We went to this with Pauline “The Duchess”, who will have sported the theatre tickets (which she got free), which she saw as fair exchange for Janie to buy the drinks and me to buy dinner afterwards.
We went to Gilbey’s for that dinner. Gilbey’s was a small chain run by honourable people, if the companies house dissolution records (which is all I can find on-line) are to be believed.
Once bitten but seemingly not twice shy, here was another evening at the Questors with Pauline, Janie’s mum. Quite soon after the previous visit to see The Real Thing:
On this occasion, I had been at a BDO Awayday on the Friday and overnight into the Saturday. This might have been the one after which Steve Taylor nearly lost his life in a car accident driving off to play cricket on the Saturday, but perhaps that was an earlier one.
I too was taking risks with my next day activities, but a different family of risks.
Anyway, according to Janie’s diary, she took work on the Saturday morning and gave blood that afternoon, before our evening engagement with her mum…
…that really is like giving blood twice in one day – not recommended.
Much like with The Real Thing, Janie and I got the opportunity, about seven years later, to see a tippy-top professional production of this fine play – in the case of All My Sons, one of Arthur Miller’s finest.
The Questors production was not at all bad, though.
No drinks at Pauline’s before this one – I think Pauline set into what became the regular pattern of “fairness”, which was:
Pauline did The Questors tickets
Janie paid for the drinks at The Questors
I paid for the restaurant meal afterwards.
I learnt some years later that, as a member of The Questors, Pauline got a certain number of free tickets for shows and I am pretty sure she calibrated her membership/invitations to ensure that she wasn’t actually paying for our tickets…ever.
Fair enough.
Janie’s diary reveals that we ate at Lisa’s after that particular show. Lisa served pretty good food on Pitshanger Lane, but my goodness did you get Lisa’s life story thrown in free of charge along with the food, especially if you were one of only a handful of late/after theatre tables.
