Never mind. Izzy and I got to the theatre eventually, albeit after a frenzied dash / drag (me / Iz, respectively) through Oxford's shopping district, and down to George Street which houses the Theatre.
Pic.No.1. New Theatre Oxford, George Street
We entered the Box Office and everything had finally started to run smoothly after the palaver of the journey. Phew! After giving him my booking reference number, the Clerk smiled and handed over two tickets; "here you go Dr. Dickens."
I glanced at my watch. With my reckoning, I had five minutes to go and buy a bag of giant 'Chocolate Buttons' for Izzy before we had to take our seats.
Pic. No.2. Izy holding the tickets and worrying about the Chocolate Buttons
Hey, no flies on me. I procured the chocolate bootie, and within minutes was leading lil' Iz by the hand into the auditorium as her excitement grew..... about the fact that the chairs had seats that lifted up and down [I despair].
Our tickets said that we were allocated seats 'X14' and 'X15'.
The prefix 'X' was quite clearly the row we were supposed to sit in, so imagine my surprise when I found out that the actual row numbering stopped at 'W'.
"Bloody nora," I sighed under my breath, not realising that Izzy was in ear-shot, thus precipitating her childish admonishment; "stop using bad words." Fair play, that kid's got manners.
Pic.No.3. Inside the New Theatre - yep the one with no Row X
Back to the matter in hand. I approached an attendant and showed her my tickets, explaining that we were supposed to be sat in Row X, but I couldn't find it.
"We haven't got a row X," she smiled cheerily.
"Our seat numbers are printed on the tickets that I got from your Box Office....here look," I said through gritted teeth, as Iz started pulling on my coat, asking what was happening.
"I'll have to speak to my supervisor," the lady said, still smiling but looking a little less animated.
Duly summoned, Supervisor arrived at the scene. I showed her my tickets...... she studied them, and then announced, "we don't have a Row X."
I was getting a tad frustrated;. "The fact that you don't physically have a Row X is now completely apparent. But that doesn't alter the fact that your Box Office allocated us to this fictituos location. All I want to do is let my daughter watch the show. Please just sort out some seats for us."
The supervisor must have seen the murderous intent in my eyes, (fanned by the flames of the bus journey) because within minutes we had been allocated seats in the disabled section of the stalls. [note to reader; if my some freakish coincidence, the Supervisor does get murdered this week, it wasn't me. I am not really the murdering sort]. Being in the disabled section meant that Izzy was given a normal theatre seat, whereas I was given a freestanding buffet chair in the place where a wheelchair would normally go.
"Thank you." I hissed through gritted teeth, seating myself on the steel-framed sitting-contraption boasting as much padding as a panty liner.
But hey, we were finally seated, and I a managed to get a quick video of the theatre just as the curtain was about to go up.
Vid.No.1. New Theatre Oxford - start of the show
Just as I had finished the video, the Supervisor reappeared, bending down next to me.
"Excuse me madam, you are not allowed to take videos of the performance," she hissed in my direction.
You know when you meet people that you instantly click with? This didn't happen here.
"I am not taking a video of the performance," I said slowly, turning off my camera and facing her, "it hasn't started yet."
"I was just making sure you knew the rules," she said, walking cautiously backwards after seeing my expression.
. .Pic.No.4. The Gang Show. Dear Supervisor - this is not my picture. I did not use my camera to photograph the show whilst it was in progress. I took it off the internet... Eek. Is the Supervisor now going to sue me for breach of copyright?
Now I don't know whether you have been to a production called a Gang Show before (I haven't), but apparently it is quite a regular thing. It is put on by the Scouts and Girl Guides, and is a basically a variety performance.
Being a lover of more Shakespearen-type productions myself, meant that the Gang Show wasn't likely to be up there on my top ten choices of Theatre..... but I have to admit...............the children invovled did a fantastic job, and even managed to occasionally divert Izzy from playing with the lift up-and down seat on her chair.
After the two and a half hour performance (uh -huh, it was that long), I dragged Izzy kicking and screaming from her theatre chair and amazingly we managed to get home, hassle free, on the bus. Wonders will never cease.
About 250 years ago The Gang Show used to be a televised event. It's passed in to obscurity now along with other classics such as Crossroads, Triangle, Sunday Night At The Palladium, The Royal Command Performance, Wogan! and The Magic Roundabout.
ReplyDeleteBlimey is that so? I didn't realise that it had so much importance attached to it. One thing that did strike me about the Gang Show (which I thought was really cool) was that it was really patriotic. They played the National Anthem at the beginning (and everyone stood up), waved Union Jacks, and had a slot where they remembered the troops in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteI haven't felt so proud of my country in ages.... we should do so much more of it.
Visits to the theatre are meant to be such peaceful, elegant affairs. But somehow when I go, like you, there's always a big drama even before the show starts.
ReplyDeletePeaceful and elegant? Me? That's cool - those adjectives have never been used to describe me before, but I kinda like 'em!
ReplyDelete