And so here it is. My final theatre trip of the year.
It wasn't meant to be this way. I had it all planned out. My last theatre.
It was going to be the Lyceum. I was going to dayseat for Lion King tickets on New Year's Eve. Add a little jeopardy to the whole thing. Hand my fate up to the theatre gods. Will she make it? Or will she be left begging before the box office, just to be allowed to buy some overpriced ticket at the back of the balcony?
But here's the thing: I'm not going to make it. I know that. You know that. I still have nine theatres left to go.
And I can't get them checked off before the clock runs out. They just don't have any shows. They are dark.
Which means the marathon is too.
So I'm rolling the whole thing over to next year. I'll be having a few mop-up months. Catch those last theatres. Write those last posts. But take my time. I want to sleep first. And eat dinner occasionally. Maybe even do my laundry.
Chances are, you're not even going to get to read this before January. Because this marathoner is taking a break.
But one thing is still left to be done.
The Royal Albert Hall.
For Nutcracker.
Because no Christmas is complete without The Nutcracker.
Even for an anti-Christmas bitch like me.
The streets are packed.
I have to fight my way past the Natural History Museum, as the queue of people lining up to wobble their way around the ice rink stretches all the way down Exhibition Road.
I clutch my fur coat close to me and try hard to pretend that I don't hate humanity right now.
"Oh," says a woman, leading a brood of little girls onto Kensington Gore. "There it is. That's where we're going. You can't see it properly. That's a shame."
I look over.
The Albert Hall is covered in scaffolding. The round stone walls wrapped in white plastic, like an unwanted orange cream melting at the bottom of the Quality Street tin.
I follow the metal columns around until I find the entrance to the box office.
Or at least, the entrance to the foyer that will take me to the box office.
I've got to get through security first, and there are two tables set up for bag checks.
"Please have your bags ready for inspection," one of the bag checkers calls out over the queue.
I head towards the nearest desk and join the line.
"For the ballet?" asks the bag checker as I make it to the front.
I nod. I am here for the ballet.
"How are you?" he goes on, peeking inside my bag.
"Great!" I say with a touch too much enthusiasm. He's probably not used to meeting people at the end of a year packed with over three hundred trips to the theatre. I'm feeling a little bit drunk.
"That's good," he says, taken aback. He clicks his torch off and waves me through.
Through the doors and I’m stuck in a mass of people. It takes nearly a full minute for me to realise that the queue I have found myself in, is not actually the one that will take me to the ticket desk, but is instead leading people off to their seats.
I sidestep my way out and find my way over to the real queue. Handely located on the other side of a labyrinth of Albert Hall merch.
I do like a theatre shop. They are almost as good as museum shops.
This one is still laden down with piles of baubles. Not marked down, I notice. Despite Christmas being officially over now. A touch unsporting of them, I think.
One of the box officers smiles to indicate that it's my turn, and I hurry over to the counter.
"The surname's Smiles," I tell her, and she goes off to the wooden pigeon holes on the back wall to pull out my ticket.
"Have you got some form of ID?" she asks over her shoulder. She holds up her hand in a claw shape to mime the act of holding an ID card.
"Yeah," I say, pulling my driver's license. My provisional one. Just to be clear. This bitch doesn't drive. She just needs to prove who she is to get ballet tickets.
"Lovely," she says checking it, handing it back alongside my ticket. "You're in the Rausing Circle. So that's on the third floor."
I don't know what a Rausing Circle is, but it sounds fun. The type of fun that accompanies overspilling tankards. The type of fun that doesn't belong in the Royal Albert Hall. Except when accompanied by Union Jack wavers.
I struggle back the way I came, past the towers of baubles.
And spot my favourite type of usher.
A programme seller.
Turns out programmes are a tenner, which is steep, but eh... Birmingham Royal Ballet got to pull in that coin where they can find it. I doubt the Albert Hall comes cheap.
Right. My ticket says I need to head to Door 8.
I'm currently at Door 12.
I make for the exit.
I stop in the doorway.
I'd forgotten about the bag checks.
Shit. I don't fancy going through all that again.
I turn around, and join the original queue. I have no idea if I can even get to Door 8 from here. The signs certainly make no mention of it. Oh well. That's what you get for laying down extra money in pursuit of an actual paper ticket instead of swanning in with a barcode on a smartphone.
"Am I going the right way?" I ask the ticket checker as he checks my ticket.
"You can go any way you like," he replies, unhelpfully. I must have given him a look, because he glances down at the ticket again. "You need to walk around to Door 8, then take the stairs up to floor three."
And then he proceeds to not move. I have to squeeze myself in between him and the barrier in order to get past.
