south London are intense. Only been here half an hour and that’s the third one who seems intent on murdering me.

I pick my way across the road carefully, checking both ways at least three times.

South London be dangerous, y’all.

Can’t even stroll down a pavement without… wait. Where am I?

The shops and bustling high street have fallen away behind me. I’m alone. Standing in what looks to be very residential area. Is there really a theatre here?

I check my phone. According to the theatre’s website, it should be just around this corner - opposite the large block of flats.

I turn the corner, feeling more than a little doubtful about the whole thing. Not being in the shape of an elephant was one thing. Not existing at all was quite another. I’d go as far as to say that I’d be quite upset if, after walking all the way from Islington, the Blue Elephant turned out to be, well, a pink elephant.

Thankfully, it’s not a drunken hallucination, because there it is, and… while not completely blue, there are definitely some blue elements. Doors and shutters and the swinging sign are all painted a very lickable shade of azure blue. And even better, the sign has the model of an elephant in it.

A family walk past, the little girl bouncing along in a Disney-print onesie.

“The theatre’s open today!" she shouts, excitedly pointing towards the building.

Her mum doesn’t seem impressed. They are running late. There is no time for possibly-non-existent theatres.

I’m running late too. I should go pick up my ticket.

It’s even bluer inside. Doors in that tasty azure shade are everywhere, surrounded by a more tasteful navy blue.

A (blue) sign points the way to the box office. Left, and up the stairs.

Not that I can go up them. There’s a couple of young ladies picking up ticket, and the three of us are taking up what little room there is on the few steps that separate the entrance from the landing that is serving as the box office.

They have one of those tiny hole-in-the-wall windows, but the space looks so small that the person serving is hanging out in the doorway, leaning into the office and the landing and back again, without moving his feet, as he processes the two woman.

By the sounds of it, they’re getting free tickets. Some sort of initiative for locals. Which I would be totally in favour of if it were not for the fact that my local theatre doesn’t seem to do these things.

Oh well.

Finally, it’s my turn.

“The surname is Smiles,” I say.

“Smiles! I remember the name ‘Smiles’,” he says, beaming. I laugh. I’m used to the reaction my name gets, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love it every time it happens.

His finger runs down the list. “Ah, Max. Of course.”

Of course.

He hands me an admission pass. Laminated and a bit worn looking, but it’s large, and blue, and most importantly, it has an elephant on it.

“And your programme,” he says, handing me what is very clearly a freesheet. “The bar is upstairs.”

Up the stairs I find more blue doors. These ones with stickers of elephants on them. A pink elephant on the left. And a blue elephant on the left. The blue elephant has a moustache and a bowtie. The pink elephant has a flower tucked behind its ear. A presume this display gender-normative elephant-accessories is meant to indicate loos lurking on the other side of the doors.

I decide not to investigate further.

More stairs. And there’s the bar. It a nice room. Packed full of little tables covered in mismatched table-clothes. There’s a table over by the far side, and low stools around the perimeter. It’s saved from looking cramped by the high vaulted ceiling. The angled beams are painted deep navy blue.

And there are elephants. They’re hiding all over the place. One behind the bar. Another hanging from one of the beams.

I’m in serious danger of finding myself playing a game of hunt-the-elephant, so I go to sit down, picking a table covering in a sparkly tablecloth. I’m in that kind of mood.

The bar begins to fill up.

Everyone seems to know everyone else. I begin to wonder if I’m the only person here who actually bought her way in.

A woman walks over to the table behind me. “We’re starting a little bit late,” she says to them. “There are still, like, seven people not here. I don’t know who they are, but they’re on the list.”

Yeah, that’s the problem with free tickets. It’s very easy not to turn up when you’ve got one. It takes a financial commitment not to succumb to the lure of Netflix.

It’s well past eight now. I’m starting to get a little worried about the length of my journey home.

“Welcome to the Blue Elephant for the first night of Justice, taking place in the theatre downstairs,” says a woman, who has clearly also got home-time on the brain and wants to get this show rolling. She runs through a serious of warning: haze, depictions of sexual violence. “And, errr, one thing I’ve forgotten.” She pauses, trying to remember the last thing on the list.

“Nah,” calls out someone else. “That’s about it.” She turns to everyone else in the bar. “Sorry if there was something else.”

Everyone whoops and staggers to their feet. Ah. Not locals then. But mates of the cast. I’m sure of it. No one is that enthusiastic about theatre unless they know someone involved. Not even when the tickets are free.

But they are not making for the stairs. They have one more thing to get sorted before they go into the auditorium.

As one, they head towards the bar.

Definitely friends of the cast.

Back down the stairs. Past the pink vs blue loos. Past the boxy corner office. Past the entrance. And on to the theatre.

“Amazing,” says the guy from the box office, who is now on ticket checking duty. He takes my admission pass and I go in.

