Lost Night in the West End
July 13th 2007 02:25
Southbank by night
The West-End show was always a huge feature of the London visit. Every day In Leicester Square eager travelers queued for cut price, last minute tickets and every night, crowds swell ed outside theatres, buses dropped package tourists in stoles and suits; school-groups milled with anxiously shepherding teachers; there was a babel of chatter in many languages and that unmistakable little thrill of anticipation.
A few short weeks ago, in that age of innocence, before the discovery explosive-packed car in the Haymarket quelled the confidence of theatre-goers and diminished the crowds, before queuing became a guarded, surveyed process, we joined the throng outside the quaint Savoy theatre on the Strand for the new production of Fidler on the Roof. Again, there were the usual representations in the crowd and the same rhubarb, rhubarb of many tongues. But the mood was palpably different; the mutterings were disbelieving, stunned, angry; heads craned; bubbles of friends burst and dissolved into others. What was happening? I fought my way towards an A4 paper taped to a closed door - the kind of hasty, pencilled "back soon" note I might tape to my own door, I thought - "Management regrets that, due to illness, tonight's performance is cancelled " I read
"What? Whatever happened to the show must go on?" I said to no-body in particular
But what to do now? Just behind us, top-hatted and gloved doormen, bowed and scraped a party through the Savoy Hotel's revolving doors. Hotels like this have never held much attraction for me. I've always felt that there was more fun to be had out there in my drinking jeans in those 'typical' old London pubs with their cosy, crowded bars and local colour. But there we were, at a loose end on a Saturday night , right outside. Furthermore, trapped in my cheong-sam/ straight-jacket, I was in for a stiff, uncomfortable night anyway. A planning-meeting in the Savoy seemed like a good idea. So we swept (actually, I minced) past the huge (empty) dining room with its sea of tables, gleaming silver and white crockery on whiter cloths, its constellation of glittering chandeliers and its view through the trees to the embankment and on to the Thames; up the sweeping carpeted stairs towards the tinkling piano in the American Bar. I'd always imagined this bar peopled with bored leggy, stick-thin, stars in haute couture with cool, suave, gorgeous, five-o'clock-shadowed, nonchalant, Clooney-esque escorts and stiff, snobbish waiters. But no, there were gigglers and shriekers, jeans, real-life bums and bellies, enthusiastice, sweat-beaded foreheads and chaps with jolly grins and hearty laughs; there were family celebrations with yards of tweed, brogues, tartan ties and even pearls and twin-sets; the waiters were multi-racial, welcoming and eager to please. In the end we spent our evening at the Savoy; a couple of rounds in the American Bar, people watching; a trip or two to the fabulous loos (in my opinion - the Savoy's best feature - no echoing corridors of cublices, dripping taps, paper-towel litter or raoring hand-driers here but vast thick-carpeted rooms, cinderella mirrors with curly-legged chairs, long, clean counters, with jars of pot pouri, and vases of flowers, liquid soap with a subtle smell, hand lotion and soft white hand-towels and sparkling dunnies with toilet rolls) and a pasta supper in the almost empty brasserie over-looking the lane, where a procession of taxis dropped a Pakistani wedding party in sumptuous colours and the dark deserted theatre with it's forlorn A4 sign.
And will we look back on nights like this, such a short time ago, as part of an era of confidence and trust, of frivolous pleasures and small delights, lost in the past, while the way we travel changes little by little forever ?
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