We’ve been sitting here for weeks, and it’s still the prologue, with a smooth-chinned lad making large gestures and lisping trite couplets. He is Fair Britannia, with a wobbly trident and a dress that looks suspiciously like the back room curtains, a coronet of kitchen foil that threatens to slip over his panicked eyes. There was charm up to a point, just as there was forgiveness up to a point, but when s/he swept the trident in a slow arc and proclaimed the Empire, the paused-for applause was nothing but the shuffle of the restless audience and the abandoned whine of a far-off shipyard gate. I’ve read the programme from cover to cover, from star biographies to front-of-house assistance, but I still don’t know what I’m watching, and I can’t remember whose idea it was to come anyway. All the world’s a stage, but the theatres are boarded up, awaiting redevelopment, and the boy Britannia’s on his feet now, blustering Build! Build! Build! as, behind him, shaky towers rise in a tickertape of fake tenners, each firelit window crammed with desperate faces. It suggests a natural pause before the main action, but the kid’s on a roll now, improvising doggerel as he waves a flag he’s pulled from God knows where. There’s a crush in the aisles as a scratch band strikes up an unrecognisable tune, but all the exits are padlocked, and the crowned clown strutting the stage has swallowed every single key.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor