Sparkle and whinneeee — The London Theatre Marathon

"What are you seeing tonight?" asks one of my coworkers.

"Nativity! The Musical," I tell them with a sigh of resignation. I'm not particular looking forward to it.

"Oh, I love that film!" pipes up a voice from the other side of the office.

It's a film? "It's a film?"

"Yeah, I love all of them."

All of them? “All of them?"

"Yeah. There are three!"

"Three?!"

"Yeah. There's a cute dog."

"There's a dog?!"

This changes everything. I get Googling, finding the Nativity! The Musical website and heading straight for the cast list. And yes: there's a dog. Poppy is playing the role of Cracker the Dog. "Starred in her first West End production at just 8 weeks old," I read aloud from her biography. "Wow."

I'm impressed. I love stage-animals. And this one seems like a pro. She even has her own instagram.

I keep on clicking around, fascinated by this cultural phenomenon that has apparently passed me by.

"Featuring the hit songs Sparkle & Shine, and Nazareth?" I say doubtfully.

"Yeah, Sparkle & Shine!"

"You've heard of it?”

"Of course!"

"Are you joking?" They must be joking.

"Sparkle and shineee..." they sing.

They are definitely joking. That does not sound like a real song.

I guess I'll find out soon enough.

If I can find the venue.

It's a bit embarrassing, but even after living in Hammsersmith for five months, I still don't actually know where the Eventim Apollo is.

I used to get stopped quite a lot, on the way out of the tube station, by lost tourists, and I would always point them in the direction that I thought it was. That is, the direction of all the restaurants advertising pre-theatre menus. I figured they had to be close by. But according to Google Maps, I spent five months pointing these poor people in entirely the wrong direction, because it's actually just behind the tube station. And I've been walking right past it without even noticing.

Oh dear.

"Wow, that is massive," says a young woman as she races past with her friend.

They are both wearing a lot of sequins and hairspray and are out for a good time tonight.

"Is that it?" asks her friend. "We're here already?"

"That was quick."

Turns out I'm not the only one surprised by this venue's location.

With approximately six thousand other people, I cross the road, pass a parked coach, and find myself in a snaking mass of crowd control barriers.

I know I've complained a lot about long queues outside theatres, but this seems a bit extreme.

Every metal corner is punctuated by a sign telling us to take out our keys and phones and to open our bags ready to be searched.

Not sure what keys and phones have to do with it. We're not getting on a plane as far as I'm aware.

The signs also tell us that tickets are one per person and we should have them ready to be scanned.

I do not have my ticket yet. I look around for a sign to point me the way to the box office, but everywhere I turn it's keys and phones and bag inspections.

I stick to the queue I'm in, winding my way around the maze, having paths blocked in front of me as queue controllers move barriers to divert the line into new directions. It's like being caught in the worst game of Snake, where every possible turn will have me bumping into my own tail.

"Got your tickets?" asks a queue controller as I near the front.

"No, I'm collecting," I tell him.

"Box office queue over there?" he says, pointing away from the main doors to a secondary, smaller, queue.

I join it.

But not before a man rolling a suitcase manages to squeeze himself in front of me.

So desperate was he to get ahead that I ended up having to jump over that damned suitcase of his. He must have travelled a very long way to be here tonight.

He calls over a queue controller and says something to him.

"This is the box office queue," says the queue controller.

"No," says suitcase man. "I was told to come here."

I puzzle over his statement. Looks like the queue controller is too, as he tries to explain that regardless of what he was told, this is the queue for the box office.

"No!" insists suitcase man. "I was..."

"Yeah," says the queue controller. "You jumped the queue."

I hold my breath as suitcase man staggers back at this accusation.

"Noooo," he wails, finally recovering himself. "I didn't! They told me to come here."

We're nearing the front now.

There's a massive scanner. The sort you'd find in an airport after placing your belt and bag in a plastic tray.

Perhaps we are actually getting on a plane. I hope we're going somewhere warm.

A queue controller appears. Another one. I didn't think it was possible for so many to exist in the same place. Eventim must have got themselves a job lot on those padded waterproof jackets they're all wearing and felt the need to hire staff to fill them out.

"Two steps to the side!" he calls, waving us closer to the wall. "Bags off shoulders! Leave everything in your bag, Phones. Keys. If you don't have a bag, put them in your pockets."

I don't think this guy has read the signs.

Suitcase guy is next up at the scanner.

I pull my bag off my shoulder.

The queue controller beckons to me, out of the line.

"Bag?"

I open it for him.

He peers inside.

"Through you go, madam."

I race ahead of suitcase guy, feeling a bit smug about not having to go through the scanner.

Inside, there's a massive window in the wall with "Box Office" signposted above it. Dot matrices indicate what all the different lines are for. I join one called "Sales & Collections."

The suitcase guy arrives. He joins the twin "Sales & Collections" queue next to me.

He looks at his queue.

He looks at mine.

Then he wheels his suitcase over, placing himself right in front of me.

I laugh.

Out loud.

"Mate! Are you serious?" I say, still laughing, his ballsiness knocking the anxiety right out of me for a moment.

Without looking at me, he returns to his old queue.

Wow, that actually worked.

I make it to the front of my queue without any more queue-jumpers.

"Hi. The surname's Smiles?" I tell the box officer.

"Can I see ID?"

"Err... yeah?"

I pull out my purse and see what I have. There's a provisional driving license in there. That'll do.

I slide it under the glass and he takes it, giving it a close look before handing it back.

Blimey. Who could have guessed that Nativity! The Musical had higher security checks that Hamilton? Certainly not me.

This must be one hell of a show.

He hands me an envelope. It has my name hand written on it. I test the flap. It's sealed.

As I walk over to the doors I peel it open wondering if perhaps I've won a prize.

No such luck. It's just a ticket.

I show it to the ticket checker on the door and she beeps the barcode with her scanner.

And I'm in.

I'm in a massive room.

Huge staircases on each end go up to the circle.

There's a long bar. And a merch desk. And a Christmas tree.

It's also very green.

Green lights bath the art deco architecture making the whole space look like it was cursed by an evil, but very stylish, sorceress.

For a moment I wonder if I've perhaps booked by mistake for Wicked. I am not disappointed by this thought. But the programme seller in front of me is selling a massive booklet that is very much not from Wicked.

"How much is a programme?" I ask her.

"Ten pounds."

Oof. Ten pounds.

I get out my purse. "I have a twenty?" I say, pulling out the last note I have in there.

"No worries," she says, as if I wasn't handing over a stonking amount of money to her in exchange for a few pretty biogs.

We trade notes and I pick up a programme from her proffered pile.

I'll give it this, it really is big. I can barely fit it in my bag, and my bag is huge.

Ushers in what looks like football scarfs hold up lighty-up things that spin around and twinkle. The merch desk is full of hoodies and lunchboxes emblazed with the Nativity! The Musical title treatment. You can even buy a Nativity! The Musical Christmas bauble. For eight pounds.

There's also a t-shirt with "Sparkle & Shine" on it. With great big red stars around it.

I don't think I have ever, in all my travels for this marathon, seen merch for a specific song.

Except for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But that's not a song. It's an abomination.

It can't be real. I refuse to believe it's real.

No song so hyped can ever be worth listening to.

I decide to go up.

The stairwell is one of those fancy double-sided ones which definitely deserve some ballgown action on them.

Sadly, they have to settle for my long black witch's skirt.

Upstairs I find a chain of green banquettes surrounding the huge oval oculus that looks down on the foyer below. Stars float across the space. The Eventim Apollo has really invested in Christmas.

My ticket says I need door three. I follow the signs until I find it.

Up some more stairs and I am in the auditorium.

Lights stream over the walls.

I blink, almost blinded by them.

Noticing my dazzled expression, an usher steps forward.

"Err, U51?" I say, showing him my ticket.

"Yup! That's up these stairs and on the right."

I thank him and head over to the aisle he was indicating.

I start climbing.

And climbing.

I'm a long way back.

When I turn around, the stage looks like a puppet theatre in the distance.

"I'm just here," I say to two young women as they make to get up and let me past.

The seats are comfy enough. Plenty of legroom.

But as soon as the family in the row in front sit down, I realise that the price of such luxury is the absence of decent sight-lines.

I decide not to worry about it and set about taking photos, doing the classic blogger pose with the programme in front of the stage.

The programme is so weighty I struggle to hold it up, and when I go to stuff it back in my back, I end up cramping my hand.

Theatre blogging is a young person's game, for real.

"I was thinking," says my neighbour to her friend. "You know those little side bits..." She points out the boxes either side of the stage. "They can't be nice to sit in."

"Fun though," says the friend.

"But you wouldn't be able to see anything!"

As someone who has sat in a box a few times, I can confirm both of these ladies are correct. They are fun. And you can't see anything.

The lights dim and a woman comes out on stage. She introduces herself as the creator of Nativity!. Both the films and the musical. It's a special night, she tells us. The first performance in the London edition of this show.

The audience whoops appreciatively.

There are lots of new children in the show tonight, she tells us.

This gets another whoop.

"Who knows Sparkle & Shine?" she asks, to yet another round of whoops.

Turns out I am surrounded by people who do know Sparkle & Shine.

We should feel free to sing along if we know the words, she tells us. And if we don't? Well, just listen and we'll pick them up and can join in then.

Holy. Shitballs.

What have I got myself in for?

It starts.

And it's... not good?

Like, really not good?

Like... positively bad?

