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HOW TO STAY SINGLE THIS SUMMER.
🎧 AUDIO QUACK | Skip introduction 2:22 🎧
It was the day of the Grand National. A Saturday in London, where it actually felt like summer. The pub gardens were full, the shorts were on, and everyone felt top-notch. The first week of unexpected sun is the happiest you’ll ever see a Brit.
My friend Tommy and I met at Warwick Avenue. We were Oxford tour guides together. We both knew the founding date of the oldest college in Oxford, which is handy in every friendship. We are overthinkers and enjoy performative conversations.
We were walking along the canal to Camden when I made an announcement. “I don’t know how I would be with someone anymore.”
Tommy tilted his head, unconvinced. “Do you mean that, or are you being dramatic?”
I paused. “A bit dramatic. But the more the days go on, the more abstract the idea of a boyfriend becomes. Like, Hi, this is Bob. He’s my… boy…friend.”
“Bob?” Tommy repeated.
“You get what I mean. It’s been forever since I felt anything. I’m like that packet of crisps: empty.”
I pointed to the packet of Walkers Ready Salted crisps floating in the canal. Again, I was accused of being dramatic.
We wanted to look like we were new homeowners. I’ve been single for a while, and there are a lot of reasons for that. When people ask, “How are you still single?” I’ll reply, “How much time do you have?” One of the reasons, though, is that I’m out of rhythm with the dating trends. I missed the cuffing season, which begins in October and ends in March. During that time, people are on the hunt for a partner to ‘cuff’, so they have someone through the winter months. It means you can lie together on a sofa, snuggle by pub fires, kiss on New Year’s Eve, and receive a card on Valentine’s Day, with some witty wordplay using our favourite millennial word – avocado.
You’re everything I avo wanted.
Let’s avocuddle.
Sorry I didn’t get you a gift, but at least you avocado.
But I was on a dating freeze during this period. (This is like a pay freeze but with love.) I had spent the first half of 2024 searching for my death-do-us-part man, and it hadn’t gone well.
On one date, I watched a man put up a shelf in his home. Bang! Bang! Bang!…went his hammer. And that’s not an innuendo.
Another time, I travelled 2 hours to meet for lunch, and the guy told me, as I ate spaghetti, that he was still hung up on his ex. Then we split the bill. I cried down the phone to my friend. “It could have been an email!”
And then there was that man who said Taylor Swift was overrated….
“If you can’t accept Taylor Swift’s success, there is a deep-rooted issue there, and I can’t be bothered to discover it when I’m 45.”
(I had just gone to the Eras concert, so I felt particularly passionate at the time.)
By autumn, I had hung up my LBD and stopped romanticising blokes. I didn’t need to cuff anyone – I had my pumpkin-spiced lattes to keep me warm.
Halloween, Bonfire Night, Christmas, New Year, and Valentine’s went by. Before I knew it, the daffodils were out again, and the Cadbury’s cream eggs were on the shelf. I had survived the winter solo, but by spring, I’d spent so many hours alone on my sofa that my toes now had personalities.
So, I dusted off my LBD, ready to get back out there again. The problem was everyone else was uncuffing and preparing for a hot single summer. It felt like I was at the back of a dance class, trying to keep up with the steps.
I will just have to wait until October to begin my search again.
Tommy and I had arrived at Camden and were sipping beer by the canal, watching the sunset. Behind us, a group was dancing to a song I did not know. A man was videoing himself as he smoked a joint; he breathed out a cloud and smiled proudly at the camera. A couple was lying near us, sharing a bottle of wine with plastic cups. She was using his chest as a pillow, pointing out the clouds in the sky. I wondered if she enjoyed being in a couple on this fine day or had the opposite problem as me, and didn’t know how to be single.
If she asked, I would give her these tips:
- Start with the basics – delete all of your dating apps. I know the success rate is poor. You’re more likely to spend your evening finding out about someone’s hobbies and siblings and then never seeing them again – but you can’t risk it. You might meet the love of your life.
- Don’t go to weddings – these are spider webs for finding love.
- Wear your headphones all the time, every day. Nobody can chat you up if you have tiny speakers stuffed into your ears.
- Cover your face with a book, phone, or iPad in all public areas.
- Don’t get tricked into being matchmade by your friends. They know you best, so they will probably get it right.
- Avoid eye contact with everyone at GAIL’S. They’re all single. (Apart from the ones who are clearly not.)
- Write a blog where you use your past dates for material.
- Walk really fast so nobody can catch you. I learnt this from Attenborough.
- Have sex with them. I find they stop laughing at your jokes once they’ve seen your nipples.
- Stay on your sofa. They can’t ask you out if they don’t know you exist.
- If you do accidentally go on a successful date, ask them what their weekend plans are before it’s Thursday. They will run for the hills. “AAAAAAAAH.”
- Be honest and open about what you’re looking for on your first encounter:
“I just want a committed man with a good sense of humor who rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. He has to like Christmas. He can talk about football but doesn’t watch it. He must also know that Taylor Swift is one of the most successful songwriters of all time and has to be okay with that. If he thinks he may like me, then it’s GO! GO! GO! We have no time to waste, as I’m 35 next year, so we have to pull the trigger on the whole commitment thing. How does that sound?
If you follow these rules, you will most likely stay single for summer, but I can’t promise absolute certainty. We can have all the rules we want, but love is not a wardrobe you can change seasonally. People are not roll necks that you stuff away until it’s cold. As the great Phil Collins once sang, You can’t hurry love. You can’t slow it down, either.
You can keep your head down in GAIL’S, listening to Americast, but someone may walk in with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and sit next to you. You have an avocado roll. He has an avocado roll. You lock eyes; he smiles, you smile.
Soon, you’re lying by the canal in Camden on the guy’s chest. The sun is beating down, and you’re pointing out shapes in the wispy clouds floating by.
“That one looks like an avocado,” you say.
And he squeezes you in and says, “I could avo-cuddle tonight.” Then, he laughs at his own joke.
Your eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. Your throat goes tight. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HOT GIRL SUMMER?
And then you remember Rule 6 in that strange blog….Do not make eye contact with anyone in GAIL’S.
If anyone is in a happy relationship and has tips for not being single… please, for the love of god, do not share them with me.
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A THURSDAY NIGHT WITH THE BIG BANG CROWD.
Skip Introduction | 1:28
Last Thursday night, I went out with my friends, Sex-Ed Tom, Will, and Hermione. The three of them knew each other from work, as they belonged to the same science department at the school.
Science was never my subject – it ripped the magic out of the world. For instance, It’s not “a king looking down at us from the night sky” – it’s a massive, luminous sphere of gas, primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, that shines due to the energy of nuclear fusion in its core. See what I mean.
However, I do like my science friends, so I was more than happy to spend time with them. (Lucky them).
The last time we met up was Valentine’s Day. I had a plan to gather my single friends to throw some darts at Flight Club, but our coupled friends found out, and they wanted to join too. I was tempted to say, “YOU CAN ONLY PLAY IF NOBODY LOVES YOU.” But I bit my tongue. After all, the reason why I was alone on Valentine’s was because of my pettiness.
