There's No Business Like Showbusiness

I’ve been going to the theatre a lot over the past few months and I must admit that this, for a modest, unassuming person like I am, can be a bit difficult. You see it’s hard for me to sit and see someone else up on stage getting all the attention and, unlike my real life, never stuttering or being stuck for a good exit line or wracking their ageing brain for what word comes next. Also, I envy their happy endings and exciting lives. You never see anyone on stage stuck in queues or trying to park at B&Q do you? And they don’t ever do mundane things like dig the back garden or clean the toilet.

The way that I’ve found is best to handle my envy of all this is to quickly stand up at the end of a show and pretend the riotous applause from the audience is for me. This only works for a moment as it leads to everyone else getting up and the cast receiving a standing ovation, but I’m sure they know it’s all really for me and that it’s my caring nature that is letting them share.

I only realised this week that my trips to the theatre have involved seeing too many musicals recently like Wicked, Jersey Boys, Dreamboats and Petticoats, Oliver, etc, and so a “proper” play now takes me by surprise. The realisation came to me when I saw a performance of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice last week and wondered where the songs had gone and where the orchestra was hiding. If the bard had been really savvy he could have written a tune or two in his time and Shylock could have burst in to a ballad when demanding his pound of flesh. Maybe First Cut Is The Deepest?

I heard that my love of theatre is shared with The Queen and Prince Phillip who sneaked in late to a West End show last week, climbing over everyone and sending tubs of Maltesers flying as they fought to get to their seats. I’d hate to be the poor soul stuck sitting behind Her Majesty though. After the initial nudge, nudge excitement, you can’t exactly ask her to take her crown off as it’s restricting your view can you? And what’s the etiquette? Can you ask her to sign your programme? Do you offer to buy her a choc ice at the interval?

Hopefully she would turn down the offer anyway as a programme and choc ice in theatres today cost roughly the same as the upkeep of Balmoral for six months. I often think the best actors in the theatre are the usherettes who put on a wonderful welcoming smile as they hand you one triple chocolate Ben & Jerry’s and say “that will be fifty pounds please. Have a good evening”. To make legal theft look so innocent and appealing takes some amount of acting.

The toilets in all theatres are tiny and look like they were built for royalty – King Arthur that is – and that’s why there are always queues outside these antiquated, quaintly aromatic, stalls. Perhaps when it comes to loos our current monarch has someone who does it for her – the queueing that is, not the actual sitting down bit.

I think it’s important for the public to support theatre, a tradition that obviously stretches way back to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre days and even further, perhaps back as far as Bruce Forsyth’s first gig, so I fervently support my local theatre even though it is often half empty and puts on shows that are too arty with a capital “F”.

I find that supporting your local theatre is a bit like following your local football team in that you know it will always be a minor player, never win out on the big day and will always be unloved by others. I imagine it’s a bit like being a Liberal Democrat.

So I urge you to be that unfashionable supporter of your local theatre and all its silly ways and Victorian charm. It needs you if it’s going to survive. Just get along and support. But make sure you go to the loo before leaving home.