Lunch with Marlene, New End Theatre, 24^th April 2008

There is so much fringe theatre in SE London that it is an effort to stir the old stumps and venture much further. But I thought my regular companion might enjoy this little oeuvre, so I made the effort to drag myself all the way to Hampstead. It brought back memories: I wondered if there would be time afterwards to make a pilgrimage to the Three Horseshoes, wherein occurred one of the memorable events of my (very) brief career in showbiz. Would I, indeed, be able to find it again?

The New End Theatre has had the good sense to locate itself next door to a proper pub, so I was able to wait for my companion in familiar comfort.

When we settled into our seats, I noticed the row in front had two single seats with one couple sitting between them. As I was wondering whether the ticket processing system had cocked-up, a singleton appeared, but she wanted to sit in one of the occupied seats. Some discussion followed, and the couple, who I thought would then move up one seat, struggled out and vanished to the other side of the theatre!

The tale of the wrong seat developed considerably at the interval. Have you ever tried to buy a drink in a theatre bar at the interval? Up-West, they abdicate totally, get you to buy drinks at the start, then leave them lying about for anyone to drink at the interval: probably their idea of socialism. Anyway, when I went to get a drink, the singleton in front did the same. We waited in a queue while the barman failed to cope. As we finally got to the bar, the man in front ordered two drinks and asked for a receipt. The barman couldn’t do that: “I can give you a written one”, he said. And we all had to wait while he did that. Now if you’d been in the queue, you’d have looked at us glaring at you and seen sense: “No, no”, you would have said, “it doesn’t matter”. You would have been thinking to yourself “I can’t have these people think a fiver matters to me that much”. But not our friend: no, he had to have a receipt. There’s a technical term to describe people like that, isn’t there?

Anyway, back to the tale of the wrong seat: when I got back, there was someone else sitting in the singleton’s seat. Can you believe that? When the singleton got back, she couldn’t figure out where she had been sitting, because, of course, someone else was sitting there now. She played her part very well: she wandered up and down the aisle, mystery gathering on her brow, unable to cope with the unexpected scenery change.

Now, I don’t normally do this, but I allowed myself to be sucked into the play: I leaned forward and asked the interloper if she was in the right seat. Of course, she wasn’t. The wandering singleton was redeemed. The interloper then turned to appeal to all of us: “I was only 5 minutes late”, she said, “and they wouldn’t let me in”. We all knew she was overlooking the fact that the play (the real play, that is) had started 10 minutes late. So she was confessing to being very late and still expecting unreasonable favours. Funny old crowd at the New End.

We repaired to the pub next door afterwards, but since the companion had again come by motorbike, she wasn’t content to settle in while I had a full quota. But as we wandered back to the tube and the bike, we found the Three Horseshoes. Or rather, it’s absence: it is now a gastlo-pub, one of those places with blue lights in stainless steel. What a sad end for a place whose claim to fame in my pantheon is that I sang there on the same bill as Paul Simon: and he taught me a song about the Northern Line. Of course, that was before he was famous. It was before I as famous, as well.

By the way, “Lunch with Marlene” was very good: not my cup-of-tea, but very good. The companion really enjoyed it. The performances, and the musical support, were top notch. Well worth seeing, if you like that sort of thing.

And it added to my education: I still find it hard to believe, but it claimed that the 1941 Coward song “London Pride” was based on, of all things, (wait for it!) “Deutschland uber Alles”. I checked the following day, and Wikipedia, claiming to quote Coward, confirmed that. Of course, Wikipedia can be a bit iffy itself. But it’s just too good not to believe, isn’t it?