Tonight's preview was at the Warehouse Theatre in beautiful Croydon.
I parked in the NCP up the road. It was fairly deserted. As I came down the stairs to the street I could hear angry shouting in the stairwell above me. I got out into the street quickly, not wanting to get embroiled in anything. But I was immediately followed by two men and an angry woman who were drinking lager and cider from cans. They were obviously quite drunk already and one of the men had upset the woman in some way, though their garbled and vitriolic shouting made it hard for me to understand what that might have been. I was also trying to blend into the background and look like I hadn't noticed them, because I know full well that when a drunk man is angry with a woman and full of violent thoughts, he is likely to lash out at a stranger if he thinks he has been in any way slighted. I have been kicked in the head once in my life for similar reasons and I don't want to go through that again. I hoped they'd go off in a different direction, but they headed down the road towards the Warehouse.
I hung back and the argument escalated.The men went to sit on a low wall near the theatre, but the woman perhaps feeling her honour had been impugned went off filled with anger. She kicked a fence.
One of the men bellowed "Nikki!" pleading for her to come back. She threw her can into the road, splattering precious alcohol all over the floor.
"Oh fuck you then!" yelled the man. After all he had done all he could to calm her down by shouting "Nikki!" and if that wasn't going to be enough to placate her then what could he do?
She disappeared off into the night and the men sat alone on their wall, drinking alone. I wondered if in the morning whether they would all make up or whether Nikki might finally have twigged that there might be more to life than hanging around the NCP drinking beer with these wonderful conversationalists.
But then again they lived in Croydon and what else is there to do? I mean they could have come to see menage a un, but I have a feeling they might not have enjoyed it too much. You have to be a lot more drunk than they were to find me funny.
The gig went fine.