There’s a single bank of seating. Raked. The stage is at floor level. It’s covered in chairs. Both lined up down the sides in a way that sets my teeth on edge (actors sitting on the side of the stage in scenes that are not their own is a trope that went from being pretentious to hackneyed decades ago), but also piled up on the floor, and hanging from the rig. And there, along the back wall, is a tower of broken chairs, with looks like it has more than a passing nod towards the Iron Throne.

We’re not in Westeros anymore, Dumbo.

I ignore the chairs. I’m much more interested in the cushions.

Small. Fluffy. And lined up on the benches.

It looks like I’m in for a comfy evening.

Or a very uncomfy one. Depending on what they are covering up.

I squeeze myself down to the end of a row, so that I can lean against the metal bars on the end.

Now that I’ve sat down I can see that the rake isn’t all that great, and I am super pleased that no one is sitting directly in front of me.

As soon as I have that thought, the theatre gods intervene. The guy from the box office comes in. He looks around for a spare seat before deciding to ease himself down the full length of a row, and sit directly in front of me.

Now, I’m sure he had his reasons, but I don’t think I’ve ever, in all my years of theatre going, in my 120+ theatre trips this year alone, in thousands of shows, seen a front of houser sit anywhere that didn’t have easy access to the aisle.

And usually the one closest to the exit.

You know, to facilitate matters in the event of an evacuation, or, I don’t know, help an audience-member if they need help finding the pink loos.

He hoikes his elbow onto the back of the bench, and settles in.

I just pray there isn’t a fire.

The play is about knife crime. Or possibly the outrage of stop-and-search. Inequality in education. The ineffectiveness of the police. Class, maybe. Race, definitely.

The company is young. Very young. And they are trying super hard.

It’s rather sweet.

And wow, I’m super patronising.

Oh well. I’m sure they’ll go far as long as they ignore the bitter old trolls, like me.

At the curtain call, one of the cast members steps forward. They are raising money for Steel Warriors, a charity that melts down knives and builds playgrounds. They are asking for any spare change to be dropped in buckets as we leave.

Another cast member steps forward. “I’m supposed to talk about Wooden Arrow now,” he says, referring to their plays producers and looking very embarrassed about it.

Half the audience explode into laughter. No doubt the half that make up Wooden Arrow.

He goes through a short spiel, and looks very relieved when he reaches the end of it.

It time to go.

It’s still light outside. And warm. The perfect evening. Which I will spend trapped underground as I take the long journey home.

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Feeling salty

I’m on my way to Sloane Square. I’m walking because I never learn my lesson on this matter, and I’m now in that strange and exotic hinterland between The Mall and Eaton Square, where all the buildings look like they are being kept as doll’s houses for a series of life-size, and creepily realistic, mannequins. They’re all too large and ornate to real.

I cross a road, and behind me I hear a whistle.

As in an actual whistle. The type blown by the games teachers in my nightmares.

It chirrups. Like a bird that only knows two notes. Once. And then again. Followed a few seconds later by a repeat performance.

I turn around just as a police motorcycle squeezes out from between the traffic, twisting around, and stopping right in the middle of the crossing. The officer puts out his hands, stopping the traffic.

We all wait, me and the cars, to see what happens.

A truck emerges, pulling a car behind it.

In the distance, I hear sirens.

Oof. That must have been one hell of an accident.

The truck and its tow pass through.

Another motorbike emerges from the other side of the road. A civilian one.

The police officer blows on his whistle with an angry chirrup, and raises his gloved hand to point accusingly at the motorbike.

The motorbike slows to a stop. I can almost see the rider’s embarrassment as he receives his telling off through the medium of hand gestures.

They’re not letting anyone go. We’re stuck, as surely as if the road had been covered in treacle. Waiting for the chirrupy whistle to release us.

Just as I decide that if I don’t get a move on I’m going to be late for my play, another bike putters into the crossing. Followed by a car. A very fancy car. A car with a flag on the bonnet. A diplomatic flag. Wait, no. Not diplomatic flags. Those are royal flags. I’m not a fan enough of the monarchy to be able to tell you which one, but it had a lot of yellow and there was definitely an HRH-type in that vehicle. It’s followed closely by a rather more pedestrian looking minivan, with a small crest on the door, and a panda car.

I turn around to leave.

To my right, I hear a strange clank. I look over. The bus driver is opening his window.

“That’s the closest we’ll ever get to that,” he calls over to me.

I laugh, and he wrestles the window closed again before moving on.

I head in the other direction. Towards the Royal Court.

The irony isn't lost on me.

The show in the main house has already gone in. The box office is empty.

I give my name to one of the ladies sitting behind the counter.

“Is this for salt.?” she asks.

It is.

“We're trialling e-tickets today,” she continues breezily, as if this statement were not an attack on everything I stand for. “So they'll be waiting for you upstairs to be swiped in.”

I stare at her, unable to formulate a response that isn’t laden with either swearwords or desperate, tear-filled pleas.

“Right,” I manage at last.

