“All the world’s a stage,” wrote the Bard. Yet what he perhaps never thought to add though was how to scene steal during the interval…
I went to the theatre the other night to see the latest arty West End talking point. It was a freebie courtesy of one of those websites my agency puts all its recruitment ads on, a client schmooze where just for a change “I” was the client being schmoozed (I’d strategically stepped in at the last minute for a director who couldn’t make it – after all, good old BD’s methods of self promotion have been as equally useful in my career as my personal life).
Having arrived slightly early for a pre-performance soiree our hosts had laid on in the bar, I was met by our own obliging and fresh faced account manager who handed me a glass of white wine and then handed me over to his chic sales director while he sidled up to a far better looking early-twentysomething guest in a noticeably short skirt. Not that I was too bothered. If anything I was more amused than put out by this openly opportunistic display, a reaction which broke the ice with his aghast boss who I sensed had been on the verge of shamefacedly apologising for her colleague’s impropriety (and I knew he’d probably be in for a right b*****king in the morning whether he scored or not). Instead we both simply laughed it off; with me shrugging that I could hardly blame him all things considered.
Actually that’s what got us talking. We started having one of those “yoof of today” exchanges, fairly apt considering my current preoccupation of how I’m soon-to-be leaving my early thirties and her, as it turned out, already encamped the latter half of the same decade. By the end of it we’d both conceded that once upon a time we’d probably have acted similarly anyway. In fact, I then added, being in “our dirty thirties” we were now in all likelihood far worse, if a little more discreet. And right there, I caught it. That conspiratorial grin and glint in the eye, accompanied by a simple “indeed” which I inferred was laced with implication. However, before I could pursue my hunch, we were called to our seats.
As we sat down I noticed she was sitting in the row in front. In fact just before the lights went down, and somewhere between the forgettable smalltalk I was having with a person next to me, she turned on a whim, our gazes locked for a second, she winked, I nodded, and I guess that sealed it. You know it’s funny, not all that long ago I really was totally crap at this kind of thing. That’s why to suggest I, as a younger man, would genuinely have acted just as audaciously as my impetuous host was something of a ruse, part of this illusion that I had always been what I am now. But then again, just who here was I really trying to fool?
Well the first act played itself out and I was left rather bemused as to what all the hype was about. Ok so some big Hollywood star had crossed the pond to tread the boards but I’d be lying if I said I was overawed. Bored more like, my thoughts rhymed in between their more and more frequent meanderings along one’s own inwardly penned themes instead. I think I was staring at the back of her head nearly as much as I was staring at the monotony they were ploughing through on stage. She was attractive in a corporate sort of way but it was as much her so obviously mature assurance mixed with that cheeky hint of mischief that captured my interest, that “always” captures my interest. How many times since Jane (hell even before Jane, since Tammy in fact) have I been doing this? For the last three years or so I haven’t even questioned it. I’ve just ad libbed, so to speak! And yet just recently all that personal conjecture I thought I’d left behind has started again, as you know. Still, even this latest of my imagined soliloquies to my own private audience probably wasn’t going to stop me this time.
Applause and lights up. End of Act One. Thank Christ that was over! Only another hour or so to go. But of course another drink in the bar first. And you know I’m sure we made a beeline straight for each other, just as it was written we had to, using the convenient “he’s at it again” sight of my eager account manager (and her team member) still sniffing around that short skirt to ease us back into conversation. Continuing where we left off I, of course, now pointed out (as it’s recognisably pertinent to my current thought processes) that those I’ve come to call the toymen still possess all the pep of the more traditional toyboy coupled with a certain level of savvy which they might actually use to their advantage. She on the other hand was far less theoretical. She simply pointed out that while her own “younger” counterpart over there might be loving every bit of the attention such a tackily short skirt can bring, “she” herself was getting a far bigger kick out of the fact that nobody here knew she was travelling “commando” under her smart trouser suit. Nobody that is except me!
A long pause. A suggestive sideways glance. A surreptitious exit stage left straight for the loos, even as they’re calling for the second act. We’ll show these amateurs how it’s really done on just the first read through won’t we! And by the time we carefully re-emerged, one closely followed by the other, a little red-faced and mutually satiated (God it was like Tammy all over again, only a coyer version this time), we decided there was no point bringing attention to our perhaps overlooked disappearance with an “excuse me, pardon me” return to our seats. So instead we tripped out into the light fantastic that was the London streets, hailed a cab and spent the rest of night carrying out a few more “undress” rehearsals.
But you know, come that final curtain call, it did fleetingly cross my mind that maybe I’ve got to stop doing this…
By Bastian Dash
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