Happy Wednesday bookish people! It’s Wednesday which means it is time for another Where’d I Leave it Wednesday.
I love going to the Theatre, I especially enjoy musical theatre but of course as my eyes have deteriorated I now need to be sat in the front row to be able to see. This is fine, but it does limit which shows I can see if everything on the front row gets booked straightaway – anyway, that is a different story.
Today’s story talks about a few of the times going to the Theatre has been… an experience – keep reading to find out what happened some of those times!
An Inadvertent Dalliance
I will never ask my two cousins to book anything that I would also be going to for a very specific reason. They won’t let me book any tickets either because they are afraid that I will mix up the shows because of my visual impairment. Despite the oldest of them being trained in how to guide blind people I don’t feel safe in their company. For the reason that I don’t know where I will end up.
The youngest of the two is the type of girl that manages to lock herself out of her University house while wearing her pyjamas. I was desperate to see a photo of this but one never materialized. Anyway, the moment that stopped me joining their adventures for good happened at the Theatre. In the enchantment of the spotlight that hangs for a moment, vibrating with the echo of an audience’s applause, after the play has ended. When the curtains open, I’m transported, in the same way as with a book, to another life. In this other life I seem to have the most approachable face because I’ve stopped counting the amount of times I’ve been picked on. I thought it didn’t embarrass me anymore until I saw a show with Shane Ritchie in. In this performance half of the show is the serious side of a comedian’s life and the other is him doing his comedy. When he came out onto the stage, carrying a blow-up naked woman and made eye contact with me for the duration of that scene, was the moment I wished I didn’t need to sit in the front row to see. My eyes, and later my brain, wouldn’t have minded never having to live that moment. It wouldn’t have been so bad had the people I was with not noticed he looked at me. They did. They still bring it up at Christmas.
I’ve even been coaxed up on stage during a Royal Shakespeare Company performance of As You Like It. I was in a nice dress that I was worried might lift and accidentally flash the whole front row, which included my, at the time, boyfriend Robert. Who – rather than suggest I don’t go onstage for health and safety reasons – all but pushed me onto the stage. Luckily, I didn’t have to do anything too bad and then I was allowed to sit down again. Robert had gotten up and offered me a hand to climb down. To anybody watching his helping hand probably seemed gentlemanly but I know it was just because he was worried that I would fall into his lap. I got my own back later in the second half of the performance. When the ‘Fool’ sat on the step right in front of him, pointed a finger at him and proclaimed “you’re very horny”. They were talking about owning goats so it was out of context but I think my, at the time, boyfriend was suitably embarrassed. He never went with me to a Shakespeare production again.
But in the case of my cousins it was one of them who was picked on. Originally, we were going to see the performance of 1984. However, I had entrusted my cousins to book the tickets and once we had arrived, taken our seats and could no longer leave the Theatre inconspicuously we realised they had booked the wrong show. What was meant to be an evening of drama and George Orwell became something very different. The spotlight shone on a man sat in the centre of the stage on a wooden stool, wearing a nurse’s dress and eating an orange. If we thought that would be the strangest moment of the show we were mistaken. We sat there for over half an hour of the first half in complete disbelief, the rest of the audience didn’t seem to be confused by what was happening which was even worse for my cousins and I when he began to strip. That was when we could no longer look at each other for fear that we would burst out laughing and interrupt whatever it was that was meant to be happening on stage. Thankfully, he didn’t strip completely. He only took off the nurse’s dress and remained in a white vest and a small pair of underwear. We couldn’t believe it but it got worse from there. He clambered up onto the stool, which was barely big enough to fit both of his feet on, and began to eat the orange in a way that I can only describe as seductively. And while he did this he stared straight at my cousin. That was all her sister, my other cousin, and I needed before we couldn’t hold in the laughs anymore. I had to physically hold my hand over my mouth to remain silent as nobody else in the audience seemed to find it as entertaining as we did. Once he had finished his lunch, he started passing the orange peel between his hands. Left then right and then left again. Then he threw some at the audience, and a bit more and a bit more again. One bit landed on the edge of my cousin’s glasses and hung there like a piece of orange seaweed. Dangling in front of her eyes. She’s probably glad she couldn’t see what happened next when he started blowing kisses at her. She didn’t notice but her sister and I definitely did. So did the elderly lady and her husband who were sat behind us. “What a lovely dalliance” she said to him, lovely is not the word I would use to describe that performance. My cousins thought I would mess up the tickets if they let me book them and instead, they were the ones who made the mistake.
That’s the end of today’s story, I hope everyone enjoyed it!
Have you had any interesting experiences at the Theatre? Let me know in the comments!
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