Peck 'em

Between you and me, I’m feeling rather pleased with myself right now.

I wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. I was supposed to be somewhere else entirely. I was supposed to be at a brand new theatre, on opening night. But turns out booking opening nights at brand new theatres are risky things to book for, and now I have the evening free.

Now, usually this would be a cause of panic. I’d be scrolling through TodayTix, my thumb a blur as I try to find a West End theatre that I both haven’t been to, and can afford to buy a last minute ticket to. With just over five months to go before the final countdown, I can’t afford to take Saturday nights off. No way. Ain’t no time left for that nonsense. I’m going to the theatre, dammit.

But I vaguely remembered getting annoyed at the theatre not do long ago. Annoyed because for the third time, they’d put up a marathon-worthy show on their website, with so little notice I’d already booked myself in for that evening.

I checked back.

Yup. There is was. On for one night only. A play. And there were still tickets available.

Hello, Theatre Peckham! Despite all your best efforts, not programming anything of any use, and then dumping things online with next to no advance notice, I’m going to get you checked off my list.

My feelings of smugness last exactly as long as it takes me to stick in their postcode into the TFL Journey Planner.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Peckham might as well be in the Lake District for all the transport links it has. Looks like I’ll be walking half-way across London to get to this one.

But being the brave, intrepid, explorer that I am, I set off. Battling against cancelled Thameslink trains and walking for miles and miles to fall down at their door.

Turns out, the Theatre Peckham’s laissez-faire attitude to getting shows on sale doesn’t seem to have affected their ability to pull in an audience. This place is packed. There’s a small courtyard outside of the main door, and it’s filled with happy-looking people having drinks and enjoying the sun. Inside, it’s even busier. The queue for the bar stretches out from one side of the foyer to the other, echoing the line of bunting strung up overhead.

I inch my way around the walls, trying to find somewhere where I’m not in everyone’s way. It’s tricky. There are people waiting at the box office. People waiting for the loos. People waiting beside the entrance to the theatre. People waiting for friends and drinks and the doors to open.

This place has clearly set itself out to be a community hub and it's doing it well. There’s a piano on one side, a dress up corner on the other, and even a casting opportunity notice board. No wonder they can fill a theatre with only a few days' notice.

I find a small space near a pillar and tuck myself in.

At least I don’t have to get involved with any of that. I have an e-ticket. It says right here in the confirmation email “use your smartphone to display the .pdf ticket on-screen so that the person on the door can examine and check its authenticity.” Not sure how they go about that, but I’m hoping there’s a beeper. I hate e-tickets, but I love a ticket beeper.

It’s warm in here. It’s a bit Hardwicke Hall (“more window than wall”) and the sun is blazing through the glass, heating us up like a bunch of rapidly ripening tomatoes.

Someone standing near me leans back against the pillar and fans herself.

I stare at her. That fan looks surprisingly like an admission pass.

I should have known better. Ticket confirmations are nonsense emails. You should never trust a word they say. There’s not going to be a ticket beeper. And no one is going to check the authenticity. They might have fancy pdfs to send out, but that doesn’t stop them from handing out laminated scraps of logoed up paper like all the rest of the old school venues.

I join the queue for the box office.

“The surname is Smiles,” I tell the lady behind the counter when I finally get to the front of the queue.

“Sorry?”

“Smiles?” I say, wondering if I had been mistaken after all, and the admission token had been nothing more than a trick of the dazzeling light. But no, there they are. I can see them. Piled up neatly next to her mouse. I press on. “S. M. I. L. E. S. Smiles? That’s the surname?”

She looks it up. “Just one?” she asks.

“… yes.”

She hands me a token. It’s white, laminated, with the Theatre Peckham logo, and is in no way an e-ticket.

Thank goodness.

I return to my little corner near the pillar, and soon find myself part of the queue to get in without the bother of moving.

A young man in a Theatre Peckham branded top makes his way down to queue, talking to everyone in turn.

“Sorry?” I ask when he gets to me. I shade me eyes against the sun still forcing its way through those massive windows.

“You don’t mind being filmed?” he repeats.

“Oh…” Do I mind being filmed?I mean… the answer is: yes. I do. But I’m not sure I mind enough to cause a fuss. “No,” I tell him.

He moves on, asking his question all the way down to the end of the queue.

I’m not sure how I feel about this direct approach. On the one hand it’s great that he’s making sure everyone going through the door knows that there’s going to be a camera in there, but on the other, it does rather put you on the spot more than a sign ever would.

I make a mental note to pick a seat at the back.

I check my phone.

It’s 7.35pm. The doors still aren’t open.

Oh well. At least it’s a short play.

Or is it? I can’t remember. But it surely must be. In this run up to Edinburgh, everything seems to be coming in at under an hour.

I go to the Theatre Peckham website and look for the show we’re queueing for, Sweet Like Chocolate Boy, and scroll down.

2 hours plus interval.

2 hours plus interval. What does that mean? How long is an interval? It doesn’t say. It could be five minutes or thirty or anything in between.

It’s 7.38pm and we still haven’t gone in.

Two hours

Plus an interval of unknown length.

And then the long trek back to Finchley.

I’m not getting home before midnight, am I?

The usher is back. He slips through the queue to reach a lady a few places ahead of me. “Don’t forget to sit at the top, yeah?” he says. “The back of the back of the tip of the top.”

She frowns at him. “Why?”

“Because you don’t want to be filmed, yeah?”

Her face clears and she nods. Back of the back of the tip of the top. She’s got it.

7.43pm. The doors have opened. We’re going in.

Gosh. It’s quite nice in here. A balcony circling three sides. A floor level stage.

There’s multi-coloured upholstery across the seating, which I notice are those flip-down benches which require you to coordinate the sitting down process with your neighbour.

I can see what the usher meant by the back of the back and the tip of the top.

There are a few rows right at the back that are cordoned off by a railing. I suppose they’re supposed to be considered part of the balcony, but really they look like an extension of the stalls with a wall to keep back the riffraff.

I can see the camera. It’s just there, in front of the first row.

Hopefully it won’t see me back here.

Its presence doesn’t seem to have put many people off though. The front row fills up fast. As do the second and third row.

As the seats gradually fill up, spaces gradually disappearing as newcomers are forced to go further back, I can see why. The rake… isn’t great. It’s disappointingly bad. Especially for such a new theatre. I always wonder about this. Do theatres not test the rake before opening to the public? Do they not consider that someone sitting in their seats might actually like to see what is happening on stage? It always makes me think they are just gambling on them never selling enough tickets for it to matter. And in the event of them having a hit show, for the audience to be so desperate to see it, they won’t care if their view is a little obstructed by the person in front.