Looks like I'm not the only one who has absolutely had their fill of theatre this year.
Free of the foyer, I start walking around the long corridor which circles the auditorium.
The walls are covered with massive fuck off Hallmark ads, which doesn't seem in keeping with the green and cream paint job behind them. But eh. That corporate sponsorship must taste pretty sweet right now.
I find the door, go through, and end up in a wide stairwell.
And up I go.
At the top, I find a counter. And someone selling programme.
"No cast sheets?" asks a bloke, as he flicks through one of the stack of booklets.
"You'll have to go back downstairs. They might have some down there."
"All the way...?"
"Yeah, downstairs."
Dear gawd.
I'm so out of practice going to the ballet I'd forgotten that cast sheets were even a thing. And now I'm three floors away from them.
I dither at the top of the stairs.
I really don't want to go back down, round the corridor, and then go hunting for a single sheet of paper that's been run off a photocopier.
And they might not even be there.
Not when I could print out my own.
Oh yeah. I'm not so out of it that I don't remember that BRB put their cast sheets online, free for anyone to download.
Okay. I can do that.
My knees have already gone through enough today. I'm not sending them into spasms by forcing all those stairs on them again.
Through the door, and I find the entrance to the auditorium.
I show my ticket to the ticket checker.
"U," she says, reading it. Then before I know what's happening, she turns around and jogs up a short flight of stairs, pausing to look over her shoulder at me.
I follow on behind.
"Just through here," she says, pointing up an aisle. "Up the stairs to row 6, and the seat numbers are in the back."
"Okay, thanks," I say, starting off, but she stops me.
"Just to remind you, this is ballet. So no photographs or filming."
I laugh to show I know how the ballet works and she smiles in recognition of it.
Although, considering I just forgot cast sheets existed, maybe she was right to remind me.
I might end up doing any number of inappropriate things.
As I walk up the last steps I try to remind myself of the rules of ballet, and find myself not able to remember a single one. Do you clap in the pauses? Or wait until the end of the act? I'm fairly confident it's a pause-based clapping system, but then you are not supposed to clap during the sad bits. Are there sad bits in The Nutcracker? Nah, it's a kids' ballet. I should be fine. Wait for the pauses. Then clap. Easy.
I find row 6. It's near the back. Tickets aren't cheap.
But the view is better than I expected. This seat was sold as restricted view, but unless the person sitting in front of me tops seven-foot, I think I'll be okay. I have a clear view of the stage from here.
A very distant one.
But clear.
Comfy too.
I mean, the legroom isn't great, but the seatbacks are really high, which makes me feel like I'm sat in a throne. And that's worth a little knee cramp.
The seat next to me is empty, save for a flyer stuck to the back. I squint at it. It's for Swan Lake. But English National Ballet's version.
I wonder how BRB feel about that.
I get out my phone and start taking photos.
High above the stage, huge mushrooms bloom against the ceiling.
I vaguely recall that they have something to do with the sound quality in this place, but that doesn't stop them from looking super weird. Like we all wandered into Wonderland by accident.
Not helping the surrealness of the ceiling, are the giant baubles lurking in between the mushroom growths.
Much more impressive than the ones down in the shop. These ones could crush half the audience if they did a Phantom of the Opera style drop.
A family settles down next to me.
"Do you remember the story?" asks the dad. "I'm relying on you to tell me what's going on."
"Rember," interprets the mum. "No talking during."
"In half time though," insists the dad.
The little girl in between them huffs. "But you'll see!"
She's right. There isn't much of a narrative to The Nutcracker. And it's all quite clear on stage.
A voice comes over the sound system. An injury notice. I instantly forget the names.
Not that it matters. I don't have a cast sheet anyway.
The lights are dimming.
And another voice starts up.
A narrator.
I sigh and sink down in my chair.
Turns out Birmingham Royal Ballet don't trust their dancers to tell what little story there is in this ballet.
I really hate dance performances being narrated. Even worse when it's recorded and piped in.
Grim.
But eventually, it stops, and Christmas in the Stahlbaum home gets underway. The girls play with dolls. The boys get tin soldiers. And our Clara gets a giant Nutcracker. For some reason.
Night closes in.
But Clara can't sleep.
She's probably worried about what the fuck she's supposed to write in her thank you notes.
No matter, soon the Christmas tree starts to grow which distracts her.
It distracts me too. I was wondering how they were going to do this. Making a Christmas tree grow is a tricky business. Adding a touring production and a short run to the mix and it becomes almost impossible unless you use...
Ah. Yeah. They're using projections.
