‘Dreary ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ … by Ms Paige Turner
Mister Justin Case and I booked a cruise during lockdown as we spent much time looking at travel brochures. We booked to go to Odessa in the Ukraine and Romania. Cyprus was also on the list – and I hadn’t been there – or the Ukraine. Well, I’m not going am I? So, Mister Justin Case and I decided to cancel that cruise as it wasn’t going much places anyway and decided to invest in lots of theatre trips.
When we were done, we realised that five out of the six bookings were for the grandchildren. Or. So. We. Thought. Until we took our eldest one to see ‘Mrs Doubtfire’. This granddaughter has been enthralled by ‘Phantom of the Opera’ etc, etc but Mrs Doubtfire worried her. A man was dressed as a woman. We’ve happily been to see dames in a panto’. But this woman was the daddy all along. So worried was she that we decided to leave at the interval and I think our granddaughter was relieved that her grandparents both simultaneously said, ‘What a lot of rubbish’. I don’t often say this about theatre as I do know what the writing, sets, lighting, props, costume, direction and performances entail. But it was a lot of rubbish and billed for over-six-year-olds – which our eldest granddaughter is despite the fact that she’s probably not going to appreciate unkind jokes about Angela Merkel. And dare I say, Margaret Thatcher?
We also realised that six theatre trips with taxis and lunch is pretty much the cost of a cruise. (Mister Justin Case sat in the gods once with me thirty-eight years ago and that’s the last time he did that although I have since been to the National’s gods and that’s like being on Neptune.) And sixteen quid for a lunch of potted chicken and three strips of avocado? I ask you.
However. We did take the youngest granddaughter to ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. No surprises there. It was our third visit. Which just goes to show that there’s not much beats a hungry tiger …
PS I seem to have found a way to post a photo – completely unintentionally colour-co-ordinated but now lost my profile photo