“It’s on the fourth floor. Up the stairs.”

Four floors. That’s a long time to mull things over. I make my way up them slowly, unsure what to make of this whole thing. The Royal Court, the Royal fucking Court, has fallen victim to this plague of e-tickets. If even the Royal fucking Court cannot withstand this onslaught, what hope is there of getting a proper ticket at a fringe venue?

Is this it? Is this the end of the printed ticket?

2019. The year I attempted the London Theatre Marathon. The year of the Ticketpocolapse

By the time I hit the balcony level, I’m feeling a little wobbly. You might think that this is due to climbing three flights of stairs after a three mile walk across the city, but I know better.

This is the end.

Once printed tickets have gone, it’s only a matter of time before programmes go the same way.

Result: unemployment, hardship, debt, penury, and death.

The Royal Court is literally killing me here

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Agitfop

It’s Saturday morning and I’m scrolling up and down the events page for the Platform Theatre. The theatre belongs to UAL, and today it’s the last day in their MA Directors’ Showcase run. There are four plays on offer. One of which is Tom Wells’ Jumpers for Goalposts. I should really book it. Even after last night’s cry-athon at Curious Case, I’m still in the mood for big snotty tears, and this play sounds like the one most likely to deliver. it’s also not on until 7.30pm, which means I get to spend at least the next six hours in my pyjamas, which I think we can all agree is the best way to spend a Saturday. Jumpers is the right choice. The sensible choice. The only choice, really.

I scroll back down, chewing on my lip, because here’s the thing. I never claimed to be sensible.

And there’s a play down here called The Fop Reformed, which I know nothing about except it has the word fop in the title, and I am totally into fops. If it weren’t for the tragedy of being born in the wrong time, and to the wrong gender, and, quite possibly, the wrong class, I like to think that I would have been in a fop. Or more specifically: a Macaroni, as it’s the fashion, rather than the foolishness, that I envy so much. The queued hair, the velvet coats, the satin britches. I was born to live that foppish-life. Honestly, the universe should be ashamed of itself for making me alive in this dismal time, lacking so badly in powdered wigs and lace cravats.

I book it before I have the chance to reconsider, and quickly run towards the shower. It starts at 1.30pm and I need to get all the way to King’s Cross.

There isn’t much time to pick an outfit, but in a concession to my foppish forbearers, I dig out my antique quizzing glass necklace and wind the long chain around my neck. There. With my floaty black dress this is very almost a look.

The Platform Theatre turns out to be in that fancy new part of King’s Cross. Or, at least, on a road that feels as if it’s kind of behind the fancy new part of King’s Cross. It is completely deserted back here. No shops. No bars. No people. I wander down this desolated street feeling like I’ve just wandered into a 28 Days Later re-enactment.

A window sign points me in the right direction, but as I reach it, I have to double check because this place doesn’t look like a theatre. It doesn’t look like much of anything. The great big windows that face the street are tinted dark, and inside I can just about make out a few tables and chairs, and beyond them, a great void of nothing.

In the entrance foyers there are twin a-frames displaying what has to be the most bleak set of messages I’ve ever seen in a place purporting to be a bar. “The prosecco party is over. Try our sparkling wines instead,” reads one, while the other kindly informs me that the place closes at 10.30pm on a Friday night. I know everyone jokes that Generation Z are all sober and in bed by 9pm, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so disheartened by a pair of blackboards in my life.

Thankfully, that seems to be it in the way of signage. I can only guess that the large counter on the other side of this bleak bar is the box office.

Someone else is there. He’s buying a ticket. Looks like I’m in the right place after all.

“The surname’s Smiles?” I say, wondering why I always say this as if it were a question.

“Oh, sorry,” says the woman behind the counter. “I’m just shadowing today. I’m new.” She indicates the man by her side. The box officer she is shadowing, I presume.

I wait, and when the ticket buyer moves on, I side-step into his spot.

“Smiles?” I say, spelling it out, just to make it extra clear.

He peers at his laptop, and a second later the ticket machine by his side splutters out a ticket.

Well, that’s something. They may have a vendetta against joy, signage, and atmosphere. But you can still get a freshly printed ticket at the box office.

That done, I wander towards the only bit of colour in the room - a small display of headshots and production posters for the plays (and film) that form the showcase.

There’s a little table below the display. With programmes. Fuck yeah. I’d forgotten this was a thing at uni productions. Free programmes. I fucking love a free programme.

I grab one and settle into one of the low purple sofas in the corners.

“Have you seen these,” says a young woman, flapping around a programme to show her friend. “They are gorgeous. They never used to be. Just look at it!”

I take her and look at it.

It isn’t bad.

Nice double page spread for each show, and a full page biography for each director. My director, by which I mean the young lad directly The Fop Reformed, seems to be a big fan of the 18th century. I think we’d get along marvellously. Or end up stabbing each other in an argument over an enamelled snuff box.