It’s nearly ten to eight now. And we still haven’t started.

I suppose that says it all. Bollocks to the audience. There’ll be a show. At some point. And they’ll get to see it. Most of it, anyway. Whatever.

Oh well.

We’re starting now. At last.

Two men. Two stories. Interwoven.

All time travel and the voice of god and returning to the scene of the crime and prophets and machetes and rhyme.

A bit poetic. A bit dance theatre. A bit strange.

A bit… dull.

I mean, it’s fine. Well written. Well performed. All that.

But it isn’t doing the business for me.

Too many characters. Too much stuff going on. Too long. Too drawn out.

I’m sure the twin timelines will come together at some point, but right now… eh.

But you know, this play wasn’t created for the likes of me. And the rest of the audience seem to be loving it. Laughing at what I presume are the right bits.

The air conditioning is good though. A bit too good. It’s freezing. But I’m not complaining. Better too cold than too warm. I’m just waiting to wriggle back into my jacket as soon as the interval hits.

Just as I’m rubbing my arms to get some warmth back into them, the stage light extinguishes, plunging into darkness. The man sitting next to me lifts his hands, ready to clap. But he holds back. Is it the interval?

The darkness extends a fraction too long.

The house lights should be coming up by now.

But they don’t.

Someone at the front risks a clap, and we all follow their lead.

The house lights go up. As one, the audience gets to their feet and disappears to the bar. I reach under my seat and grab my jacket, snuggling down into its woollen warmth.

As everyone begins to filter back, they come laden with drinks and snacks. One person appears to have popped out to the shops, and his hands are full of crisps. Around five packets if I’ve counted correctly. Not quite the Dairylea Dunker of snack masters that I saw at the Stockwell Playhouse, but he’s certainly up there.

He opens up the first pack, and starts munching, tipping out the last of the crumbs just as the house lights descend for the second half.

I pull my jacket tight around me and shiver through the rest of the play, trying to enjoy the frigid chill of the auditorium, and being annoyed with myself for not appreciating the cold as much as I should.

At the end, there's a standing ovation. A little one. And not undeserved. Those actors put in the work. Jumping between characters with little more than the unzipping of a jacket and putting on of a hat.

Oh well. Time to start the long walk to Oval. There's no way I'm risking the Thameslink again.

In the foyer, I turn around to have another look. Taking in the piano, the bunting, the reading nook with it’s chair and accompanying bookshelf.

I doubt I'll be back. Not until Peckham gets a tube station anyway.

The Old Curiosity Theatre

It's the second time on this marathon that I've had to book my tickets by email. To be fair to the Pentameters, there was a box office phone number on the website. But there was no way in hell I was going to call it. Not with my social anxiety. All my phone call-energy is spent by the time I finish work. There isn't a scrap of call-making energy going spare to deal with the business of ticket buying. So, email it was. Just a little note, asking if I could buy it advance. Seven minutes later, I had my reply. A ticket had been put aside for me. I just needed to turn up and pay on the door. In cash. Of course. I wouldn't have expected anything else.

The last time I did these email dealings, I found the theatre behind a curtain at the back of a bookshop. But tonight's is a bona fide pub theatre. Not only that, it has its own separate entrance. Pentameters Theatre is writ large in a handpainted sign above the door. Inside there are some steps, and another sign. This one leaning against the wall, close to the ground. "Tickets," it says. "Available from the box office," with an arrow pointing towards a door. I guess that's where I'm going then. Through the door and up some very steep stairs.

As I clunk my way up, a woman in a bright red t-shirt leans out and says hello from what must be the promised box office. A small ledge, wedged into a doorway.

"Have you booked?" she asks as I near the top.

"I emailed earlier to reserve a ticket," I tell her.

"Ah yes!" She nods. "Remind me of your name."

I give her my surname and she checks a ledger, scrawled with names.

"Just the one ticket was it?"

"Yup. All by myself."

Honestly, I don't mind going to the theatre by myself. Most of the time I actually prefer it. Especially when I'm going somewhere new, or to a play I'm not too sure about. I don't have to feel worried about whether the person I'm with is enjoying it, or guilty if they're not. But like... I don't enjoy being called out on it, you know? I'm very delicate.

A queue is forming on the stairs.

Box office lady waves them all up onto the landing. "Come up on high ground," she says. "Where it's safe."

As they traipse their way up, she recognises one of them, "You've got a ticket, haven't you? You go on in." And she steps aside to let them through, squeezing them in through the box office and the doorway beyond.

Space is tight at the Pentameters.

Reclaiming her spot at the ledge, she turns back to me. "How did you hear about it?" she asks.

"Err, Google?" I say, not really wanting to admit that I've been stalking the Pentameters website for the best part of seven months before finding a show which was both marathon and calendar-friendly.

"You've been here before?"

I admit that I haven't. Should I tell her about the blog? Ergh. I don't really want to. Not with those hoards of... three people behind me on the landing. I decide to keep schtum on the blog, feeling guilty about the confusion I'm causing by my caginess.

"You're not a student are you?"

"No, bit old for that...." I say. I haven't been a student for a long, long time.

"Are you an actress or...?"

She's trying to flatter me. There's no way anyone in god's green theatre who would think the socially awkward penguin that I am could possibly be a performer.

I relent, and give her a little personal intel. "No, but I work in theatre."

"Oh! What do you do?"

"Publications," I tell her, before remembering that no-one knows what publications is. "I make programmes."

"We do all that ourselves here."

As it should be. I always prefer programmes that are made in house. That's why I work in house, and not for an agency. Although I won't deny the privilege of a venue having a person dedicated to making them. There aren't many in house publications people in this city of ours. Not theatre ones anyway. You could probably count us all without having to resort to using your toes. I am a fucking luxury in theatre-land. The Birkin bag of theatre employees.

She turns the open ledger towards me. "Now, you write your name and email. I've put you here," she says, indicating a hand-drawn box half-way down the page.

Well, that's a first. I've never been asked to put my details into a ledger before. I write my name, only slightly worried that I might be signing my soul over to some theatre god or other. Now the email. I pause. Shall I ask her what it's for? She hasn't mentioned being added to a newsletter or anything like that, and I certainly haven't given permission to be added to a mailing list. I'm a little bit concerned that the great ghoul of GDPR hasn't quite made its way to the Pentameters yet. You can't just go around collecting people's email addresses. Not anymore. Not without their explicit consent. Those days are over. The Wild West of the internet has been tamed. There's a new sheriff in town, and its name is General Data Protection Regulation.

"Programmes are by donation," she tells me, checking her watch. "It's twenty to. I'd go in now and grab a seat, as it's first come first served. Then you can get a drink if you like." She hands me the ticket. It's a long strip of card, with illustrated title treatment and hand-lettering. Very nice.

