An Audience With King Lear

A few months ago, I embarrassed myself with such incredible ferocity that a friend of mine had to dig me out of the floor as I'd screwed my heels further and further down as the night progressed.

I went to see King Lear one Saturday. Anyway, there I was, standing in the foyer of this theatre, awkwardly shifting from foot-to-foot. I was supposed to be accompanied by an actress friend of mine to watch the production, but she was running late. So I stood alone and anxiously studied the colour of my beer bottle. I know the director and he spotted me, took pity on me and proceeded to introduce me to some people he knew. After meeting and greeting, I discovered that a lot of the people were, unsurprisingly, in "the show we call biz". But some were not and it was from there that I attempted a bit of mingling.

First embarrassing moment of the evening then occurs. I get introduced to a young attractive woman - she asks me what I do for a living.

Me: "I could either tell you the truth, and you'd then think I was really boring, or I could lie and it would at least be interesting."
Her: "Cool, I think the lie sounds more exciting."
Me: "I'm a male prostitute."
(She laughs. Heck, this could get fun)
Me: "And what do you do for a living?"
Her: "I'm a lingerie consultant."
(I laugh. She looks frozen-faced.)
Her: "No, that's actually what I do."

Second embarrassing moment happened after the play. I noticed with some amusement that the actor playing the Duke of Norfolk looked like Darius from Pop Idol. I then proceeded, with much merriment, to jolly along the director with, what I thought, were some great gags ("What was he like at his audition? Did you have to tell him not to over-act? Did he do a Britney Spear's song?" etc. etc.). The director looked at me slightly aghast. The actor was Darius's brother.

This particular weekend, I'd also knowingly abandoned a work colleague, so she had to work overtime by herself without any help from me. I later told this work colleague of that weekend's incidents and she proceeded to laugh her arse off at me. Any slight guilt of me not going into the office that particular weekend was offset by me, karma notwithstanding, making a total twat of myself instead.