“The house is now open!” comes a deep voice from the entrance of the theatre.

No one moves.

If anything, the small gathering sinks even further into their seats.

I busy myself, slipping my programme into my bag.

When I look up, everyone has gone. They’ve formed themselves into a queue. Beeps follow them as they get their tickets scanned.

There’s lots of chatter and “how are yous?” as the queue progresses. No doubt they’ve all been in a Rattigan production together at some point.

I try to look like I belong, but the whole business of being at least ten years older than this lot and wearing a quizzing glass around my neck isn’t really helping my cause.

I make it through the scanner without my presence being questioned. Not out loud, anyway. And I head through the doors.

The Platform is a black box theatre. It looks like the seating is changeable. It’s only chairs, and not even the fixed kind, but there is a rake, which is always good. There are also programmes set out on the seats. That’s some quality audience-care right there. I mean, okay. They want to make sure that all the producers and casting directors whatnot in the in audience know who’s involved, but still. I haven’t see that at LAMDA or RADA.

There’s lots of “I haven’t seen you in a while,” “what projects are you working on at the moment?” “it’s all go-go-go round my way,” type chatter as people find their oldest-friends-that-they-can’t-quiet-remember-the-name-of on the way to their seats.

I put myself in the third row, towards the side. I don’t want to take a prime spot from somehow who actually has some potential work on offer.

There’s classical music playing from the speakers. I recognise it, but can’t identify it, much to my shame. It sounds Baroque though, so I’m very happy. Even if it is being played on a loop.

I’d been worried that this might be a modern dress production. All Ancien Régime Parisian manners without the outfits to match, but no. We’re safe. It’s all there. Emerald coloured suits, heeled shoes rosettes on the toes, stomachers, satin, and side hoops. And for the next hour I’m in utter fop-heaven as our fop-hero wields his foppish-umbrella like a sword, flicks his foppish-hair around, wers the hell out of his velvet suit, and absolutely, positively, refuses to do anything as gauche as admit he has feelings for his fiancé.

Well, that is until his lady love and clever lady’s maid sorts him out.

Fucking fop-tastic.

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The Curious Case of Currywurst and Cold Chips

A few days ago I was debating whether I would tell you if I ever got stood up. Turns out I absoluetly would, because it's happened. Your gurl has been stood up. Although I'm not sure it counts as a true standing up if you get advance notice. Okay, I got cancelled on. Surely that is bad enough?

Anyway, cue me contacting every single person I have ever met in my entire life to dangle the offer of a free ticket to a new musical in front of them and it is Allison who takes the bait. We haven't had a theatre outing together since Valentine's day, when she ditched her husband to come to the Donmar with me, and I think we can all agree three months is far too long to wait for a second date. But I can't complain. Not when Allison is stepping in the rescue me from embarrassing solitude once more. That's true friendship, that is.

We meet outside the theatre, pop in to pick up our tickets, and then head out for the really important part of the evening: dinner.

"Where do you wanna go?" asks Allison.

I'd suggested Borough Market and leftover cupcakes from my work's bake sale in my tempting messages that afternoon, but the situation has since developed and I have my eye on the Mercato Metropolitano marketplace on the other side of the road.

"Wow, that looks intense," says Allison as we look through the open doors at the long queue getting searched by multiple security guards.

"Let's try the next door," I suggest. In my earlier recognisance walk-by, I'd spotted that the last door seemed to be the most lax on the whole security-thing.

We try the next door, and get our bags checked.

It’s Friday night and the place is packed.

Every chair, table, and possible flat surface, is occupied. But curiously, each of the stalls is utterly devoid of queues.

The two of us walk around, trying to decide what we want to eat.

“Turkish German?” says Allison. “That’s a weird combination.”

“That is a weird combination… but oh, look! They have currywurst! I love currywurst!”

Allison has never had currywurst before, so it becomes my personal mission to educate her on the joys of sausage in curry sauce, and I order to.

“I’ll buy you a drink,” offers Allison as I shove my card in to pay.

“We have drinks vouchers,” I say, pulling them out of my pocket to show her.

“It’s just like a real date,” she laughs.

“I have cupcakes too, remember. I know how to show a girl a good time.”

We’re handed one of those buzzer things, which I immediately pass off to Allison. I can’t be dealing with those things. They make me anxious.

We find somewhere to sit down. Well, Allison finds somewhere to sit down. I balance precariously on a table. And we wait for the black box to beep.

Ten minutes later we’re still waiting.

“I thought this was place was supposed to be fast food,” says Allison.

“Do you think we should go and ask?”

We do. Or rather, Allison does.

“Two minutes,” says the guy in the stall. Behind him we see the cook running around, busily making our currywurst.

Five minutes later, it arrives. On two plates.

“Err, can we have it to go?” I ask, looking around at the complete lack of free tables to sit two large plates on.

After much huffing and puffing, we get the currywurst in a to-go container.

I immediately open mine and tuck in.

