DAY NINE.
AGE NINE.
Seen here, as a Christmas cracker. |
Kind of like the geologist thing, I probably
wanted to be a palaeontologist when I grew up (although I don’t think I went as
far as knowing the word for it).
Did you know it turns out they don’t even teach
you about dinosaurs in history class?
For some reason it comes under science and I already said I found
science boring. Of course all this was
back when I thought dinosaurs were cool and played with the ice cream tub of
luminous and multi-coloured misshapen rubber dinosaur toys we had, before
Jurassic Park came along and decided to make dinosaurs the scariest thing in
the world.
…
Being part of that drama crowd I keep mentioning,
it happened eventually during college that we banded together and went to see
some shows off our own steam. I had been
taken to see shows by parents, school and Brownies, and I had gone to see shows
that people I knew were in, but this was the first time I had gone with friends
to see a professional show and it felt really cool.
Yes, that’s what I considered cool. Going to the theatre with the drama crowd.
The idea was to turn up just before the show
started and buy the cheap leftover seats.
The first time, we saw Chicago (The Mayflower/1st
March 2002) and it was brilliant. For a
long time after this I counted Chicago as one of The Top-Five-Favourite Shows. However, having now worked in a theatre, I’ve
seen it a few times since and it’s actually really annoying.
Of course back then I had a special rule which was
This was because a live experience is unique
and I was afraid that if I saw another version that The Memory would be
replaced with the latter one and the original would be lost forever. And I was kind of right. Because I don’t remember what was so great
about that first time I saw Chicago any more.
The other show we went to see was Grease (The
Mayflower/16th May 2002) because we were doing Grease ourselves as
the whole school production (another stinking musical). This show was… unremarkable. It wasn’t bad,
it just wasn’t remotely interesting. And
back then I had another rule. Back when
The Father took me to see Les Misérables and everyone stood up to applaud at
the end and I didn’t because I was feeling really sad and resentful and The
Father got annoyed with me, I decided then
At least, not just because other people
were. I wasn’t going to stand up just
because the inconsiderate people in front of me were now blocking The View. I would only give a standing ovation if I saw
something so mind-altering brilliant that I couldn’t help but jump to The Feet cheering. So I was not
giving Grease a standing
ovation. So I couldn’t see the damn
finale through the backs of the people in front of me.
What I remember better than either of these shows
is that one of these times we stopped in the Toys-R-Us outside the theatre
first and I had a go on one of those £1 machines that releases a random little
capsule when you turn the wheel. It was
a Thunderbirds machine and I had a 5-1 chance of getting the only Thunderbird I
had any interest in (Thunderbird 5, obviously) and I TOTALLY BEAT THE SYSTEM
AND GOT THE ONE I WANTED FIRST TIME. I
still have it (somewhere), although the pointy bit at the bottom has fallen
off, which actually allows it to sit better on a shelf.
Just before John cries himself to sleep at night, he prays for a fan like you.
ReplyDeleteYeah... and I'm sure I don't just like him because he's the most similar to Captain Blue.
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