"You head in through here," she says, standing aside to let me through. It's very narrow back here. I feel I'm being whisked away into a secret backroom where shady men do even shadier dealings.

Except, I can't imagine any mob boss being content with the line up of cuddly bears and rabbits looking over their shoulders as they send someone off to sleep with the fishes.

Every corner of the Pentameters is stuffed with... stuff. Dolls houses and books and crockery and toy trains. Framed pictures crowd the walls: photos and paintings and old posters. Nowhere is safe. Even the seating. A suitcase takes up a chair at the end of my row. There's a speaker tucked underneath the seat in front of me. There are laundry bags and cardboard boxes. I spot a ceramic bowl underneath a chair in the front row which I'm really hoping didn't start life as a chamber pot.

The front row itself is a mismatch of armchairs and assorted seating options.

Everyone else gets a quilt of cushion options.

It's like the entire space was sourced from an upmarket car boot sale.

A man with long hair wanders around chatting to people as they come in. He seems to know everyone. And they all know him.

He's carrying a bowler hat around with him, and inside: programmes.

"Can I get a programme," I ask him?

"Yup, they're a pound."

I peer into my purse, angling it towards the light to try and make out the contents. "I think I gave all my pound coins away," I say. All those lovely pounds from the National. Gone and spent.

"Or whatever you've got," he says with a verbal shrug.

But then I spot one, lurking in the side pocket, placed there for emergencies such as these. "We're in luck!" I say, picking it out.

"In the hat," he says, holding out the bowler, and I drop it in.

The programme isn't really a programme. It's a freesheet. Or would have been a freesheet, apart from the small matter of costing a pound.

Two pieces of A4, folded into a booklet. Poster artwork on the front. Marketing copy on the inside. Credits, biographies, and a rundown of future events.

It's not worth a pound.

Now, don't get me wrong, I get why they are charging a pound. Every penny counts and all that. But if we're talking strict financial value: it's not worth a pound. You pay a pound to support the theatre. You don't pay a pound to get a souvenir worth keeping.

But you know, got to check my privilege here. It's easy enough to drive down prices of a glossy multi-page programme to a pound when you're printing five hundred of the damn things. Not so much for a three night run in a 60-seat space.

The bloke sitting behind me is giving his companion a potted history of the theatre. "Been here fifty years," he tells her. She cooes appreciatively. "French and Saunders started here." That gets an even more appreciative coo.

The lady from the box office comes out. I can see her red t-shirt properly now. It has the poster artwork printed on the front. Now that's dedication to marketing right there.

"We have a few regulars here!" she says, pointing to a few people around the audience. A group in the back say hello.

"If it's your first time, wave your hand," she orders. I raise my hand and wave it, along with a few others, scattered about the theatre. Usually sitting next to someone who's been here before. "There's too many of you to welcome, so there's a double welcome to all of you!" she says before giving a little intro into the play and its writer. "I asked her to focus on the boys," she tells us. "And she did. She got it down to sixty minutes, and a few weeks later, it's being performed." That, is one hell of an accomplishment. Getting a playwright to condense their work to a single hour. This woman is a fucking hero. "If you're wondering where we are," she says, waving her hands to take in the dark cloud-like miasma of the painted set as she steps off stage. "It's a coal mine."

And with that, she's gone. House lights down. Actors out. We begin.

Two young men, so fresh-faced I just want to pinch their cheeks, are working down the mines as part of the war effort. English young men. In Welsh mines. The Welsh aren't happy about it, and nor are the English lads. A few bloody noses, callused hands, and panic attacks in the dark later, and we're clapping. That went quickly. Tight writing. You can't beat it.

The two actors, David Angland and Tom Taplin, disappear backstage, the applause chasing after them, but our t-shirted lady opens the door and calls them back out for another set of bows.

She stays behind on the stage. "How about some applause for Viv the playwright!"

We all give it. Enthusiastically.

"And Robyn!" she says, pointing up at the young woman at the tech desk, hanging precariously over one side of the stage.

I don't think I've ever been given the opportunity to applause the light engineer, but I like it.

The lady in the red t-shirt waits for us to finish our appreciAtive applause before giving her speech. Turns out, she's not just a lady in a red t-shirt. She's Léonie Scott-Matthews. The founder. The producer. The everythinger. She is Pentameters. She tells us tales of wiring and funding and the sheer effort of keeping the lights on and then takes up position at the door to see us all off.

"Night," I say on my way out.

"Come again!" she says. "You know where we are now!"

I have to admit, six months ago, I would have hated this place. The clutter. The friendliness. The entrance down a side-road. My anxiety klaxons would have been ringing loudly all over the place. My perfect theatre was one where I could slip in, a person in the crowd, utterly unnoticed. And now? Well, I still enjoy the odd delve into anonymity, but after I've seen so many theatres, and so many fringe venues in particular - which so often feel closed off to anyone who isn't part of the group, with the side-eyed looks at the stranger in their midst and the Mwah-mwah darrrlinnngggs of the audience - well, let's just say I might well be taking Scott-Matthews up on that offer. I may even let them put me on the mailing list.

Wyrd Smells

This seems to be the week of controversial theatres. It was only last month that the Courtyard Theatre was getting dragged across The Stage for late payment of artists and “unclean working conditions.” There was mention of mice, but I think you’d be hard pushed to find a theatre in London without them. At one of the theatres I worked at, we could feel the mice running across our feet all day while sitting at our desks. And that wasn’t some crummy arts centre or dodgy fringe venue. Quite the opposite. It was a rather fancy producing house. The type that has West End transfers on the reg. So, you know, not sure complaining about mice should really be a thing. Late payment though… yeah, that sucks.

Anyway, it’s a return visit for me. Done the Main House already, and now it’s time to tackle the Studio. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I’ve been checking the website every week since January, looking for a show in this space. For months, there was nothing. Just the odd music gig, which doesn’t count. But finally, finally, I got one. A play. In the studio. On for one night only, but no matter. I switched my plans around and got myself booked in.

The fact that it’s Shakespeare. And even worse, Macbeth, hardly seemed worth worrying about.

Inside, down the green stairwell, and I'm thinking that not much has changed since my last visit other than a switch up in the posters stuck to the wall, but no... I was wrong. I turn the corner and stop. I can't go any further because there's a queue taking up the last few steps. A queue leading to the box office. The proper hole in the wall one. Not just some front of houser with a clipboard.

We shuffle our way down the steps as we get checked in.

"It's a company ticket?" says the girl in front of me as the box officer tries to find her name. "My friend organised it."