“The chips are cold,” I say.

Oh well. We head back to the Southwark Playhouse and set up camp on one of the small tables outside. Perfectly positioned to be able to see what is going on in the bar, and primed to launch ourselves inside when the doors open.

It’s also the best possible set up to show off to Allison my ability to put away vast quantities of food in a very short space of time.

“Oh my…” says Allison, as I use my last chip to mop up a dollop of mustard.

We both look at her dish. it’s still half full.

“Don’t worry, we still have…” I check my phone. “Five whole minutes. No rush.”

But the doors are open and the crowds in the bar are starting to go in.

Allison admits defeat and we head inside. Slowly. Currywurst doesn’t sit lightly on the stomach.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a queue. Or rather, everywhere seems to be part of the queue. Within seconds Allison and I are jostled apart. I reach out my hand to here, hoping to pull her through the crowds, but we’re too far away. I let myself be swept forward towards the doors of the theatre.

It’s press night tonight and the smaller of the Southwark’s Playhouse’s two venues, The Little, is packed.

“Where shall we sit?” I ask Allison as we finally manage to find one another.

There aren’t many options left.

“Shall we try the other side?”

Somehow, the good people of the Southwark Playhouse have managed to fit multiple rows of benches on three sides of a tiny stage in here. We pick out way around the tiny stage until we make it to the other side. There’s some free spots round here. In the front row.

Now, we all know how I feel about the front row, but I think we’ll be safe. We’re here for a musical. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, no less. Which doesn’t sound like the sort of show that will have interaction.

But then, one never knows with theatre. I mean… I’ve told you about the immersive Hamlet, right?

I put on my best “don’t talk to me face,” and settle in.

The cast come out. They’re carrying instruments. They strike up a tune. It’s folksy and earnest. Which, if that description sounds familiar to you, is because I used it to describe the music in The Hired Man. But where the storyline of that musical got lost in the vast space of the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch, there’s no chance of that in this tiny, intimate space.

Sitting in the front row, with nothing before me but these musicians bouncing around and strumming their tunes, I feel like I’m in some West Country pub, listening to the local band singing about the town’s resident folk hero - forever drowned in legend - the truth of his tale long forgotten.

And because it is a legend, we don’t have to worry about the silly matter of logic. Or even why the American writer’s tale, originally set in Baltimore (yeah, I did my research - I’ve read the Wikipedia page), has been moved to Cornwall.

A large puppet is carried onto the stage. It’s Benjamin. His father gawps and him, and so do we, as we all puzzle the impossibility of such a birth.

No matter. The story moves on and so do we.

“It’s really good!” says Allison as the house lights go up for the interval. She sounds surprised.

“Shall we get a drink?” I say, showing her the drinks vouchers that come as part of the press night experience.

The queue in the bar is intense, but we stick close to each other and soon make it to the front.

“What can we get for these?” Allison asks the lady behind the bar.

“Anything!” comes the joyful reply. “Beer. Wine. Spirits.”

Well! I plump for a Gin and tonic, cos I’m well sophisticated and shit. Allison goes for a beer with a very romantic sounding name that I immediately forget. “It feels right for the show,” she explains. I hadn’t been the only one picking up the pub-vibes then.

A few minutes later, there’s an announcement that it’s time to go back in.

“Can we take our drinks do you think?” I ask, looking with concern at the large quantity of G&T left in my glass. I may be a trougher when it comes to food, but downing a large alcoholic drink in one has never been part of my skill-set.

“Yeah, they just said,” says Allison. I clearly hadn’t been paying attention.

We go back in and settle in our seats, listening to the conversation flowing around us.

“It’s really gooood.”

“It’s amazzzzzing.”

“Well done, darling.”

I love press nights. So much audience enthusiasm as everyone congratulates their friends and themselves.

“Do you want a tissue?” someone in the row behind us asks her friend. “I saw it last night and the second act is a bit of a weeper.”

Oh dear.

I mean: yay. I have a hankering for a show that makes me cry those big snotty tears. But also, I’m wearing a lot of eyeliner today.

Thank god I’m here with Allison. She won’t judge me if I get my face covered with black tears.

The sniffs start quickly. Everywhere around me people are touching their fingers to the corners of their eyes. Soon there are nose wipes taking over as sniffs are no longer affective against this onslaught of emotions.

There’s something in my eye. I blink. That was a mistake. The tears I’d been so carefully holding back start to spill. I press the back of my hand against my cheek, hoping to get rid of them before my makeup melts.

The cast bows.

We stare at them. Clapping because that’s what we’ve been trained to do. Our minds still not fully caught up with what’s just happened.

A few people stagger to their feet.

Gradually, more join them.

Allison gets up.

I follow her.

The cast start up again. A few people try to clap along with the beat, but the rest of us are too spent for such a thing. We fall back into our seats, crying happy tears as the performers play on.