On this Thursday evening, the meeting place was Paddington Market Hall.
Market Halls are like posh cafeterias that have popped up across London. They are venues filled with street food kitchens from around the world, such as tacos and gourmet burgers, and food that this country only discovered in 2014, like ramen and bao buns.
You are given a giant pager that dramatically vibrates when your food is ready, and then you are handed a tray with your dinner on it. I’m still unsure whether it’s a step forward or back in the dining-out experience.
I found Tom and Will upstairs in the Market Hall, on a bench in matching corduroy shirts. Tom was in a cream one and Will was in green. I couldn’t make fun of them, though, because I was also wearing a corduroy shirt, exactly the same, except mine was blue. Things took a turn for the worse when Hermione turned up wearing her satsuma-colored dungarees, which were, you guessed it, corduroy.
Brilliant. We looked like presenters of a BBC craft show.
We separated to find our dinner and reunited with our trays. On our table, we had a gourmet burger, a hummus salad, a Turkish wrap, tacos, and Tom had chips. He offered that I could help myself to them.
“I’ll just take one,” I announced, then ate at least ten.
Bellies full, we wandered to Little Venice. The reason for our meet-up was Sex Ed Tom had bought tickets to NewsRevue, a parody sketch show about current affairs.
The theatre was on the first floor of a pub, in a black room with a basic stage and round tables and chairs crammed in. Each skit lasted a minute or so. The story about the Atlantic journalist in the WhatsApp group was done to Adele’s Hello. There was a tap-dancing Zelenskyy to ‘Putin on the Ritz’. And the story of the man who shoplifted Cadbury’s eggs was retold like a bad spy drama.
The Quack isn’t a review blog, as you know, but if you’re in London, you must catch a show. Every Thursday night at 7:30.
After the show ended, it was time to go crazy. We were young-ish, free-ish, and single-ish. The town was ours….Not really. It was silently agreed that our socialising cup had been filled for the day, and we were all ready for bed. (Sometimes I wished I lived more wildly so I had better content for you guys, but, hey ho).
We parted ways at Paddington. Tom and Will went back to their homes in London, and Hermione and I boarded a train back to Oxford. (Not before I got a traditional regular-decaf-oat-milk-cappuccino from Cafe Nero, though).
Just as our train pulled out Paddington, Hermione asked if I wanted to try her focaccia.
“What?” I wasn’t sure if I heard her right.
“I made homemade focaccia. Want some?”
I did hear her right.
“Are you literally carrying around a focaccia?”
She opened her Toy Story patterned backpack and brought out a slab of half-eaten Italian bread, sprinkled with salt rocks and rosemary. “I got homemade hummus, too. Want some?” She took out the tub of beige hummus.
I narrowed my eyes for a second, and then said, “Yeah. Okay.”
Even though there was a smell of McDonald’s meat filling the carriage – a signature scent in any evening train journey out of London- I was concerned for the other passangers that the stench of hummus would disturb them. Hermione doesn’t worry about such things though, so the tub was peeled open. We began tearing the bread like we were in Florence with a view of the Tuscan Hills. And not, on a train with Slough whizzing by, a woman holding a baby next to us, and some guy shouting into his phone a few rows back. Despite the ambience, it was excellent focaccia.
Hermione’s Focaccia before its trip to London The train had just pulled out of Reading when. “Do you want to play a game with me?” Hermione asked. This is a common question of hers.
We have more differences than similarities, but the joy she finds in playing board games is probably one of our greatest contrasts. Every Monday night, she’s rolling dice in some café with her boyfriend, Sam. I loathe the sound of dice – it’s the sound of organised fun.
Often when I meet her at a pub or go round hers for dinner, I get bullied (strong but accurate word) into playing some obscure game, which requires Hermione to spend five minutes reading the instructions, as I color-coordinate the counters.
“Are you listening to me?” she’ll bark in her teacher’s voice.
“Yeah, yeah. The first person who picks up the ghost wins.”
Sometimes, we get to play a familiar game that doesn’t require a five-minute brief, but it still isn’t quite normal. It’s Jenga, but instead of wooden bricks, it’s a cone of fuzzy balls. Or it’s Top Trumps, but instead of celebrities… it’s buses.
That night on the train, I stood my ground.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“But it’s fun! You have to pick up a card and then guess what the other person is thinking and…”
“Or,” I interrupted. “We could do what we should be doing, which is overanalysing the thoughts and actions of men we have recently encountered.”
Hermione sunk in her seat. “Fiiiiineee.”
We were walking out of Oxford train station when Hermione announced that if the S3 was outside, she would get on it. Sure enough, the S3 was waiting at a bus stop further up the road. I saw her flinch like a dog about to catch a ball.
“You’re not going to make that,” I said
“No…” she said defeatedly, and then her steps suddenly gained speed, “BUT I’M GOING TO TRY!”
She was gone. Her backpack swung from side to side as she charged toward the Wright Streetdeck. (A very good bus to have in your hand when you’re playing Top Trumps.) She got on, and I watched the bus pull away.
“Right,” I said to myself, and then continued the walk home on my own, wishing I had something warmer than my corduroy shirt.
….Classic way to end an evening -
IT’S ONLY BANTER.
AUDIO QUACK. SKIP INTRO 2:01.
I spend April Fool’s Day like I’m a contestant on Traitors, not trusting anything anyone has to say. This year was particularly tricky in distinguishing which headlines were true or not. Haha, Greenland, haha. Good one.
My local cinema announced that it was no longer selling popcorn, and BrewDog was launching hot beer. But they didn’t fool me. Not this time.
The only time I have been caught out was when I was an Oxford tour guide and believed an April Fool’s Instagram post that Tolkien had a pet lion when he was at Oxford University, resulting in me telling my tour group this fact with unwavering confidence. You can read that story in this old Quack.
Humans have been pranking and bantering since the dawn of time. I can imagine the cavemen being like builders on a site; making shadows that appear like dinosaurs to frighten their mates, or trapping each other in caves with boulders, or asking the young caveman to go hunting for the ‘walking salmon’.
“You can’t miss it, Rocky. Orange thing with legs. Just catch it with net…”
As the youngest of two brothers, I have been the butt of pranks my whole life. One of my earliest memories was when I was around 7. I was standing in our kitchen, begging my brother Joe for one of his giant Haribo cola bottles. He told me that if I closed my eyes, he would feed me one. So I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, I had a mouthful of instant coffee. He was laughing, I was getting sick, and he was laughing some more.
When I was a teenager, all the boys were obsessed with Jackass, which was a show that had a bunch of Peter Pans in trucker hats and plaid boxers, pulling painful pranks on each other…for some reason. Once they gave each other paper cuts between the webbing of their fingers and toes. Another time, a guy had his tooth pulled using fishing line and a Lamborghini. WHAT IS THIS? How is this funny? How are these people not dead?
