‘An Affair to Remember’

Sunday and the twenty-sixth Covid blog.

I have been back at work for two weeks and already I have a head cold. It started on Tuesday with a sore throat and by Friday I sounded a little like the man in 80’s ‘Tunes’ advert that said “Dottingham” instead of “Nottingham” because his cold and runny nose had distorted his voice. I then experienced a slight cough, not enough to wake me up at night but still a little annoying.
While our government tell us that infection between children and teenagers is low we however know, that as teachers, we will always be open to infection because well, they’re children, teenagers, and it automatically goes with the territory.

Every Autumn I get a cold and somewhere around the end of October beginning of November I will practically lose my voice for around three days my teaching tool which I use constantly. I will then develop, as my voice returns a deep husky tone similar to Mariella Frostrup which if I’m honest I quite like, it sounds mysterious and sultry but it never lasts for long. I then get the odd sore throat and runny nose here and there, usually towards Christmas. It’s what happens, it’s expected, except this time it feels different.

This time, there was a real worry.

Today, I feel much better there is still a tickly cough but a cough I know belongs to the end of my cold. My nose is a little sore but this cold is definitely on it’s way out. My eyes too are finally not as heavy and the sneezing is far less, but I worried.

A new normal which we will now all have to get used to and as winter sets in our first thoughts I feel, will automatically jump to the worst case scenario in this new uncharted world.

On Friday, I finally returned to my spiritual home and the event of live theatre. To watch a new musical (to London) and a new adaptation of the film ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ an idea taken from another film and a favourite of mine ‘An Affair to Remember.’

This was of course not without drama. My friend had agreed to drive rather than take the tube but I had inadvertently told her the wrong theatre, having not checked our text messages. Had I done this I would have realised I had text the name Wimbledon instead of Wembley. I have no excuse, apart from the fact they are both in areas of London and they both begin with the letter ‘W.’

We arrived at The New Wimbledon Theatre (which isn’t even open until November) when my mistake slowly dawned on me. I have to say my friend was incredibly gracious even though I felt terrible!

So, we quickly then carried on with the journey at a snails pace it seemed (due to Friday night London traffic). We made it but we did miss a little of the beginning but not enough to spoil the enjoyment or not know what was going on, as thankfully, we are both au fait with the film.

Our temperatures were taken although I was a tad concerned due to my cold but all was well. Details taken for track and trace and fully masked we were allowed in at an appropriate moment and just a few minutes after we arrived and we also knew exactly where they were in the story. We were not the only ones to arrive late either.

I knew that I would feel emotional, the score was beautiful and fabulously cheesy, the film is totally Camembert fulled so I knew what to expect, If only real life really were that glorious.

However, that’s why we go to the theatre right? To escape the real, the normal, the disappointments. We watch to be transported to another world, unrealistic, but full of the happy and the wonderful.

For me, theatre is all about suspending that disbelief and suggesting anything is possible, that life can be whatever you want it to be. A life full of hopes and dreams even if only for two hours or so. I think we all really need that right now.

What I didn’t expect was the sound that would affect me the most, the audience. Hearing the laughter, the sighs, the highs and lows, the applause. It was the applause that finally made me cry.

At the end of a play or a piece of musical theatre I will when warranted, stand in ovation of appreciation. I will clap loudly and I have been known to shout ‘bravo’ I did this when Helen Mirren played The Queen, when Benedict Cumberbatch played Hamlet. I also know in a small way, how it feels to be that actor on the stage, when you have given it your all and you hear that applause.

It runs through your veins, it is your life’s blood, to know that ‘you’ have made someone laugh or someone cry, to really know that your performance has touched someone’s life.

It was hearing the emotional audience applause that knocked me off balance completely because it was not at all what I had expected, nor how much I had missed that sound.

It is the little things that trip us up, the unexpected, but I think it helps us too, to appreciate. I hope, that as we head towards further restrictions mankind appreciate what we ‘have’ and hold fast to those rules so we don’t lose anymore and that the reckless have that insight, so as not to make those who do understand, suffer unnecessary.

This week l hope to appreciate a little more, to try and concentrate on what we have, rather than what we have lost. I truly appreciated sitting in that audience, finally watching the thing I love so much and more than I had ever thought possible.

Have a beautiful week and stay safe,

Joy xxx