The final note fades away. Grinning, the cast disappear. But we don’t stop clapping. Can’t stop clapping. This is it.

The cast aren’t coming back, but we still aren’t stopping.

Minutes later, they return for one final bow and are hands are allowed to still, the business of showing our appreciation now satisfied.

“I counted five people crying during the infirmary scene,” says the woman sitting behind us. “I love that,” as we all gather our belongings together.

Allison and I quietly make our way out. I can’t talk. Tears are still choking my throat.

It wasn’t the infirmary scene though. I mean, if you’re going to go, doing so in the arms of a handsome young man who adores you doesn’t sound all that bad to me. It was what came after that really got me. The diminishment of the self. The shrinking of Benjamin’s mind alongside his body. The memories fading. It comes to us all. Eventually.

As I trudge my way back home, I remember something. I hadn’t given Allison her cupcake. Shit. I had completely forgotten.

I’m a terrible date.

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Demon Theatre of Fleet Street

I thought I was well past the point where I was able to shock my coworkers with my theatre-going, but the expression on their faces as I wrap my scarf around my neck and breezily say that I'm just popping out to watch a play tells me that I've hit a new low.

Turns out, slipping into an empty seat at the back to catch the matinee in your own theatre is one thing, but running down to Bridewell Theatre in order to squeeze a short play into your lunch break is quite another.

Oh well. Doesn't matter. I'm already halfway down Farringdon Street and too out of breath to worry about my rapidly deteriorating reputation in the office.

I haven't been to the Bridwell Theatre before, but I've seen the signs for it, so I'm not entirely surprised when I step out of the smog of grey suits on Fleet Street and into a quiet little side-street that looks like it's pitching itself as a location for this Christmas' glossy Dicken's adaptation.

Two ladies chat outside the front door to the theatre, but apart from that, it's entirely deserted.

I'm guessing lunch-time theatre can't really compete with M&S sandwiches in the life of a city worker.

I'm up for it though. A 45-minute play in the middle of the day sounds great. It's just a pity that this place is too far from my work for me to ever justify coming here outside of my marathon. Best make the most of it.

Huh. This place is not nearly as exciting looking inside. After a brief interlude involving floor to ceiling tiling, those old Victorian stones have given way to white walls and grotty floors.

But no matter. There's a good old fashioned hole-in-the-wall box office. It even has a circular speaker thing set into the glass. The metal surround is inscribed with the directive to: SPEAK HERE. I do, giving my surname, and I'm handed a small entrance token in exchange.

They are small. And laminated. There's a picture of a sandwich on the front (cucumber on wholemeal) and a poorly hyphenated set of terms and conditions on the back. I'm disappointed. Somehow I had got into my head that the Bridewell was connected to the printing industry, but I couldn't imagine any proper printer producing this sort of nonsense.

To be fair, that connection may exist nowhere outside of my own fuzzy memories, and no be based on anything even approaching reality. In which case, the tokens are just fine. And cucumber sandwiches are totally ace. But like... not on brown bread. Don't be gross, people. No one wants that shit in their lives. It should be white bread or nothing when it comes to cucumbers. And plenty of butter. The good stuff. Yeo Valley, or Kelly Gold if you must.

"The house will open at five to one," says the man behind the window. "We'll ring a bell."

That's only a couple of minutes away. I better start exploring.

I follow the signs down to the bar.

Oh, blimey. That's not what I expected. There I was, traipsing down the white-walled staircase, never knowing that the basement bar was lurking underneath like the Phantom's lair. Bare brick walls. Metal beams holding up curved arches. And there, squatting between the tables like an old man waiting for someone to buy him a pint is, oh my god, is that a printing press?

I fucking love a printing press. I’m always trying to drop hints to our printers that they should invite me around for a tour, but they are doing the absolute mostest to change the conversation to one of paper stock, or types of fold, which I suppose is also good.

I go over to have a proper look at it.

I suppose it could be a printing press. If what you're printing is shirts and by press you mean, wash out the dirt. They're washing machines. I'm in an old laundry.

Oh.

I'm beginning to think I really did imagine the whole printing thing. Which is worrying.

Still, it is nice down here. I do like old machines, even if their purpose is to remove ink rather than print it. I like that you can see how they work. This wheel turns, that cog rotates, then this plate lowers, yadda, yadda, yadda, and your socks are clean!

It's surprisingly busy down here. All the tables are full.

I'm trying to work out how many of these people are here for a sneaky pint during their lunch hour. But none of these people look like the type to work around here.

There's less in the way of suits than I would expect. And far more anoraks than is reasonable.

I feel like I've somehow stumbled group in their pre-meet for a walking tour of the Lake District, rather than a bunch of city workers taking a short rest-bite from their heady day propping up capitalism.

There's a rustle of Goretex as they all stumble to their feet and make towards the door.

They must have heard something I didn't because the queue to get into the theatre is starting and if I don't hurry up and join it, I'm going to be stuck right at the back.

Back up the stairs, through the door by the box office, and via a small foyer taken up by some rather fetching blue curtains, and we're into the theatre.

It's a standard black box, with raked seating, and a rather fantastical lighting rig - meal bars jutting off at all sorts of wonderful angles. Each side of the space is lined with slim metal columns, the type you'd find on an old factory floor. I rather like it.

It takes a while for everyone to settle.

There are considerably more people here than I could ever have expected. Lunchtime theatre is clearly a thing, and I feel like I've been missing out. Someone needs to tell all the pub-theatres in Islington, because I want to get in on this action.

After five months in marathon-mode, even 90-minutes-no-interval is starting to feel like a chore. With a standard 7.30pm start, you're still not getting out before 9pm. And then there's the journey home, and by the time you've got your coat off, put the kettle on, and shoved all the clothes off of your duvet, accomplishing the coveted In-Bed-By-Ten prize is a bit of a challenge. If you ask me (and I'm sure you are), 45 minutes is the perfect length for a play.

I didn't know anything about this one, but with such a short run time, there wouldn't be much room to go wrong.

Even so, Stanley Grimshaw Has Left The Building manages to pack it in: family tensions, false allegations of violence, missed messages, Elvis impersonations, and not one - but two - twists, before the clock runs out. There's even a reverse of the man-sends-his-inconvenient-female-relative-to-the-madhouse trope, which was very pleasing.

I would credit those involved, but there wasn't a freesheet to be found. Which if the Bridewell really did have a connection to the printing industry would be really fucking embarrassing for them.

Now, I have to know - where did I get that idea from?

As I hurry up Farringdon Street on my way back to work, I quickly Google it.

"Housed in a beautiful Grade II listed Victorian building, St Bride Foundation was originally set up to serve the burgeoning print and publishing trade of nearby Fleet Street, and is now finding a new contemporary audience of designers, printmakers and typographers who come to enjoy a regular programme of design events and workshops."

They even have a library dedicated to printing and its associated arts.

Oh, Bridewell Theatre. Dedicated to the print trade and you can't even put together a freesheet. For shame. For shame!

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A toast to Walnut Whips

Toast tonight! Nope, not my post-theatre dinner plans (although they may end up being that). I’m at The Other Palace for Nigel Slater’s Toast.

Which is great.

Except, I don’t know who the fuck Nigel Slater is. He must be very important, as nowhere on The Other Palace’s website do they actually stoop to telling us who he is or what he does.

Now, I write a lot of show copy. A lot of show copy. I don’t have the exact numbers to hand, but I would say I bash out marketing-words for at least 100 shows a year. And I’m trying very hard to think of someone who is famous enough not to require a little intro. You know the kind of thing: “the visionary contemporary choreographer X,” or “the cult-leader Z,” or perhaps “the Austrian former-artist and political rising star Y.” We actually have a mega-celeb involved in one of our upcoming shows, and even he gets an intro citing the number of Grammys that he’s won. So, I’m trying really hard to think of someone more famous than him. Someone who requires no introduction. Beyoncé perhaps? But even she would probably get the “legend who requires no introduction,” style treatment.

Which brings me back to: who is Nigel Slater? Is he more famous than Beyoncé? Is he the Queen?

I’ll admit to being incredibly ignorant, but I think I would have noticed if the actual Queen was called Nigel Slater.

This is what I get from the website about Nigel Slater: He has an autobiography. He grew up in England in the sixties. He ate food. He likes toast (?).

Well, I like toast too. So I think we’ll get along just fine.

I traipse my way down past the OG palace, making my way through all the fancy wide streets until I reach The Other Palace.

There’s security on the door. Or rather, in the door. Looming in the doorway and asking to check my bag.

He gives the contents of my bag a cursery glance and then I’m left standing in the foyer no sure what I should do.

I don’t need to go to the box office. I have an e-ticket.

If you fall into the overlap of the Venn diagram between People Who Follow This Blog and People Who Visit The Other Palace, this may surprise you. And you’re right. The Other Palace do indeed offer paper tickets. For a price. And it looks like I’ve found mine, because I was not prepared to pay £1.50 in order to get my hands on one. Call me a sell-out if you will, but even I have my limits on how far I’m going to go in pursuit of paper.

And anyway, they sell programmes here. So it’s not like I walking away entirely devoid of papery-goodness.

Or at least, I think they have programmes.

I can’t see any.

There’s no where to sit down, but I find a free spot over to the left of the entrance, and I use my spot to spy on the ticket checker. She has one of those little aprons that front of house staff sport when they have to deal with the business of change. But there are no programmes peeking out of the pocket.

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Wheely need a change

I’m feeling a bit down at the moment. A trifle low. A touch, if I dare say it, sad.

