"
I think that if I played Cheltenham again I should sell the place out," were, I notice, my hubristic words on my last performance here. Sadly my prophecies proved inaccurate. I had sold a usually rather adequate 150 seats for tonight's final performance of Hercules, but I guess if a show doesn't have the word "cock" in the title, the denizens of Cheltenham are not so interested. Don't get me wrong, those that turned up were a lovely crowd (though annoying split into two groups with some on the lower level and the rest on the next circle up - there were two more tiers of seating, how did I ever think I would sell this place out?) and this ultimate performance was an enjoyable one.
We'd had a terrible time trying to get the slide show to work on my new laptop, but neither- arrogant-nor-humble Pete Kovacks who had taken on the tour manager duties (as humble Dave Taylor was otherwise engaged and arrogant Simon Streeting has of course
sadly passed away) managed to sort it all out with only minutes remaining.
The Everyman Theatre were not providing food this time - I don't know if this was because I had eschewed the offer last time or because I had not sold enough tickets - so I headed out into the town for a sandwich and to search out a book of sudokus to get me through the hour or so before the gig. I bought the new Independent book from a rather chatty assistant (though not disagreeably so - she doesn't do sudokus for fear that it will eat into her valuable reading time. In case you were interested. She felt I might be). Even the difficult Independent Sudokus are easy enough to do with minimal writing in of the possible numbers. Even for me and I am not very good at hard sudokus. So what I am saying is that they are pitifully easy and as I have always suspected Independent readers must be incredibly thick. The Times and Guardian hard puzzles are properly head-scratchingly difficult. Though not for Diane. I suspect she knows the person who makes up the Sudokus and learns all the numbers in advance though. That's the only possible explanation. Yes.
As I had my sandwich in Starbucks a teenage boy was trying to persuade a teenage girl that he obviously didn't know to take a drink from his pink and white frappuchino looking drink. She wouldn't do it. Not surprisingly. This might have been some low grade terrorist attack.
He looked a bit young and nerdy to be trying to chat her up - or if he was then he definitely didn't have a chance because a) he was not attractive enough and b) his chat up line was weird. b) would not matter if a) was not true, but the harsh truth of life is that the unattactive require great chat up lines whilst the pretty can get away with any old crap. Top marks for trying if this was the case.
This was confirmed when he then asked an elderly man to sample his drink. Either he had very eclectic tastes in a potential partner or he was actually more interested in getting people to drink his pink and white drink for some reason. Like all the people he asked (and he didn't ask me, which I feel slightly slighted about - not attractive enough for him, aren't I) I suspected that the young boy had put something unpleasant in the drink, like a bogey or some wee or an ant. I wonder what he was trying to achieve. I guess we will never know. Unless he reads warming up. Which given his level of geekiness is perfectly possible.
I hope he wasn't trying to wipe out mankind with some kind of virus. That would be a shame. But in this post 7/7 world anything seems possible. For a brief moment in the post Live 8 world we had hope for a new tomorrow, but that didn't even last a week.
Anyway enough rambling. I was sad to let Hercules go, but now I can get on with my yoghurt unhindered. Not literally. I mean the show. I am not eating a yoghurt right now. I don't like yoghurt that much.