The prank show I could get on board with was Punk’d – a young Ashton Kutcher ran around Hollywood like the annoying kid in class, pranking celebrities. Avril Lavigne was told to help push a car, and so she did, and it rolled into a can of explosives. And then everyone blamed her. That kind of thing.
One day, when Sausage and I were 14, we tried to punk our friend Sahra.
We didn’t have MTV’s budget, so explosives were off the table. Instead, we told her that Sausage had to return to America forever and was going to leave at the end of the day. We got the rest of the class involved, putting on a small goodbye party for Sausage, who delivered an excellent, teary goodbye speech. We felt we had gone too far when Sahra told us her mum was out buying a leaving present, so we made the announcement in Geography class.
“YOU’VE JUST GOT PUNK’D!” We yelled.
Sahra blinked hard. “What?”
“You’ve been Punk’d…” we repeated, quieter. We then had to explain the joke – which is never a good position to be in. “You know, like Ashton Kutcher? MTV? Avril Lavigne?”
“So…Sausage is not leaving?”
“No…”
“Never?”
“Erm. No.”
“So…. you just made it up?”
“…Yeah”
Sahra put up her hand and excused herself from Geography. She needed to call her Mum to tell her that she didn’t need to bring a leaving present after all.
I’m well aware this wasn’t a good prank. It was quite lame, really. And I could blame the budget, but even if we could afford explosives, I don’t think we would have the heart to use them. We felt rotten enough that Sahra’s Mum was having to make an extra trip to M&S that day.
I asked a couple of guys what pranks happened in their school.
Joe told me some guy in his year, took all of his belongings out of his dorm room and displayed it on the table in the common room with a ‘FOR FREE’ sign. People grabbed what they wanted, and it took Joe forever to get his stuff back. Joe described it as ‘banter that went too far.’
Poetry Ed said someone in the year above him released a cockerel on the school grounds, which managed to avoid being captured for a while, and as the headmaster’s son, Poetry Ed lived on-site and was woken up every morning at 5 am by the cockerel’s call…
These were different kinds of pranks, to say the least. More ballsy, perhaps? And I wonder if it’s because boys (on the whole) are more natural at being pranksters. I mean, it wasn’t a woman who was having a tooth pulled by a Lamborghini…. Maybe it’s fair to say that men’s humour (on the whole) differs from women’s humour. For instance, putting instant coffee into your sister’s mouth is funny to them, and not to us.
During those teenage years, I watched with astonishment as boys clumsily worked out that the humour which impressed their mates wasn’t necessarily the humour that impressed us girls.
“It was only banter, Rosie….”
“YOU POURED VODKA JELLY OVER ME, STEVEN! WHAT THE FfHSHFHGUSDHGK??”
Now we are tucked up in adulthood you would hope that the boundaries of banter have been clearly defined – that no woman is being dunked under water in their honeymoon pool.
And yet, last year I was talking to a man on Hinge who kept forwarding me Stephen Hawking/Jeffrey Epstein memes. We never met for a date.
Once I was sitting on a sofa in a pub in Clapham Common, patiently watching my then-boyfriend play pool when his best friend walked over, bent over in front of me, and farted. We were 25. Twenty-f*cking-five.
(Don’t laugh).
All I hope is that if I do have a kid with a guy, that the boy prankster has left his fully grown husband body. The last thing you need is your partner photoshopping your baby being lobbed in the air.
Follow me on @marynewnhamwrites
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ARE YOU MOTIVATED YET?
AUDIO QUACK
Skip Introduction | 3:13
Today, I feel like a lethargic, PMS-ing slug sliding along a hot pavement. Each sentence feels like a math equation. I called my Mum ten minutes ago, telling her I wanted to hide in a cupboard. And she laughed and said, “Well, go hide in the cupboard then. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
It wasn’t the right answer. No, I, a millennial, am used to being pumped up by motivational quotes. I wanted to hear something wonderfully cliché like, “Well, Mary, life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Or “You are not what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” Or “Nothing is scarier than avoiding your full potential.”
Our parents only had the Eye of the Tiger, but we have motivational speakers, quotes, positivity journals, self-improvement books, and inspirational podcasts to drive us to succeed in our goals. Even if that goal is to write your comedy blog for a select number of readers. (Thanks for reading).
On Saturday night, I saw a live recording of How to Fail – a podcast hosted by the elegant Elizabeth Day. The podcast celebrates failure, with Day asking her guests to explore three of their personal failures.
Her guest was Alex Hassell, who played the sex icon Rupert Campbell-Black in Jilly Cooper’s Rivals. Hassell opened up about his insecurities that can be traced back to being bullied at school. He talked about the uphill climb to success and his doubts about pulling off the role of the iconic playboy, Rupert. (You can pull it off, bud).
We lap this stuff up. We want to hear about the struggles, the rejections, the sleepless nights, sweaty palms, and raging butterflies. It makes them human; therefore, their successes are attainable. How motivating! It’s no wonder the How to Fail podcast has had 50 million downloads since its launch in 2018.
Interviews with extraordinary people, like in How to Fail, are one of the many resources we can use on our journey of self-improvement. And it appears a lot of us are on that journey. In 2023, the industry was worth USD 41 billion and is predicted to grow to around 81 billion by 2032.
I went through my self-improvement stage when I was living in Australia. I began to work with a real estate entrepreneur who had been inspired by the king of motivational speakers—Tony Robbins.
For those who have never heard of Mr. Robbins – he is a gigantic man with a gravelly voice worth around $600 million. He asks questions like, “Do you have a hunger to increase the quality of your life?” (AAAAH, I DON’T KNOW).
A ticket to his 6-day transformation event, Date with Destiny, costs upwards of $4,400.
He’s not my vibe, but he has done wonders for others, including Serena Williams and my former boss.
I was hired to produce a podcast where my boss would interview local entrepreneurs about overcoming their struggles. I enjoyed this job very much. Nobody was famous, just hard-working people with meaningful stories. We had a beautician whose salon burned down, and she had to rebuild her business from scratch. And a man who set up an ethical denim company (Outland Denim) to help survivors of human trafficking in Asia. It was uplifting. (Apart from the day I accidentally deleted an hour-long interview. That wasn’t so uplifting.)
Despite making a motivational podcast, I had lost my own UMPH. I was having my quarter-life crisis, which consisted of eating lots of Açaí, trying to meditate, and Googling things like ‘How to squat with a barbell.’
All great stuff – but not me.
Like reaching for a diet book when you’re unsatisfied with your body, I leaned into self-help because I was frustrated with my personality. I was shyer than ever and no longer felt like I could do anything remarkable. My social life was pretty much non-existent, and I couldn’t squat with a barbell. I hoped that by listening to confident people and learning techniques, I would find my UMPH again.
When I wasn’t editing ‘Ummms’ out of interviews, I was helping my then-boyfriend grow his real estate business. Part of that was ‘letterbox drops.’ I’d walk the hills of Brisbane under the hot-hot sun, slipping leaflets into letterboxes to make the locals aware of how much their neighbour’s house sold for.