I hate admitting it. Not because I’m ashamed or anything like that. It’s the reactions I get to these statements that keep me quiet. I don’t know how it is for you, but when I tell people that things are a bit sucky in Maxine-land, they either brush it off with a series of dismissive noises, or they take the exact opposite approach, going into hyper alert, as if I’m about to off myself right then and there in front of them. When what I really want is for them to pat me on the head, agree that everyone is terrible, and tell me that it’s all going to be okay, because they are going to beat up everyone who has ever wronged me.

Okay, I hear it. You’re right. That’s not the way to handle things.

I can beat up my own damn people.

In the meantime, as it is mental health awareness week, I’m going to admit to you that the marathon is really getting to me at the moment.

It’s the relentlessness of the whole thing.

It just goes on and on and on.

For nearly five months, I’ve been going to the theatre almost every night. And then filling in every free moment in between shows with writing about them. Thousands of words. Hundreds of thousands of words. Three whole novels’ worth of words. I’m not even kidding. No wonder at least half of them are misspelt.

And, you know, it’s a bit lonely.

I don’t mean the going to the theatre part. Because I’m very often not alone. And, as someone pushing the limits on how far one can sit on the introvert scale, going to the theatre by myself never bothered me anyway. It’s the loneliness of the marathon itself. The fact that I am entirely on my own in this enterprise. The lovely people that accompany me on my trips don’t have to spend the evening desperately trying to recall fragments of conversations, or their intervals making notes on their phones. They don’t have to give up their lunchbreaks to writing blog posts. And their weekends to emailing PR companies. They don’t live within the confines of a spreadsheet.

I sometimes think about it akin to being jetted off on a solo mission to Mars. Thousands of people will be involved in the enterprise, but in the end, when it comes right down to it, no matter who is on the other end of the shuttle’s radio, they’re up there, all by themselves. But at least that lonesome soul goes in the knowledge that they have a place in the history books set aside from them. Somehow I don’t think they’ll be a ticker-tape parade waiting for me at the end of this year.

Anyway, all this maudlin moping is just a build up to saying that I was after something different. Something I hadn’t seen before. Something to shake me out of my funk.

So, I’m going to the circus.

Well, I’m actually going to Shoreditch Town Hall. But I’ll be watching circus. The new Barely Methodical show: SHIFT. I’m pretty stoked.

I even bought my ticket. With money.

Mainly because I just couldn’t face dealing with a press person long enough to ask for comps, but still.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love press people. I love especially theatre press people. They do a job that I in no way ever want to have to do (again). But putting in ticket requests requires being nice. And I’m in no mood to be nice right now. Wait. No. I don’t mean that. I am nice. Most of the time. I suppose what I mean is: positive. Asking for tickets requires a certain level of bouncy cheer and enthusiasm that I am not capable of at this moment in time. I’m too busy embracing my inner Eeyore to use the required amount of exclamation marks in an email.

Still, even after I’d made the decision to lay down my debit card in the pursuit of another check mark in my marathon spreadsheet, it didn’t mean I wasn’t in full money-saving mode.

And as I analysed the seating plan for tonight’s performance, I realise that the cheapest seats are all gone. Greyed out. Not there.

Dammit.

I click through a few more dates until I see them. There. Thursday night has some. Up in the balcony. Well, that was no good. I’d already made plans for Thursday. Oh well. Second price down it was then. I picked my seat and bought the ticket and then…

Shit.

I hadn’t clicked back to Tuesday. My ticket was for Thursday.

As soon as the confirmation email landed in my inbox, I forwarded it onto Shoreditch Town Hall with an abject apology and a begging request for them to exchange it.

Nine minutes later, it was done. Ticket exchanged. Followed by a friendly command to enjoy the show.

Ah. Now that’s the stuff.

While I respect press people, it’s admin staff that I really admire. They are the real heroes in theatre. The ones who turn chaos into order, dreams into reality, and an outing into an experience. I would lay down my cloak on the wet ground before them if they hadn’t already organised for building services to sort out that dangerous looking puddle outside the front door.

I could almost forgive them for having e-tickets.

Not that this stopped me from heading right over to the small podium positioned just inside the very fancy foyer of the town hall to absolutely double check that printed tickets were not a thing that would be happening in my life tonight.

They’re not. But I take it with relative good grace, and do not in any way express contempt for the future of this planet we call home.

They do have freesheets though.

There’s a stake of them on the counter. I take one and go off to explore.

As former town halls go, Shoreditch must be on the more sophisticated end of the scale.

Where Battersea Arts Centre is all collages and finger paintings and a bee strewn mosaic floor, Shoreditch has oversized faerie-lights and light up screens in place of posters and a more geometric approach to tiled flooring. They even have a ladies powder room, which I took to be the loos until I saw that they did actually have loos. Accessed through an entirely different entrance. The door to the powder door was blocked off, so in lieu of being able to ascertain its actual purpose, I’m going to imagine a line of vanity tables inside, complete with soft pink lighting and deeply padded chairs, where ladies touch up their makeup with fluffy puff-balls and leave a trail of lipstick-marks in their wake.

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