Scenes drag. Jokes extend too far. Everything takes so damn long.

Just as I'm debating getting my programme out to check the running time, a dog comes out. A cute dog. A cute beige dog with curly fur.

It's Pepper!

The audience "Awwwws" as one.

The young woman sitting next to me gasps and actually covers her mouth she's so excited.

Pepper is very cute.

"That's mum's dog!" cries out the young girl sitting in front of us. "That's mum's dog!"

One of the adults in the party gets out her phone. She finds a photo and shows it to the group. Yup. That's a dog. And it almost looks like Pepper.

The dog is removed, and the story goes on.

At least, I think there's meant to be a story. It's hard to tell.

Now, I've seen bad musicals. A lot of them. Ones without budget for decent costumes or rehearsal time or even talent.

But this has them all beat, for the sheer fact that they have spent a shit load on all these things, and yet still ended up with this trash.

I have never seen a turd polished to such a high shine in my entire life.

"That's Sharon!" whispers my neighbour as a black silhouette appears on stage.

And sure enough, as the spotlit hits, Sharon Osbourne is revealed.

The audience goes wild.

But that's nothing to the reaction the bloke playing the theatre critic gets as he appears.

I squint, trying to make out his face at such a distance, but nope. I don't recognise him.

I must be even more out of touch than I thought, because this lot is screaming at the sight of him.

The screaming is replaced by more squees of appreciations when Sharon brings on her puppies. That's better. If this show could just concentrate on small dogs getting cuddled, I feel I could get on board with it.

The woman in front gets out her phone again. I can see the time. It's eight o'clock.

We've been in here a full hour, and yet nothing has happened. Narratively speaking.

How long is this show if it manages to have a full hour of preamble? Good gawd.

With a whimper, we reach the interval.

"This is boring?" says a woman sitting behind me. She sounds doubtful. "I saw the film last night and it wasn't like this?"

I get out the programme to have a look.

Turns out, the person I can't recognise is Ryan Clarke-Neal.

This information doesn't help.

I turn to the biographies.

Apparently he does a lot of reality TV.

I'll admit, I'm a bit behind on the whole reality TV stuff. So that explains it.

I go back to the credits. Pepper is listed with "The Grown Ups." I find this very pleasing.

The puppies are also there. "Holly and Star."

I really hope they weren't named in honour of this show.

The interval draws to a close and people return to their seats.

Apart from the family sitting right in front of me. The lights are going down, and those seats are empty.

Which means I have a fair shot of actually seeing the stage.

It doesn't help.

This show is just the worst.

All around me people creep out of their rows and head for the exits. They're holding their coats. They're not coming back.

On stage, we've managed to limp forward to the actual purpose of Nativity! The Musical. Which is the nativity musical.

Multiple Marys and multiple Jpsephs flood the stage. I expect this is meant to be charming, but I don't have the capacity to care anymore.

And then, there are stars.

This is it. Sparkle & Shine!

The children start to sing.

"Sparkle and Shinnneeeee...."

I can't make out the rest of the words.

The mumbles are lost against the music.

I mean, I get it: diction is hard. Especially with childish voices. But I thought we were meant to be singing along to this?

As the final notes disappear, I realise the only words I know are in the title.

A fresh set of children are brought on. These ones clap their hands above their heads to encourage us to join in, but the audience gives up after a few lines. This is not a clapable song.

The lights go out.

The stage is dark.

Candles are brought on.

"If your phone has a light, point it at the stage!"

The audience obliges, pulling out their phones at holding them aloft.

I look around. Only about thirty percent of the people in the circle have figured out how to turn their torch on. The rest are just bathing in the glow of their own home screens.

As the song builds, everyone starts waving their phones in time with the music.

My heart shrivels.

This is so depressing.

Even the reprise of Sparkle & Shine can't pull me out of this stupor. I still don't know the lyrics.

With the cast still on stage, getting their final round of applause, I grab my coat and head for the edit. I can't take this a second longer.

Up the stairs, through the door to the gents, and then down, down, down until I reach the exit. Cross the road. Into Hammersmith station. Down to the Piccadilly line. I squeeze through the crowds just in time to make it onto the first train heading east, plonking myself down into an empty seat.

And there's a dog sitting in front of me.

A very cute dog.

A very cute beige dog with curly fur.

Is that...?

It can't be...

"Is it alright to take a picture?" asks the girl sitting beside me.

"Of course you can!" says the man holding the dog.

But as she gets her phone out he clutches the dog to his chest and comes over, sinking on his knees in front of me and placing the dog in her lap.

She coos and awws and gets her selfie.

"Oh look!" she says, pointing down to a small carrier on the ground. Inside tiny puppies snuffle at the mesh.

As we reach the next station, a woman walks over and scritches the dog under the chin without even asking.

"That must happen all the time!" says the girl.