Bloody Hell, a night off. And my wife had one too. We could go out and do some stuff! But it's only by doing that that you find out how expensive everything is. If I worked for nothing I'd probably still be better off than if I had my nights free and decided to go to the theatre and have dinner. Two small glasses of wine (quarter full plastic tumblers in fact) in the theatre bar cost £17. We were going to see the play "Posh" and perhaps the satire of the elite continued during the interval. But I felt almost as hot-headed as my Grandad did back in the mid-70s when five cups of tea cost 50p in a service station.
Posh is about posh Oxford toffs who get together for meals where they get drunk, force each other to drink wee and smash up the restaurant. Although it's called "The Riot Club", it doesn't take Inspector Morse to recognise that the inspiration for this piece came from the Bullingdon Club whose members included our Prime Minister and the Mayor of London (there's a couple of the diners who bear a striking resemblance to them too). I heard tales of the Bullingdon Club when I was at Oxford, where Cameron and Johnson were nearly contemporaries (might have been some overlap). Even in a University with a significant proportion of Etonians and Harrovians this was an exclusive club for the super, super privileged. You've seen the photo of the pompous, superior young men standing on those steps, eyeing the camera with mannered disdain. Congratulations to the writer Laura Wade who saw the clear dramatic possibilities in the subject. I enjoyed it (with a few reservations, which I can't really elaborate on without spoilers), the excellent cast uniformly brought to life the kinds of characters I have occasionally chanced across at University and in life.
What was most disconcerting about the play though was how posh the audience was. Perhaps that's not surprising when tickets and drinks cost so much, but at times the audience reaction to the play reminded me a bit of being at some Al Murray gigs. It felt like people around me were laughing with, rather than at the stupid things that the posh knobs were saying. But as with at an Al Murray gig it was also hard to know whether I was projecting my own prejudices on to the audience. Were they going along to see the play or to reminisce about their own student antics?
It's worrying to me that the men at the heart of our government were part of something so horrible, even as young men and that allegedly (and actually) their response to the destruction that they had wrought was to casually toss a bundle of notes on to the floor. As if money alone is compensation for such wanton vandalism, rather than a further blow to the pride and self-respect of the person whose premises have just been destroyed.
Like I say, it's a great subject for a play and I'd recommend it, though wish it could be seen by the kind of people who can't afford to spend theatre money. I've also never seen such aggressive door policing in a theatre - my wife was initially stopped from using the loo whilst I was queuing to pick up the tickets - even though the play was about to start. But maybe again it's all part of the experience of Posh - making you feel like scum as you're forced to shell out your cash.