I mean. Okay. Fine.
Except, even for a projection this looks a bit... dare I say it... shit.
And now there's someone walking out of the wings. He has a microphone.
Oh dear.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, as the music comes to an inelegant halt. "We're going to have to pause this performance. If you can stay in your seats, I'll let you know when we can continue."
Gosh.
A rumble of confused murmurs follows him off stage.
I get my phone out. Show stops take a few minutes at the best of times. Might as well check my emails or, you know, take a forbiddon photo.
"That's live performance, things go wrong," says the mum in my row.
"I like live shows," says the little girl. "Because you can have a snack in the middle."
She looks at both her parents in turn, to see if her hint has landed.
"Isn't that right, mummy?" she says when neither of them respond.
"What's that?"
"You get an ice cream in the middle," she says.
"That's right."
There's a pause as the little girl waits for this to sink in.
Nothing.
"So are we getting an ice cream then?" she adds, subtly going out the window now that ice creams are failing to materialise.
"It's not the interval. It's just a little break while they fix something," explains mum.
The little girl sighs. She's not impressed by this supposed difference. If there's a break, there should be ice cream.
And I for one am in entire agreement with her.
The man with the microphone reappears. He thanks us for our patience.
"You may have noticed a problem with the lighting," he says. "Which has now been fixed."
"Ah!" says the mum knowingly from down the row.
The dancers return to the stage. The music plays. The Christmas tree grows.
And the house lights stay on just a touch too long.
Soon enough, the Snowflakes are finishing off their waltz and it's time for the interval.
The little girl takes her family off for ice cream.
I stay behind.
I can't move.
Not even for ice cream.
My last show of the year.
Theatre number 296. Show number 306.
Or 307 if you count the double bill at The Bunker as two, which I definitely think you should.
That's more theatre than most people see in the entirety of their lives.
That's crazy to think, isn't it? A lifetime's worth of theatre smashed down and condensed into a single year.
I certainly feel like I've lived a lifetime within the past twelve months.
Can you see it?
The change in me, I mean.
Perhaps it doesn't come across in my words, but I have people telling me all the time how different I am to the Max they knew at the start of the year.
I'm more confident. Less anxious. More sure of myself.
I'm more accepting of the unknown. More open to adventure.
Well... maybe. Small adventures. That will have me home by 11.
What else?
I'm more selfish. That's for sure.
I think that's a good thing.
I'm less tolerant of bullshit.
That's not a good thing.
I work in an industry fuelled by bullshit.
Still, all in all, I'm feeling rather positive.
Which I don't mind telling you, is a humongously huge step.
2018 was a terrible year for me. The culmination of all the shit of 2018 was the reason I started this damn project. I had to do something, anything, to change my life. And this quirky idea, that's been sitting at the back of my brain since 2014, felt like the only way out. Something that could be mine. And whether I succeeded, or failed, would be entirely dependent on my own actions, and no one else's.
And, well, you already know I failed.
But somehow, that doesn't matter.
Because I got through it.
Someday I might tell you about the nervous breakdown I had over the summer. It wasn't fun. You may have sensed the lack of funness in my posts, even though I made a choice not to tell you about it specifically.
It was a long time coming though. And it forced me to make some hard decisions in my life.
And now... well.
I feel like maybe, there's a small chance, 2020 might turn out to be not entirely terrible.
Apart from, you know: Brexit, a Tory majority, and the world being on fire.
But other than those small matters...
Anyway, enough about all that. I'm sure, once my brain has stopped fizzing, I'll be able to cobble together some thoughts. What theatre was like in this city of ours, in the year of someone-or-other's lord, 2019.
Just need to get a couple of dinners in me first.
Far down below, in front of the stage, two girls are playing catch with one of the snowballs which rolled off the stage during act one.
Their feet skitter through the fake snow as they race after the ball.
The ushers standing guard at the stairs, stopping any wandering audience members from climbing up onto the stage, watch them with indulgent side-eyes.
The family are back now.
The little girl has her ice cream.
Act two is starting, and the narrator is whispering his story-updates through the speakers.
We get through the rest of the show without further incident, and we all clap heartily at the end. Rounds and rounds of applause for every cast member, in the grand production that is the ballet curtain call.
The family stand in order to layer themselves up with sweaters and cardigans and jackets and coats and scarfs.
The mum spots me waiting and nudges the little girl to one side so the "nice lady" can get past.
Down the stairs I go.
At the bottom, the usher on the door wishes us all a good night.
I smile back at him.
I think it might be a good night after all.
I'm free.
Finally.
I can do whatever the hell I want this evening.
I’m going to make myself dinner.