I decided to use the time to do some self-improvement work. Two birds and all that. I’d listened to various podcasts. Unf*ck Your Brain, hosted by a feminist coach. The Rich Roll Podcast. Roll was a recovered drug addict who became an ultra-endurance athlete. The Tim Ferriss Show. Tim Ferriss was the man behind the 4-Hour Work Week. And, of course, there were TED Talks. So many TED Talks. So many leaflets.
I got into the books as well. The 5-Second Rule told me that if I wanted to make myself do something, I should count down from five, as this would launch me into action.
5.4.3.2.1… Press Send.
5.4.3.2.1… Get out of bed.
5.4.3.2.1… “Steven, we need to break up.”
At one point, I was writing three positive thoughts a day. And yes, I listened to Eye of the Tiger ….a lot.
As I drifted into my late twenties (and back home to England), I eased off the self-improvement work and began focusing on building knowledge instead. For me, Anna Karenina was more effective than studying The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***. It meant I could say things like, “Alex Hassell would make an excellent Vronsky.“
My friend Lettuce was talking. She owns a boutique clothing line and confessed how she got distracted by ‘how to hustle’ books. She soon recognized that she was better off spending her time learning about marketing strategies and researching suppliers instead.
As Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge itself is power.”
Still, there are sluggish days when you just need a bit of motivation. You can use an obscure technique you learned in a book or listen to Kate Winslet talk about her work ethic on How to Fail. Even a cheesy quote can help… Mum.
Before you know it, you’ve done what you’ve set out to do.
5.4.3.2.1…Publish.
Follow Me on Instagram @marynewnhamwrites
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DON’T YOU WANT A BABY?
AUDIO QUACK
🎈Happy 1st Birthday to Audio Quack 🎈
Skip Introduction | 2:21
I’ve never been overly gushy about babies. They’re cute, especially in a bear onesie or wearing tiny versions of adult shoes, but I don’t rush to hold one. I’m worried that I will do something catastrophic. What if I hold them wrong, and their head falls off? Or, I pull a face, and they start to cry, and they cry and cry until they turn purple? The frazzled mother will rock her screaming plum of a child while everyone will ask, “Who made the baby cry?!” And I’ll hover uselessly nearby, mumbling, “I thought babies liked silly faces. Sorry. Sorry.”
The last time I held a baby. As you can guess, I was the youngest in the family, so the only practice I had with babies was my doll, Apple (named after the fruit, not the tech company). One day, I cut her hair so short that she looked like a plastic baby Princess Diana… and then I didn’t want her anymore.
So I was doll-less for a period of my childhood until I saw an advert for Amazing Ally. She was a talking doll with long blonde hair. She knew your birthday and asked questions like, “Wanna be best friends?”
“I do…” I said to the screen.
Amazing Ally arrived on my birthday. When I first took her out of the box, I was surprised by how tall she was in real life. She had scarily realistic blue eyes and a permanent pout.
That night, I was sleeping in my bed when I was awakened by her singing “Happy Birthday” from the corner of my room.
“MUUUUUUUM!” I cried.
Her batteries were swiftly removed, and she was hidden in the back of my cupboard for the rest of her days. No more dolls for me.
Perhaps it was this trauma that has made me not want to rush into motherhood.
Most of my friends are also without child. One or two are happy to keep it that way. The others are protesting, targeting pubs and rugby stadiums, raising placards and chanting. “LESS PINTS! MORE BABIES!” “LESS PINTS! MORE BABIES!”
No. They’re not.
In truth, we’re all enjoying the spontaneous holidays, Sundays in bed, and being able to wear headphones for 80% of the day without worrying that we won’t hear our babies crying. We’ve grown up with the assumption that family stuff will just happen one day, as if it’s written in the stars.
STARS: Bella will concentrate on her luxury goods PR business until 3rd July 2026, when she’ll meet Giles in the Pret A Manger on Trafalgar Square. They will have their first baby a year later.
At times I have wondered, what if our lives are not ruled by fate, but by our proactiveness? A year ago I went to investigate freezing my eggs, but after a very graphic consultation… ‘THE NEEDLE GOES WHERE?!’ I put the idea on the back burner. It was nicer (and cheaper) to rely on the written-in-the-stars method.
So, as we wait for fate to do its thing, my friends and I are carving out pleasant lives for ourselves, and as the years go on, it’s becoming harder to think about adapting it all for motherhood.
“Ok, I’ve just got to record my Quack, darling.”
“But you promised to take me to the park.”
“Shh. Mummy’s recording….”
There is also the planet being on fire to consider, alongside the concern that a bunch of maniacs are treating the world like a RISK board game. Hi darling, welcome to the world. Here’s your life jacket.
So, with all that in mind, it feels easier to accept that if kids are not written in my stars – then that’s okay. I’ve got my career, books, headphones, holidays, sourdough, and friends. It’s not a bad life by any stretch…
But just as you convince yourself of this, your friend has a baby.
Imogen brought Baby M to the pub. For the first ten minutes, we craftily positioned our beer bottles to make it seem like Baby M was drinking. How fun babies can be! Baby M didn’t need as much attention as Amazing Ally; she slept through our drinks without even a gurgle. This motherhood thing is not too bad.
Imogen showed me photos of her, Baby M and Dad Frank on the beach, and it looked incredibly dreamy. I want to have a family to walk on the beach with.
Then she said, “Let me show you something that will make your ovaries twerk.” She whipped out a photo of Frank fast asleep with Baby M curled up on his chest.
As promised, I felt a small…. bop.
Hot Dads have us all fluffing out our feathers.
As I was writing this quack in a pub, there was a hot dad in my eyeline, holding a baby with one hand and drinking Guinness with the other. I want a family to sit in a pub with on a Monday afternoon.
Funny, isn’t it? Men go from bar to bar in their twenties with their abs and Paco Rabanne, and we don’t bat an eyelash. But when they’re tired, unshaven, cradling a tiny baby with one arm…you’re like, “I NEED THAT NOW!”
The problem with hot dads is that they’re taken. The proof is in the pram. And so the only way to get one for yourself is to… have a baby. Hmm.
LESS PINTS! MORE BABIES! LESS PINTS! MORE BABIES!
Follow me @marynewnhamwrites
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HOBBY HORSE
🎧 AUDIO QUACK 🎧
Skip Introduction | 1:40
Cheltenham Festival is one of the most famous horse racing events in the world. Around 200,000 people attend over the four days. 28 jump races take place, and 5 tons of cheese is consumed. If you’re into horse racing, like my Dad is, it’s an unmissable event.
“Are you going to Cheltenham?” Dad asked me. We were having lunch with my brother, Jack.
“Nope,” I said.
“Why not?” He frowned. “Jack is going.”
Jack smiled proudly across the table, like he had just scored points for his Hogwarts House. 5 points to Hufflepuff. And then Jack added, smugly. “I’m going for two days!”
Dad nodded in my direction, as if to say, see, look at your brother.
I shrugged. “It’s not my thing.”
I have a vague childhood memory of standing by the white fence at Newbury, feeling the drumming of hooves in my tummy.
“Here they come!” Dad said. The crowd roared, and then a stampede of shimmering horses thundered past us.
This could have been the moment when I discovered my love for horses, started riding, and then became an Olympic gold medallist in show jumping. I’d hold up my medal and give an emotional speech about the first time my dad took me to the races.
But this did not happen. Instead, I covered my ears as the horses charged past. I looked up at my dad with my palms stuck to the side of my head. His fists were in the air. “Come on 5! Come on 5! Come on 5!”
After that, horse racing was added to the list of ‘Things Mary Was Shown as A Kid, But Did Not Like’. Also on the list was: Football, Ballet, Hot Wheels, Fishing, Piano, Maths, and the clay head from Art Attack.
I was outnumbered though, because the rest of my family loved horse racing. And so, we became that family who ‘went to the races’. I suppose it could have been worse. We could have been that family ‘who went sailing. Or worse, skiing.
It became a tradition to get stuffed into a car and go to Kempton Park on Boxing Day. We would cure our Christmas hangovers with a four-course meal, eight hours of wine, and betting. My brothers would listen to Dad’s advice about odds, rankings, trainers and what not, but I was more swayed by the jockey’s outfit. If the jacket had a bright pink star, then that’s where my fiver will go. Needless to say, I was’t much of a winner.
I understand why people love the races. It’s thrilling when your horse creeps up behind and charges toward the finish line. You think of all the money that could be coming your way. I could buy a rosemary scented candle! A beige roll neck! Three Gail’s Mixed Olive Sourdough Bagettte Sticks!
But my excitement could never compare to that of my dad’s. He displayed almost (but not quite) the same hyper exhilaration as when a Tottenham striker is running toward the goal.
I’ve previously Quacked about how a man’s simple hobby can get out of hand. One minute they are taking a photo of a sunset on their phone, the next, a drone is hovering in the back garden. “A bird’s eye view of our home, Steven. How artistic.”
Dad’s horse racing hobby was the same. It started with a tweed blazer, and then one day he came home and announced he bought part of a racehorse. I imagined a pack of men in pink shirts, surrounding an anxious horse, as they pointed to the parts they wanted. “Bill, you have the head. I’ll have the back. Jon, you get the legs.”
Naming a racehorse is not like naming a pet. There are strict rules to prevent anyone calling their steed something crude, like Wide Legs. According to Horse and Hound, these are some names rejected by the…. err…. The Horse Board?
Ben Dover, Biggus Diccus, Penny Tration, Ophelia Balls, Ho Lee Fook, E Rex Sean and Sofa King Fast.
Dad’s horse was innocently named Good Effect, which sounded like something you would read on the side of a paint pot.
Good Effect wasn’t welcomed into the family like our West Highland Terrier, Duncan. She lived far away in a stable somewhere, and the only thing we heard about her was her jumping progression. When Dad did see her on race days, he would have to dose himself with antihistamine… as he was severely allergic to horsehair.
It turns out that owners don’t tend to get emotionally attached to their racehorses. Good Effect was soon gone. (Hopefully she was taken to a field to mince in for the rest of her days, and was not turned into mince).
Her replacement was, Laudatory.
There were high hopes for the new horse. It was announced that the renowned jockey, AP McCoy would ride her at Taunton. Dad was buzzing, and told absolutely everyone to tune in to watch the champion jockey ride his horse. And so, absolutely everyone did. And absolutely everyone saw McCoy fall off and have his chest kicked in, breaking his ribs. The Guardian wrote about it here.
Laudatory was soon replaced by another paint-pot named horse, Rare Edition. And then another, and another. It was last year that I realised Dad’s hobby had gotten out of hand, when he bought a horse in the Ascot racecourse carpark after a nine-hour drinking session.
I bought a horse in a car park last night! He texted.
I was going to text something resposible back.
“…Do you think that was a good idea? ”
But then decided, like the rest of horse racing, to stay way out of it.
And so I write this Quack, quiet in my flat, far away from the tweedy-cheesy munching Cheltenham. Dad has sent me a photo of him standing on a balcony with his buddy Lawson – happy as a horse.
And in case you’re wondering, Jack (the favorite) is also having a good time.
BLOG SOUNDTRACK
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HOW TO COMPLIMENT A STRANGER.
🎧 AUDIO QUACK 🎧
Skip Introduction: 1:45
“Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
– Blanche Dubhois, A Streetcar Named Desire.
I was waiting on the platform for the Penzance train, when a man, around my age, with wirey beard and a Patagonia fleese, stopped in front of me. He took out an earbud and said, “I think your jacket is very cool.”
“Oh,” I said, as I proudly peered down at my brown suede jacket. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
He popped his earbud back in and wandered off, and I made a mental note to wear my brown suede jacket every single day from now on.
There was nothing he wanted in return for his compliment. He didn’t say. “Your jacket is very cool, but would be even cooler on my bedroom floor.” No. None of that. It was just something kind he had said, which gave me a little boost.
You expect your friends to say something kind now and again, to keep you going. That’s what they are there for – to cheerlead you, no matter how wrong you are. ‘”You’re one of the few people who suit lime green.” “You’re so much better than that billionaire model.” “No! Stop! I think writing a blog at 33 is very cool.”‘ As valuable as that encouragement is, you take it with a pinch of salt because they’re your friends – they have to be nice.
But it hits differently when a stranger goes out of their way to say something kind to you. Even though you know nothing about them, their words feel more truthful. If they say you have great hair, then it’s a fact. If your mum says it, then the jury is out.
I have complimented strangers before, but after my interaction with the man on the platform, I found myself wondering why I don’t do it more often. After all, it’s a free and simple way to make someone feel a little brighter about themselves.
I boarded the train to Penzance. Sitting in my eye line, (if I leaned heavily to my right), was a god-like man wearing a navy blue cap, who had one of those faces that you could easily…er…marry.
Throughout the journey, I sneaked a look. Sometimes I caught his eye and instantly looked away, but most of the time, I just stared at him as he typed away on his laptop.
He got off at Plymouth with his camouflage backpack, so I assumed he was in the military. (And if not, then the MOD has to get onto that, because this guy was as tall as the train and built like a concrete block. He could probably defend the country with his bare hands, which may be very useful in the near future).
Anyway.
I thought he was magnificent. So, naturally, when he walked past me to get off, I didn’t say a word. As the train pulled out of Plymouth, I was full of regret. Why couldn’t I be like the man on the platform and just give a compliment?
“You have such a nice, long spine…”
Or something marginally better.
It’s not just people I want to sleep with/marry forever who I find hard to compliment, but any stranger. Even when a woman walks by with a stunning outfit, I don’t say a word, mostly because I’m an overthinking Brit who avoids human interaction. I smile at people all the time, but I am hesitant to say something nice out loud in case it goes horribly wrong.
The ways it could go horribly wrong:
The Backhander
What happens when you mean to compliment someone, but end up offending them instead? Like when Paris Hilton kissed the stomach of a woman believing she was pregnant, but she wasn’t pregnant. (Golden rule: never assume someone is pregnant). I have also learned that nobody wants to be told that; their shoes look comfortable, their car is practical, what they are wearing is ‘brave’, or that their Etsy artwork would look lovely in the downstairs toilet.
The Manipulator
In this dog-eat-dog world, people are suspicious of compliments, worried that you have an agenda. I met a woman for dinner, and she told me that she always compliments someone’s outfit because it’s an easy way to make people like her more. I immediately recalled the first time we met, when she made a point to say that my outfit was “really pretty!”
It was all lies….
The art of the compliment is that you should mean it, because people can sense when you don’t. (Or, at least don’t tell anyone your social strategy).
The Creep.
What’s worse than being fake or mean is being creepy. Nobody wants to be the heavy-breathing stalker who whispers to someone, “You have nice long spine.”
What happens if it goes right, though? Your words could be just what that person needed to hear on that day. It could give them a boost before a job interview, a date, or just lighten up their mundane day. You, meanwhile, float away, feeling like some sort of flattery fairy.
We’ve gotten into the habit of relying on apps to connect with one another. In the UK, we spend on average 4 hours and 43 minutes a day, glued to our phones. In that time, we’re missing out on interacting with real-life people. And it’s no wonder we do this. It’s easier to swipe right on a dating app rather than approach someone in a coffee shop and tell them you like them. Or pressing ‘like’ on a photo rather than telling them to their face that you think their bottom is great.
❤️🍑
Lent begins today, and even though I’m not religious, I like a good old religious calendar to structure my year. We’re supposed to give up something we love for 40 days, but instead of giving up cherry cola Tic Tacs as originally planned, I am setting myself a mission: to give 40 genuine compliments to 40 strangers.
It’s going to be called…Mission: A Compliment.
I know. So good.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
(And if you don’t hear from me, then I’ve probably complimented the wrong person and have somehow ended up tied up in their basement).
BLOG SOUNDTRACK
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BRACE FACE
🎧 AUDIO QUACK 🎧
Skip Introduction : 1:45
“Is Mary the girl whose teeth go like this?” Verity crossed her fingers to illustrate the overlap of my two front teeth. Sausage had attended Verity’s sleepover on the weekend and had come back Monday morning with a full, brutal report.
To be fair to Verity, my two front teeth did look like they were humping. My mouth was too small, forcing my teeth to scrum together. The left canine had no room, so grew up high, away from the rest, like it had been excluded from the party. To top things off, I had an underbite, so I looked like Bart Simpson when he pulled a silly face.
Because the dental work was so complex, I found myself in a hospital at the age of fourteen, surrounded by specialists discussing how to fix my mouth. They informed me that they needed to break my jaw so they could put it in its proper place. This seemed rather…Game of Thrones, so we opted for an alternative route.
Patrick, the orthodontist, was a white-haired man who listened to Rod Stewart on repeat. He promised he could fix my mouth with the magic of metal—lots of metal.
I imagined my braces would be like the girls at school – rainbow bands that changed colour every few months. I imagined wrong.
My mouth looked like the inside of a Game Boy. The wires were thick and dark and angrily zig-zagged. There were two blue blocks stuck on my back teeth. And to solve my underbite, I had a metal plate fastened to the roof of my mouth, which required my mum to tighten every night with a small screwdriver.
I was devastated. If getting a boyfriend, like the guy from The Notebook, seemed unlikely before, it seemed impossible now.
But, during those vital GCSE years, along with learning about photosynthesis and the causes of WW2, I also discovered that if you’re happy to take your clothes off, you’ll get a boyfriend… even if you look like a Bond villain.
My braces came off in time for a major life event, the Year 12 prom. My teeth were no longer scrumming, and my bottom jaw was tucked behind my top one. My dental journey was over…or so I thought.
Like most teenage brace wearers, I didn’t wear my retainer every night, so by the time I was in my late twenties, I noticed the teeth had moved a smidge. It wasn’t much, but when I looked in the mirror, I could hear Verity’s echoey voice. “Is Mary the girl whose teeth go like this?”
The childhood trauma fed into my insecurities, and my thoughts began to spiral. Maybe the real reason why men refused to procreate with me is because of my wonky lateral incisor tooth – not my bad jokes.
I was back in an orthodontist chair with a dark-haired, blue-eyed Liverpudlian looking down at me. His name was Jim. When Jim examined my X-ray, he told me I had the biggest nerves in my teeth he had ever seen. I told him he wasn’t the first man to tell me that. And then he laughed, uncomfortably.
Cigarettes After Sex was playing, as he hoovered up my saliva, and fitted my Invisalign.
Got the music in you, baby, tell me why
Saliva Hoover: *VOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
Got the music in you, baby, tell me whySaliva Hoover: *VOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
When he held up the mirror to show me his work, I realised I had made the same mistake as I did as a teenager. I thought I would resemble the smiling woman on Instagram, whose Invisalign was, well, invisible. But my mouth was too complex (again), so I had to have stumps on all my front teeth.
My friends were not supportive. I sent Sausage a grinning selfie with my new brace. I needed her to say, You barely notice it. Instead, she sent me a screenshot of Sex and the City, the episode when Miranda got braces. “This reminds me of you,” she said.
And then there was dating. If it wasn’t tricky enough to try and lure a man away from his life of freedom of football, mates and Camden Hells, try adding a brace. Every time I wanted to eat or drink coffee, I had to take the Invisalign out, which made me look like a grandmother taking out false teeth. It wasn’t sexy. And I decided I would have to wait until they came off before I did any more luring.
I had them in from June until December, and on the day of the last appointment, I was raring for Jim to take them off.
“How’s your teeth?” Jim asked, as I settled in the chair for the last time.
“Great. How are yours?”
He laughed, uncomfortably.
I don’t know what I expected to happen to my dating life once my lateral incisor tooth was straight. I guess I imagined that if I smiled, a man would freeze and say, “Your teeth are the straightest teeth I’ve ever seen. I’ve got to take them to Venice, right now.” But this never happened. Even when I gave a man my widest grin from across the tube carriage, he didn’t rush over to procreate. He just moved away, uncomfortably.
BLOG SOUNDTRACK
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JUST A DUMB CRYING WOMAN.
AUDIO QUACK. SKIP INTRODUCTION 1:38
One day, I looked up and noticed patches of paint bubbling off the ceiling in my hallway.
I asked the man upstairs if he could check his pipes.
He said, “All the pipes I can see are bone dry.”
I didn’t want to push it too much, so I drew pencil marks around the stain and told him I’d let him know if it got any worse. Six months later, it had got worse. I asked the man upstairs if he was sure his pipes were ‘bone dry?’ He eventually came down to see what the fuss was about. He took one look at the, now, brown stain on my ceiling and began to freak.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he said, accusingly.
Oh, so this is my fault.
“I did. But…”
“Do you know what the problem is?”
“Erm, your pipe is leaking?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“It’s the pencil marks. We need to rub them out.”
“Could you just get your pipes checked?”
And then he said, “When the insurance people come, could you play the dumb woman? You know, act like you didn’t notice the stain until now?”
I looked at him.
I looked at the big brown stain the size of Russia on my ceiling.
And back at him again.
“Could you please just get your pipes checked?”
He left, agreeing to get a plumber in, but he wanted to return to mine the next day with his tools. I had a vision of him rubbing out my wall with an eraser, and me, somehow, ending up in prison for insurance fraud. So, I told him I would fix my own ceiling without any cost to him, but could he please just get his pipes checked?
A week later, he told me his waste pipe wasn’t as ‘bone dry’ as originally thought, but it was now fixed.
Well, that was fun.
I got my ceiling replastered and painted, and then thought, why stop there? Why not paint the whole place? I began with my bathroom (read here) and then moved on to my bedroom, kitchen, and living room.
I tried to rehang the artwork, but after the giant map fell on me for the fourth time, I realised I needed help.
Cue, ‘The Hang Man. ’
He was a quirky artist chap who came wearing a flat cap and carrying a shiny suitcase of tools.
“It’s not the most sophisticated collection you will ever hang,” I said apologetically as we stood before a framed illustration of Louis Theroux and a cartoon drawing of a bra.
“Leave it with me.”
He got to work. Radio 4 was murmuring in the background. There was some drilling and banging, and after three hours, he revealed what he had done. Somehow, he managed to make my walls look like something from Pinterest.
“Oh, wow. Thank you, Hang Man,” I said, gazing at my new wall.
“Just doing my job,” he said, putting his flat cap back on. He packed up his bag and drove off into the night.
My next part of the makeover was the sofa.
The challenge with sofa shopping is that there are many shapes, colours, and materials, and it’s hard to determine which one represents you best. Are you a cream L-shaped type? Or a moss green slouchy type?
For some reason, bachelors LOVE a grey sofa. And the grey doesn’t stop there; he will have grey bedding, towels, and even plates.
“Nice home, Stephen. It’s like stepping into a little rain cloud.“
I wasn’t going to go grey. I first thought I would go for a brown, torn, beaten leather sofa. I imagined that this would make me seem intelligent to my visitors. But then I thought about the reality of lying on leather when I was having an off day, and it didn’t seem so appealing. Also, the cost of a beaten leather sofa was more than I could bear, no matter how intellectual it would make me appear.
In the end, pink inspired me. I know, it’s a risky colour. It can give the impression that you dot your I’s with hearts and write in a diary every night.
“Dear Diary.
Stephen is still too busy to talk to me. (Grrr). I have called him five times. His mother, I’ve called twice. And his boss, three times. 😦 They all tell me he’s got a lot on his plate. I JUST WANT TO SMASH THAT PLATE!! (LOL!!!)
So, it wasn’t that kind of pink. More of a coral pink.
I found the perfect sofa in an outlet store. It had been a showroom sofa for most of its life. I liked the idea of it retiring in my flat, like a showgirl in Vegas who had done her work.
The day of the sofa delivery came, and I cleared the space, ready for the arrival. Then my phone started ringing.
“Hi. We’re delivering your sofa, could you please give us the full address? All we have is the street and postcode.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “Sorry. Of course, it’s -“
Suddenly, a voice spoke up in the background. “Like, what are we supposed to do? Guess the address like we’re some sort of miracle workers?!”
“No…” I said.
It was as if this voice thought I had purposely only given the road and postcode because I loved playing a game of ‘Yes or No‘ with deliveries.
Is it a terrace house?
No.
Does it have an outdoor space?
Yes.
I gave my full address, with the man still grunting away in the background.
“I can stand outside and wave?”
“No,” he barked. And hung up.
I gulped. I had a bad feeling that whoever this man was would not appreciate the two flights of stairs coming his way.
Despite my offer being refused, I went outside anyway. At the front of the apartment block, I met one of the delivery men.
“Mary?” he said, smiling.
“That’s me!”
Behind the smiling man was a bald man the size of a telephone box. He was wheeling my sofa on a trolley. He had frown lines deeper than the Grand Canyon. I took a deep breath and smiled. Sure, he sounded angry on the phone and looked angry now, but hopefully, if I were super friendly, he would soften up – like putting a block of butter in the microwave.
“Hello!” I said enthusiastically, as if I was greeting him into a party. He didn’t say anything back. I noticed he had accessorised his outfit with a chain necklace that was thick enough to lock up a bike… or a person.
We entered my apartment block, and the stairs were revealed. Predictably, he was not happy about this.
“We will have to take the cushions off if we’re taking it up six flights of stairs,” he growled.
I chimed in. “It’s, um, not six flights, it’s just…”
“JUST!” He rolled his big sausage head. “DON’T YOU DARE SAY JUST. THAT’S THE WOMAN’S CURSE WORD. IT’S JUST…. IT’S JUST…”
“Um. I was just saying it’s two flights of stairs.”
“YES!” He raised his voice and came closer. So, he was kind of really loud now. “BUT THERE ARE SIX PARTS TO THE STAIRCASE!” (I didn’t understand his logic). “RIGHT. THE CUSHION ARE COMING OFF BECAUSE I’M NOT GOING TO KILL MYSELF, LIFTING THIS UP THERE. OK?”
I felt a lump form in my throat and said a quiet “Ok.” My eyes began to warm up. I wasn’t upset that he was removing the cushions. I didn’t care about the cushions. I just hated being yelled at by Shrek.
He sliced open the wrapper to see the sofa and growled.
“Pink?”
“Mmhmm,” I whimpered.
He gave me and his partner the cushions, and we walked up the stairs together. Out of earshot, the partner apologised.
“I’m sorry. He shouldn’t be talking to customers like that. So that you know, I am going to report him.”
“It’s ok,” I said and sniffed.
Maybe it was the cardio of carrying the sofa up the stairs, or because my face resembled the inside of a strawberry, but by the time the sofa was in my living room, the monster man had softened a little. He asked if I wanted to keep the temp legs. I told him he could keep them because I’d lose them. He cracked a small laugh, and I smiled through tears. It wasn’t exactly the start of a beautiful friendship, but it was better than being yelled at.
They left. I went into the living room to see my new sofa. I sniffed, curled onto it, and whimpered as I hugged the pink cushion.
I then, got out my diary.
Dear Diary.
An angry, gigantic man came to deliver my sofa today...
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THE AUDIENCE THAT WENT WRONG.
Audio Quack! Let me read it for you! Skip Introduction 1:30
Last week I went to see Streetcar Named Desire. It’s one of my favourite plays and this production had Paul Mescal playing Stanley. I had spent an hour in a virtual queue getting tickets. It was like my version of Glastonbury.
It was around thirty minutes into the first half of the play, when I heard some commotion kicking off behind me.
“I can’t stay any longer. I’m sorry, it’s just not my cup of tea!” A hushed voice said. I glanced behind and saw a row of people standing, as an old man in tweed shuffled past them. My inner snob came out. I tutted. How does one not know if Tennessee Williams is not their cup of tea?
Further on in the play, in a silent, intimate moment, someone cracked open their can. ……*click!…fiizzzzzzz*
My inner-snob could have exploded. CAN NOBODY DO THEATRE AROUND HERE?!
Despite the audience, I thought the performance was superb. Marlon would be proud. But the disruptions did make me reflect on all the times when it wasn’t the play that went wrong, but the audience, and that includes myself.
The problem with the theatre is it brings out our more pompous side. When you tell people that you went to the theatre on the weekend, you make it sound like you wore a gown and arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. (When, in fact, you wore Levis and arrived in an Uber that smelled of lemons and vomit.)
But simply going to the theatre on a normal ticket wasn’t enough for my Farrow and Ball Mother. When we went to see Long Day’s Journey into Night with Brian Cox, she had, for some reason, bought a VIP package.
When we got to the door, we let them know we were the VIPs. The man whipped out his walkie-talkie. “Sinead, the VIPs have arrived.” Mum looked suddenly worried about the fuss she was causing. After all, the real reason why she paid for the package was because it included a private loo. Fair point though, queuing for the loo in the theatre is like queuing for Dishoom on a Friday night.
A lady named Sinead appeared and escorted us through the back ends of the creaky theatre. We went through a small door and then an even smaller one. I was beginning to worry that my family had set me up again, and that I was a door away from being on stage. (Read about my West End debut here.)
Eventually, we entered a very strange-shaped room. It was a corridor decorated like the Age of Innocence. There was champagne, wine, fizzy drinks and crisps laid out on a shiny brown dresser. Mum and I sat close together on a hard floral sofa. We could hear the muffling sound of the other audience members having fun in the bar… together.
Sinead stood to the side with her hands clasped as we sipped our drinks.
*….Sip…*
“Is anyone else a VIP tonight?” Mum asked.
“No, just you guys,” Sinead said and glanced at the floor. We could hear her thoughts…this is stupid.
We felt bad for Sinead having to stand in a room with two of the dullest VIPs ever. (I don’t even drink alcohol). But we didn’t want to be rude and leave the room early, so we resorted to trying to befriend Sinead by firing a zillion questions at her about her job.
“Do you get to meet any actors?”
“Do you get to work in other theatres?”
“What’s been your favourite production so far?”
Mum gets up. “Must pop to the loo.”
Please don’t leave me….
I smiled at Sinead. She smiled back. A roaring laugh came from the bar many, many doors away.
“So…” I began. “Have you ever seen a ghost in this theatre?”
Thankfully, the theatre was riddled with ghost stories so that filled the silence until show time. (Thank god for ghosts).
When I was in Manhattan, I took myself to Broadway to see Appropriate. The Americans are a different kind of theatre audience. They are enthusiastic. When Sarah Paulson came on, an eruption of whooping and cheering took over the theatre. I wanted to shout in my most BBC accent, “Can’t you see the lady is in character?!”
We Brits do not applaud actors when they come on stage, no matter how famous they are. Even if Laurence Olivier came back from the dead and appeared on stage, we would wait until the end of the performance before giving him a clap. That applause will be made with two hands. NO WHISTLING. Sometimes, we will even give the actors a standing ovation – IF they deserve it.
Yes, the Brits are a hard audience to crack. In the interval, you often hear mutters in the bar like, “I just think the director was missing the point that Miller was trying to make.” Or “She’s no Elizabeth Taylor.”
The last thing you want to do is to trust one of these audience members with a microphone, but that’s precisely what they did in An Enemy of the People, starring Matt Smith. I went along last summer to a matinee. It was all going brilliantly, (well I thought it was going brilliantly), until the interactive scene. In the second half of the play, they turn the audience into the ‘townspeople’ in the ‘local town hall’, and you have the choice to voice your opinion on the ‘council debate’. This would work in theory, but on a Saturday afternoon in Soho, not everyone understood the rules of drama.
“So, we’re going to open it up to the townspeople. What do you think we should do?” The actress announced.
The first person to speak was a man a few rows behind me. “I think Henrik Ibsen should have written a better play.”
“OOOOOO!” The audience went, like we were kids in a classroom.
The actress, a true professional, stayed in character. “What play, Sir? Who’s Henrik? We’re in a town hall, Sir.” The mic was swiftly moved on to the next person. “You there, the man holding the giant stick!”
The audience cracked up.
“The stick is because I’m disabled,” snapped the man in the mic.
The laughter stopped and every single person, including Matt Smith, squirmed.
The angry man began to speak. “I think this play…”
“What play, Sir?!!” repeated the drained actress.
She was going to get her agent on the phone after this.
Usually, I’m an impeccably well-behaved audience member. I put my phone on do not disturb, flight mode and turn it off. I don’t crack open cans in intimate moments, or wear my hair in a high bun. But there have been times I have let myself down, such as when I fainted in the middle of the stalls during A Little Life. (Read here). But even then, Mum waited until the interval to check if I needed to go to the hospital. (To disturb the audience in the middle of a play, even if your daughter may have died, is still unforgivable).
Sometimes, it’s not you, but the company you bring along. I like to go alone to the theatre so I don’t have to worry if the other person is enjoying the show. But when I went to see Tosca, I brought along one of my more eccentric pals.
We should have gone through Door D, but there was a small queue, so my friend insisted on going to Door E. We got to our row where everyone was settled. At the other end, we could almost see our empty seats. Basically, we either could disturb 15 people or 4 people. It was a no brainer. But before I could drag him back up the staircase, he ordered the row to their feet.
“Excuse me, we need to get over there!” he said, pointing far in the distance to the two empty red chairs.
The row glared at us like we had asked them to get up and strip off.
“Can’t you go to the other side?” barked the woman sitting directly below us.
“Yes, we can,” I said through gritted teeth, and attempted to drag my friend away, but it was like trying to drag a big stubborn rock.
“No, we’re here now. Come on everyone, get up!”
The woman surrendered, getting to her feet, angrily. The row reluctantly followed, all moaning and groaning as we shuffled past. “You should have gone the other way.” “You were meant to go through the other door.” Meanwhile my friend was firing back sarcastic comments to wind them up.
“I know. I know. It’s terrible.”
We finally got to our seats, and my friend had one final kick. He turned to the row and said, “OH NO! Wrong seats! Back we go!”
The row glared.
“JUST KIDDING! HAHAHA!”
I yanked his arm to sit him down. And then, because this was an opera, we had to sit in our row which we had been socially exiled from for the next three hours. If you’re going to make enemies with your fellow audience members, make sure it’s on your way out of the theatre.
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