"Ah!" He switches to a different list. Nods as he finds her, and hands her a freesheet.

She immediately opens it and turns it upside down. "Oh wow! He's actually in it!" she exclaims, before heading off to the bar with a big grin on her face.

They're clearly very close.

My turn.

"Is it company tickets or did you buy them online?" asks the box officer when I give me name.

"I actually bought a ticket," I say, with the same tone you'd use when admitting the designer gear you're sporting is fake. "With money," I add, just for added clarification, that yes, it's from a dodgy market stall and definetly made by child labour.

"You bought a ticket?" he says surprised, switching from the handwritten list to the printed one. "Great! Can you remind me of the name."

I spell it out for him again. "S. M. I. L. E. S."

"Smiles," he says, finding it on the list and drawing a line through it. "There you go." He hands me a freesheet.

It's rather handsome. Black cover. A red sword-tree hybrid thing going on. And the title, in a pseudo-Mackintosh font (Charles Rennie rather than Cameron) that shouldn't work, but kinda does. Must be some deep underlying Scottish aesthetic connection.

I don't actually know where the studio theatre is in this place, but I do know where the bar is, so I go there. This place is a warren of corridors and stairwells. The type of place where you have to be lead about by a front of houser, who have all presumably spent decades training so that they know the different routes. Ushers at the Courtyard are the sherpas of the theatre world.

It's pretty busy in here. This surprises me. Somehow I didn't have a fringe Macbeth performed in a studio space for one night only being much of a hot ticket, but look at all these people, drinking and laughing and... reading their freesheets upside down.

Hang on. That's weird. Even for Shakespeare audiences.

I get out my own freesheet.

And immediately turn it around the other way.

Ah, I see the problem. They forgot to switch the printer options to flip on the short edge rather than the default long edge. An easy to make mistake. Which is why you must always do a test print when making folded freesheets.

But, you know, apart from the printing snafu, they're alright. They even have a spoiler section in the synopsis, which is frickin' adorable on a four hundred year old play if you ask me.

Plus, a two hour run time. Which suits me just fine because I am so tired everything is starting to look a bit fuzzy around the edges.

More people are coming in and there's lots of kissing and hugging as they all recognise one another. I try to get a photo of the bookshelf wallpaper that covers one side of the bar, but there are too many people in the way.

"Do you know someone in the show?" a woman asks a guy she just got talking to.

"No, we just thought we'd check it out," comes the reply.

She nods slowly and stares into her drink. "Niceee," she says before quickly walking away.

"Ladies and gentleman," calls a voice from the doorway. "The house for Macbeth is now open. If you'd like to make your way through the door here."

I sling my bag up over my shoulder, ready for the long trek through the building, but the front of houser has only taken a few steps into the corridor and is now holding a door open that leads to the room right behind the bookshelf wall.

It's dark in here. Really dark. And filled with haze.

I'm vaguely away of a railing on one side of my, leading me around the back of the room and down a ramp.

At the bottom of the ramp I blink into the glare of a spotlight and try to make sense of the space. There's a wooden floor. A low ceiling. The walls are black. A single rows of chairs on each side, and multiple rows at each end.

I'm not sitting on the sides. That's all front row, and while Macbeth isn't usually interactive, you can never trust studio-based Shakespeares to stick to the script.

I'm going to the far end. Second row. The third row is up on a platform. A really high platform. I think it might actually be the stage. Which is taking the rake a bit too far if you ask me.

Anyway, from my second-row seat, I can see straight through the door that leads backstage, and I keep on getting glimpses of tartan, which is rather pleasing. And what looks like a tin bath full of bricks.

It is warm though. Very warm. We are basically in an underground heat trap. The low ceiling and intense spotlight aren't helping.

Everyone starts wafting themselves with their freesheets.

I dig around in my bag and pull out my fan. Two hours down here is going to be a bit of a challenge.

More people come in, shading their eyes against that intense light.

The seats are filling up.

A group of women walk down towards my end of the room and examine the stage situation. They can't work out how to get up there. One brave soul slings her bag onto the stage, and then using her knee to heave herself after it, crawls her way up with a grunt.

The things we do for theatre.

The seats are all full now. Well, not quite. There's a few strategically placed reserved signs dotted around. A girl comes over and looks at the one in the row in front of me. And then looks around elsewhere. There's nowhere left for her to go.

Using a well of logic that I've never had access to, she slips behind me and sits herself down on the edge of the stage.

Right then. We're ready to begin.

Macbeth. Act one.

You'd think this would be the perfect Shakespeare for me. What with the dark themes and murder and intrigue and strong women and daggers and tartan and misty backdrop. But no, I think it's super dull. And while I'm not hating this production, the source material ain't doing anything for me.

Also, I'm noticing a strange smell. Musty. And damp. Like a swimsuit that's been shoved inside a suitcase at the end of the holiday and never unpacked.

Is this part of the design? An olfactory layer to the play? I have another sniff. It's not there all the time, but it comes in strong waves whenever one of the actors wearing tartan appears. Oof. Poor them. That must be really unpleasant to be wearing. Like having a wet dog deciding they want to sleep on your lap all evening. Petrichor, but like... gross.

As the story moves to the feast, actors filled the reserved seats so that we are all sitting around the table, staring Macbeth freaks out at the sight of Banquo and his gory locks.

As soon as the actors clear the stage for the interval, I bolt back up the ramp, through the bar, up the green staircase and outside.

It's still really warm out here, but I lean against the outside wall in bliss, enjoying what little breeze there is.

Soon I'm joined by all the smokers in the audience and from their chatter it becomes very clear what type of people I'm spending the evening with.

"My mum directed him in a play."

"Yeah, so I got accepted into that playwrighting scheme."

"Are you taking it to Edinburgh this year?"

"We did a show together at university."

One of the front of housers comes around the corner holding a carrier bag, looking for all the world like he just popped into the corner shop during the interval. "Anyone for Macbeth, the show will be starting again in a few minutes," he says as he wanders back through the doors.

We all follow him.

The theatre is almost empty. Everyone is still up in the bar.

There's some stormy, drumming, atmospheric song filling the space, which my phone assures me is Helvegen by Wardruna.

One of the actors appears and starts removing the reserved signs from the seats. We're done with that part of theatricality.

A bell rings. A proper theatre bell. And soon the audience begins to make it's way back down from the bar.

And we're back. This time with swords. And I'm betting they came from the same place they got the tartan because those fuckers look heavy.

As the blades clash, a woman in my row jumps, her feet creeping up onto her seat as she hugs her knees and leans back as far the fuck away from the stage as she can least she get stuck by a flying weapon.

The three witches take up spots in the corner of the room, breathing through open mouths, almost growling like dogs as they weave their spell around the characters, leading off the dead to have their wicked ways with the entrails offstage.

And then it's over. And I can go the fuck home.

I hurry out, aiming for Old Street station. Straight up the Northern Line and home by 10, that's the plan.

I get out my phone to check the time. 10.15pm. Ten-fucking-fifteen.

Dammit.

But to be fair, it's my fault.

You should never trust a Shakespeare play that claims to be only two hours.

Pas de Door

Honestly, for someone who actually went and sat through the whole grinding ninety minutes of Magic Mike Live, I’m feeling more than a little awkward walking into the Above the Stag to see Boy Toy. The artwork doesn’t help. With the half-nakedness and very shiny pants. But that’s the Above the Stag for you. Shiny pants seem to be the default setting for their marketing.

In my defence, if a defence is required, I picked this show because it’s based on the ballet Coppélia, and I love Coppélia. Okay, I don’t love Coppélia. It’s a bit silly, even by ballet standards, and doesn’t have the genius of a choreographer like Ashton to elevate the silly story into silly art. But you know, it’s alright. I enjoy Coppélia, and watch it quite happily whenever it’s revived.

If you don’t know the story, and frankly, I can’t imagine you would, think Pygmalion. But the original one. As in, the Greek myth where a sculptor falls in love with a statue. But in Coppélia’s case, the statue is a mechanical doll, and it’s not the maker who goes falling in love, but a passing young man, who sees the doll in the window and decides that the porcelain princess is way hotter than the girl he has waiting for him at home. As you can imagine, the girl isn’t all that impressed by her boyfriend trying to get with a wind-up doll, and decides to get her own back on him. Chaos ensues but true love prevails. Eventually.

So, here I am to see William Spencer’s take on this ridiculous tale.

It’s pretty quiet. No nearly as busy as the last time I was here. There’s no one at the bar and most of the tables are empty. That’s what happens with a 7pm start in a studio space, I suppose. No one wants to be drinking that early on a Tuesday. Or perhaps everyone is still getting over Pride weekend. The Pride flags are still out in force outside the theatre, in a rainbow coloured bunting running out to the nearest tree.

I take up position on the end of the bar, the end with the huge TICKETS sign glowing above, and wait. Someone joins me and soon we are a nice little queue waiting for service.

It looks like the bar staff are having a meeting down the other end, but they spot us soon enough and one of them comes over.

I give my surname and he scrolls around on the touch screen in search of my booking. “Maxine?” he asks.

I confirm that I am indeed Maxine and soon my ticket is chugging on the little printer they have behind the bar. The one that spurts out soft paper, like a receipt. I rather like them.

“Oh, um,” I say, suddenly remembering something. “I think I ordered a-“

“Programme?” he says, completing the sentence for me. He grabs one from the display on the counter and hands it over.

That’s the kind of service I like. Providing the words that my brain can’t form in the moment.

With my programme and ticket, I set up shop at one of the posing tables and look around, taking in the theatre goers. And for once, the other theatre goers are also looking at me. I can’t blame them. It’s becoming increasing obvious that I am not the target audience for this show, being as I am, how shall I say this… a woman. Now, I don’t want to make any presumptions here, but I think I can safely say I have the only female presenting person in this bar right now.

I don’t think this has happened yet. I mean, yes - audiences have been heavily male at some shows. Not many. But some. There was that chemsex play at the Courtyard and ummm… no, I think that was it.

Outside, there’s a small group of people drinking beside the tree. And look - there’s a woman! But when the doors open and we start going through, the group stays outside. Whatever brought them to the Above the Stag tonight, it wasn’t a Coppélia retrelling.

I show my receipt paper to the ticket checker and he nods me through the door. Here, instead of turning right into the main space, we go left, into the studio.

As studios go, it’s not a bad stage. Long and thin, taking up almost the entire length of the space. If you’re going to put dance in a studio, this is the kind of space you want. Give the dancers a bit of room to leap around.

There’s only three rows of chairs, set up against the long wall.

I go for the back row.

I don’t want to be taking away any good seats from the core audience here. But as it turns out, the third row is pretty popular. It’s the second row that people are avoiding. No one likes being trapped in the middle.

A young man comes in and after testing out a few places in the bank of seats right on the end, comes over to me.

“Is any one…?” he asks, with a hand gesture that encapsulates the rest of the question.

“Oh, go for it,” I say, with a matching hand gesture.

The two of us, this young man and me, have to be the only people in the audience below the audience below the age of fifty. We are in serious middle aged white male territory here. It’s almost like being at the Royal Opera House.

The music that’s been filling the room comes to a sudden halt, and a man runs in from the foyer to manually set it up again before rushing back out into the foyer. Looks like the tech team are also on front of house duty tonight.

It’s past seven now. We should have already started. They must be holding the start for some latecomers.

I have a look at the programme. At only £2.50 it is quite the bargain. I mean, it’s not stuffed full of interesting articles or glossy photos, but it does the business, and is a nice enough souvenir. Even if it does have a typo on the first page. Seriously though, no judgement. I’ve done plenty worse in my programmes. And anyway, what do you want for £2.50? Especially for a studio theatre work. I sure as hell don’t make proper programmes for the stuff in the studio where I work. Audiences get freesheets and they’re grateful for it.

Surely we must be starting soon?

I put the programme away in readiness.

The tech person is still out in the hall.

Probably on the lookout for those latecomers. Bet they’re stuck on the Northern Line somewhere. What a fucking kerfuffle that was this morning. Our driver kept on telling us to get off, that despite all the announcements to the contrary, the train was going to be diverted to Charing Cross any moment, and then, as soon as we get to Camden, he blazes right through the Bank branch and I end up exactly where I want to be. Honestly, is it any wonder that Londoners cannot follow signage. We’re taught from our first day in this city that it’s all nonsense. It doesn’t take more than a month to find out that No Entry signs on the underground are nothing more than an indication that there’s a short cut happening nearby.

While we wait, I sit back and take in the set. It’s very simple. Three doorways, all lit up in neon. Rather effective in real life, but an absolute arse to capture effectively in a photo.

Finally, the tech person comes in and takes up his spot behind the desk in the corner.

Looks like we’re ready to begin.

Music starts.

The doorways flash in time with the beat.

Someone near me gives an appreciative snort.

Looks like we’re getting a dance of the flashing doorways. One could say it’s a… Pas de Door.

Oh, come on! That was a fucking fantastic pun and you know it. So, don’t you dare pull that face.

Well, funny or no, those doors are still dancing. Looks like we’re getting the full on overture. Seems a bit much considering the entire show is only an hour. You’d think the choreographer would want to use every second, but hey - I’m not a dance-maker. I’m sure there is some artistic reason for this very long intro.

Eventually, we get some dancers. And some rather fab punnage. I mean, not as good as mine. But nothing in the world is going to top Pas de Door this century. But we get our cast partying at the Gay Barre, before popping into Cocksta for their morning coffee, and then escaping Homo Sweet Homo for a rather balletic sex scene.

As for the doll… well, he’s a mannequin in a sex shop window, because of course he is.

But doesn't Saul Kilcullen-Jarvis look an absolute darling dressed up as the doll? With his little t-shirt and shiny shorts. Good on Andrew Beckett for making those designs happen. And, I mean... that is some great casting right there. I don't think I've ever seen someone how looks so like a Ken doll brought to life than this handsome fellow.

In fact, they are all darlings. I just want to pinch their collective cheeks.

Although perhaps not while they are in the midst of a dildo fight. That looks dangerous.

It is a shame that they're using the Delibes music though. Or at least, music based on the Delibes. I just can't imagine those jaunty tunes being played within the back room of a sex shop somehow. Not very sleazy Soho. Feels like a wasted opportunity when they could have had some proper club bangers for them to pirouette too. William Forsythe managed it in Playlist. Okay, he's Forsythe. Literally the greatest living choreographer. And the all-male cast of English National Ballet dancers was pretty spectacular. And they too looked darn cute in their costumes, matching red American football jerseys, with their surnames printed across the back. And yeah, it's true, Playlist 1, 2 ranks as perhaps the greatest piece of dance I've ever seen. So great I almost went to Paris to watch the follow-up works of Playlist 3, 4. But like, if I wanted to watch boys dancing around to a nineteenth-century ballet score, I'd book tickets to see the Trocks.

Oh well. Can't have everything, I suppose.

I got my puns. I should be content with that.

As the dancers give their final bows, someone sitting near me leans over to the person he's with. "Now, where else could we find high art like this?"

Where indeed.

Still, we're just a short walk to Vauxhall station. Up over the bridge and there we are.

Not even that much past eight right now. I can pop into Tesco on my way home. Perhaps even shove some laundry in the machine, Need to finish that blog post on the Gielgud too... Oh god. So much for an early night.

As I stand on the platform, an announcement pumps through the speakers. "The Northern Line will close at 21.30 to allow our engineers to repair a fault. This means you should complete your journey before 21.30."

Fucking hell... Closing the Northern Line... as someone who both lives and works on the Northern Line, this week has been fucking brutal.

Thank the theatre gods for short plays and early starts. I may have had to sit through unnecessary Delibes, but at least I don't have to get the bus home afterwards.

Who watches the watchmen?

Another 7pm start again. But this time, I’m feeling rather more positive about it. Mainly because my theatre for tonight is only down the road, which means that I get to stay at work for an extra half-hour. Oh. okay. Maybe I’m not on team 7 o’clock-start quite yet. Mad rush across London or staying late in the office isn’t that great a choice.

But I can’t blame the King’s Head for that. If anything I should be grateful that I only have to stroll down Upper Street to get to them. Won’t be able to do that much longer. They’re moving next year. That’s a lie. Not the bit about them moving, they’re doing that. The bit about me not being able to stroll there after work. They’re only going down the road. God, I rambling, aren’t I? Sorry. I’m so fucking tired right now. This weather… I’m really not doing well at the moment. Can’t sleep. Can’t think. Can’t breathe. And my poor hair… let’s not talk about my hair. It’s too distressing.

And the whole this is made worse by everyone else loving it so much. Soaking up the sun like lizards on rocks.

Look at them, sitting out there outside the pub, with their faces tipped up to the sun, and their drinks, and their smiles, and their happiness. Ergh. I hate them.

I better go inside. Where it’s dark and cool.

It’s been a while since my last visit here, so I’m very pleased to see the massive KING’S HEAD THEATRE sign up on the back wall, leading the way to the box office.

It’s a funny old set up they have here. Not for them the laptop propped on the end of the bar, oh no.

Instead they build a kind of barricade between the theatre and the pub, and on top of this, they set up shop with money box and printed lists. It’s exactly the kind of thing you would expect from a pub theatre, but it doesn’t seem to exist beyond these walls.

I give my name to one of the box officers on the barricade and get my name checked off the list.

He grabs a tiny scrap of paper and scrawls my seat number on it with biro.

“Let’s do you a nice bespoke, DIY ticket,” he says before handing it over.

“Well, that’s completely unforgable,” says some wag in the queue next to me.

Ah, bants. You gotta love it.

I’m shocked. Not about the hand-made nature of the ticket. That’s very King’s Head, after all. No, it’s more the fact that I have a seat number at all that is surprising me. Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember selecting a seat while booking, but still… I think that’s a first on this marathon. A pub theatre that actually assigns seats.

“The doors will open soon,” he says, then looks behind him as the doors to the theatre start shifting from the inside. “Oh, they’re opening now!”

I’m not sure I want to be first through the door. That’s a level of keenness that I don’t want to be showing off. Not at the King’s Head.

I step back and tuck myself against a shelf and watch as other theatre-goers pick up their tickets.

“There we go,” says the box officer to the next person in line. “A nice bespoke, DIY ticket for you.”

Ah. If a line’s that good, it deserves repeating.

Time to go in.

The usher on the door takes the scrap of paper from me. “C11? That’s third row, either this side or the other, you’ll need to check. They keep on switching them over.”

I don’t get the scrap of paper back.

I’m on my own.

C11. C11. C11. C11. C11.

I repeat it again and again so I don’t forget. In my head, of course. Just to be clear. I’m not that weird.

I head for the furthest aisle and start checking the seat numbers. They’re written on tiny little plaques screwed to the backrest of the benches. And I saw written, because that’s what they are. Not printed. They look like they’ve been scratched out and rewritten a hundred times over.

You got to love it, don’t you?

I hope they bring these battered badges with them to the new venue. I can’t wait to hear what the swanks in Islington Square head office have to say when they hear about it.

C11, as it turns out, is in the last block of seats. In the third row.

That was pretty easy to find. After all, I can count all the way to a hundred. And I know my alphabet. Sort of. (I get a big confused around the Qs and Ss, but I can run through it pretty snappy if I remember what the tune is).

I don’t mean to sound smug. But the other audience members seem to be having a bit of a problem.

“Do you know what row you’re in?” a lady asks me.

“Yes, row C. It’s written here,” I say tapping the badge on the back of my seat.

“Oh.” She doesn’t sound convinced. She looks about her, turns, and then leaves.

Perhaps I should have offered to sing her the Alphabet song.

The ticket checker rushes over to the front row. “Sorry Sir,” she says, waving at a man squeezing himself into the front row. “You’re over here.” She points to a spot over in my block. In the second row.

“Ah! I thought you meant over here,” he says, the invisible light bulb above his head lighting up, and he makes his way over to the correct seat.

The lady who asked me about my row is back, still looking lost.

The usher tries to help. Pointing her to the seats just behind me.

“Is that row C?” she asks.

“D,” says the usher. “You’re just in here.”

“Where?”

The usher points again. “Just here. The three seats right at the end.”

“But we’re not all together.”

“No, one of you is in row C.”

“C?”

“Yes, this row,” she says, pointing at the row I’m sitting in.

“That’s D?”

“No. C.”

“C?”

“Yes.”

“And one of us separate?”

“Yes, in row C.”

“D?”

“Three of you are in row D.”

And on and on it goes. I’m beginning to think I really will have to sing the Alphabet Song to her if this continues.

“This,” says the lady, pointing up at the ceiling. “Is intolerable.”

She’s quite right. It really is.

“Sorry,” says the usher. “They’re turning it down.”

Oh. She meant the music. Huh. I was rather enjoying it.

My neighbour twists around on our bench to look at me.

“How long is this?” he asks.

People faffing around finding their seats? A fucking eternity. Oh, he means the play.

“70 minutes,” I tell him.

“70 minutes?” he nods and turns back to face the stage, apparently satisfied with that answer.

Eventually, with a lot more usher assistance, everyone manages to find their seats. You have to admire the King’s Head for their dedication to the cause of allocated seating. Lesser venues would have through it over in favour of the free-for-all years ago.

As we all settle down, the guy from the box office comes in, brandishing a bucket and with a tote bag slung over his shoulder. I think we all know what that means. It’s the upsell.

“Welcome to the King’s Head Theatre,” he starts before introducing himself. Should I mention a front of houser’s name? Is that appropriate? I don’t usually. But I guess, he gave his name willingly, so… it’s Alex.

He has a prepared speech. The King’s Head isn’t subsidised. They need to raise a hundred grand a year. The pub and the theatre are separate. The theatre gets none of that revenue. “If you ordered a double at the bar tonight, you’re not helping us,” he says, as if that was ever the point of ordering a double.

But never fear, theatre audiences, Alex has a plan.

“When people ask where you were on Thursday night, you can tell them you were at the King’s Head Theatre,” he says, straightening out the tote bag so that we can all see the design. “It’s fairtrade. It’s organic. It’s only five pounds.

“But what do you put inside the tote bag? Well, how about a Brexit playtext?” he says, pulling a handsomely covered book from the bucket. “Only five pounds and available from the box office after the show. Or,” he says, pulling something else out of the tin bucket. “A DVD documentary about the King’s Head Theatre.” That’s only three pounds he tells us, which sounds like a right old bargain to me until I remember I haven’t owned any kind of tech capable of playing a DVD in around seven years. “Or,” he goes on. “I have this bucket. It’s a tradition at the King’s Head. If you have any spare change, unfold it and drop it in.”

That gets a laugh. Hopefully it also gets them some fivers.

That done. It’s on with the play.

Brexit.

I can well and truly say that I’ve had my fill of the subject. But, well, I thought it would be appropriate. Pin this marathon into the calendar like a still wriggling butterfly into a frame.

And it’s funny. It really is. With lots of backroom dealings and double-crossings and clever wordplay and references to ‘Matron’ the former prime minister.

Set in the near future, where everything is exactly the same but even more so. Endless rounds of talk, with no one capable of making a decision. The withholding of closure on an entire continent.

As the applause fades, I reach under my seat to grab my bag.

“You seemed rather detached from that?” says my neighbour as I re-emerge.

Did I? “I’m just very tired,” I say, which seems to be my answer for every bit of criticism I’m receiving at the moment. No matter what it is. Missed a deadline? Tired. Finished of the last of the biscuits? Tired. Forgot to pay the gas bill? Again? So. Fucking. Tired. I mean, it's not like we even need gas. Not in this weather.

“I did enjoy it though,” I clarify, just in case he thinks I’m dissing the play. I’m not. I really did enjoy it.

He sits back surprised. “You’re American?”

“Err… no?” I say, equally surprised. I’m really not American, and couldn’t even do the accent if I tried.

He doesn't say anything to that. I'm not sure whether he's pleased with my lack of Americanness or not.

I get up to leave, but his comment is still playing on my mind, even when I'm halfway down Upper Street.

Detached? How would he even know? Perhaps I wasn't laughing enough. That could be it. But I'd say the general reaction to Brexit (the play) is more of a giggle than a guffaw. So that can't be it. Surely. I must have been acting very strangely for him to feel the need to point it out. Have I started talking to myself? Oh god, I've started talking to myself, haven't I? I'm doing it right now, aren't I? Shit. Don't answer that. Talking to yourself is one thing. Getting an answer is quite another.

Whatever I was doing, I can't help but think that this is punishment for my blog. After passing judgement on the audiences of over 160 theatres, they've now finally turned on me.

You know what…? I think I just got reviewed.

And I did not get five stars.

Know your Onions

It’s the Park Theatre today!

I am very excited. Can you tell?

Not that I give a crap about the Park Theatre you understand. I mean, I’m sure it’s just swell. I’ve never been, so I can’t comment.

No, what I’m excited about is the theatre’s Getting Here page on their website.

A strangely specific thing to get worked up about, you may think. And I’ll grant you there is some truth in that. It is both strange, and specific. But I have my reasons. And those reasons are dog related.

After providing (very good and detailed) instructions on how to get to the theatre from the tube station, they go on to provide a video of the route. Featuring a dog. Called Hazel. It is super cute, and Hazel is adorable. And whoever came up with this idea is an excellent person and I approve of the entire endeavour.

My only criticism, and I’m not sure they are even taking notes at this stage, is that they say the walk takes four minutes, and yet the video is all of thirty seconds. If I had a touch more time on my hands, I’d be campaigning for real-time Hazel walkies. But as it is, I’m a bit busy. So off to the Park I go. Taking the suggested route, from the tube station. It takes about four minutes.

When I get there, the big glass windows at the front of the building are all open, and people are making full use of the the evening sun, sitting outside and doing the mostest to bring some European cafe culture to Finsbury Park.

There’s no sign of Hazel, but I’m sure she’s inside lolling around on a cool floor somewhere.

I go in, have a quick look around for any potential dog action, and with no wagging tails in sight, head over to the box office.

I give my surname, and the box officer pulls the ticket out of the box and hands it to me.

I look at it and start laughing.

“Mr Today Tix?” I ask. “I like that.”

You see, when you buy tickets through the TodayTix app, as I did for this trip, theatres usually process the company as the buyer, and then handwrite the audience member’s name on each one in time for collection. I think almost all theatres that use the app do this. With the Southbank Centre as the notable exception. They actually went and keyed in my information so that the ticket printed with my actual name on it. But the Southbank Centre are some swish bastards. They’ve got the resources for that kind of service.

Saying that, I don’t think I’ve come across a theatre to offer the app a title so far.

It's nice.

There’s a small display of programmes on the counter. Three quid. Not bad.

“Can I get a programme?”

I can, and we go about the business of my handing over cash and him sorting out my change.

Now what?

There doesn’t seem to be much seating here. And it’s too early to go in.

I wander outside and find a bollard to lean against, and start sorting out all my stuff.

I make to slip the ticket in my pocket, but give it one final look.

Mr Today Tix.

How silly.

Out of interest, I get out my phone, go to the Park’s website, and try to set up an account. They’re running the standard Spektrix system to handle their bookings, and the Title field is freetext. Not a dropdown. Meaning that whoever set up TodayTix as Mr Today Tix has some thoughts on the matter of titling inanimate software.

I’m not sure how appropriate it is to be gendering apps, but still… I got a giggle out of it.

Right, ticket analysed, it’s time to turn my attention to the…

Shit.

I trot back to box office.

“Sorry! I didn’t actually take a programme,” I say, feeling like a right idiot. I’m really getting old. I can’t deal with late nights and alcohol. Despite all the shenanigans last night, I woke up feeling quite fresh this morning. Tired, yes. But not furry of tongue and sticky of eye. I was fine. It was only when the headache hit after lunch that I realised that the reason I didn’t wake up with a hangover, is because I woke up still drunk.

Honestly, once this marathon is over, I’m fully committing to a 10pm bedtime.

“Oh, did you not?” says the box officer, having the grace to sound surprised.

I take one and go back outside.

It’s a nice little programme. There are interviews and things. I’d pay three quid for it. I mean, I did actually pay three quid for it. But even outside the confines of the marathon, and research, and whatever else I’m using to justify my programme buying habit, I would pay three quid for it. It’s worth the coin.

From inside there’s an announcement. The house for Napoli, Brooklyn is now open.

I suddenly realise that I've come across has a comma in the title.

That's unusual. We had Life, Apparently at Hoxton Hall. And I'd made a big fuss about the comma then.

I hope this isn't becoming a trend. Punctuation confuses me.

People start to make their way back inside. But slowly. No one wants to give up the sun quite yet.

I wait a few minutes. I’ve still got time.

But then I remember I hate being in the sun, so I follow everyone back in.

Back across the foyer, past the box office and bar, down a short flight of steps and then…

Getting out my ticket again because there are two different doors and I need to check my seat number to find out which one I need.

Funny. There’s no one out here. Both doors are free of ticket checkers.

I’m on my own.

Which is fine.

I know what I’m doing. I know my seat number and can work out which door I need like the big girl I am, but still. There’s usually someone directing traffic at these junctions.

For a brief moment I wonder if time has slipped away from me, that I stepped into a faerie ring on my way in, and without knowing, took hours to get to the other side. Perhaps the show has already started, and that’s why there’s no one out here.

I go through the nearest door, into a small antechamber, and emerge on the other side at the back of the stalls.

And there’s a ticket checker waiting.

Oh. Right.

That’s okay then.

“C43?” I ask as she comes over to me. The door I took had said seat numbers up to 43, so that must mean… “Am I on the end here?” I say, pointing towards the furthest seat on the back row, right down by the back corner of the thrust stage.

“Err. Yes,” she agrees and off I go.

The view… isn’t great.

Okay, it’s not bad. I’m sure I won’t miss anything of importance. But there seems to be a kitchen in my sightline.

Well, I suppose that’s what you get if you shudder at the thought of paying more than fifteen pounds for anything.

Looks like quite a few people were shuddering. The theatre has been filling up, but the side rows are still on the sparse side and it looks like the balcony has been closed off.

As for my ticket, what fifteen pounds gets you is a spot on a bench right next to the wall. Wait, is it a wall. It seems to be moving… Just as I begin to wonder whether I’m hallucinating, or possibly still drunk from last night, the wall that isn’t a wall moves again. Like a curtain with the window open behind it. And then I hear voices. People are talking on the other side.

A second later, the house lights are down and an actor is emerging from behind the wall and placing a halved onion under each of her eyes in turn, trying to make herself cry.

My row is still half empty. While Madeleine Worrall’s matriarch Luda tries to get her cry on, I slide down the bench to get a better view.

The onions can’t get the job done. She must be all cried out. I would be too, if I had a daughter sent to a convent, with a broken nose after facing the wrath of my husband. Or a second daughter who refuses to eat. Or a third who had to be pulled out of school in order to help bring money in, and has cuts all over her hands as the result of hard labour.

That’s a well that even an onion can’t fill.

But oh, they try.

While one onion can barely make a space, a wagon-full may bring up the water level.

By the end of the first act, the stage is covered in the things. Hundreds of them. A few have bounced off the edge, despite the presence of the guard rail, presumably put there to keep the pesky things in.

Audience members in the front row pick them up as they retrieve their bags from under their seats. A few of them send their bulbs ricocheting across the stage like air hockey pucks, and they bounce into the set with a small thud.

But it was all in vain, as stage managers come out to reset for the second act, and they bring the big brooms with them, sliding the onions off into the various corners. Out of the way, but still very much present.

One of them starts to read off a check list of items why another confirms their presence.

“Six forks on the left.”

“Yup.”

“Six knives in the middle.”

“Yup.”

“Six plates with napkins on top.”

“Err. Three, fourfive. Yup.”

“Tea towels?”

“Yes.”

And on they go, detailing out this well stocked dinner service.

As the family settle down to eat, I wonder why I’m not feeling hungry, as I usually do when actors are munching away on stage. They keep on talking about what a great cook Luda is (and she herself agrees with that assessment), but all we’ve seen her do is pick at a few green beans. There’s no onstage cookery going on here. No working hob. No warm and hearty smells swirling around the auditorium.

I could do with something warm and hearty right now.

It’s not warm at all in here.

I put on my jacket and cross my arms, shivering in my seat.

Across the way I see a woman bring out her scarf and wrap it around her shoulders.

It’s freezing in here.

I can’t stop shaking.

Even when I emerge into what’s left of the sunshine, I have to keep on rubbing at my arms until the warmth manages to eke its way under my skin.

As I retrace my steps back to the station, I make a mental note to save my trip to their studio space for when it’s really hot. That air con is top notch after all.

When August hits, I might ask to move in.