Adventures in the Small Hours
Remember the other job I do?
The one when not writing…
So, yes, that other job, the days spent hanging off perches, clinging to a follow spot, lighting stuff. We’re slowly shuffling towards the end of a run – in fact, my last day is on Thursday – after which I return fully to the wordface. (Urban Magic 5 is currently at around 20000 words, and will hopefully start accellerating….) But as we near the end of the run, I finally feel like I’m getting to know other people in other departments, and for the first time in many many years, actually went out with a whole bunch of them a few nights ago, and went clubbing.
There was tapas too.
Tapas was the big draw, and the dance floor something that caused me mild alarm, but I figured… the lighting department, we’re not very good at meeting people, we’re not very good at talking to people outside our department, not least as this requires talking about something which isn’t the frustration of trying to find 5-pin scroller cable in a deserted store… perhaps the time had come to actually interact with the people we worked with and lit, and so the cry went round and a plucky team of lampies shuffled out after an evening show to go and see what was boogieing in the west end.
Now… I’m not clubbing woman. I’ve dabbled in the past and it just wasn’t me. I lack any physical confidence, and don’t like not being able to hear people. A few weeks ago, a couple of mates – we’ll call them Galadriel and Legolas – attempted to induce dancing in me, with only limited success. And there are certain rituals which I just don’t really get – the vast quantities of alcohol, the random strangers who feel that they can do things with hands and hips in my presence which, in the good old 1890s, would probably have been enough for a prison stint, and the pounding base beats that leave your ears ringing – no, say what you will, it’s just not a good old fashioned book on the economic policies of the early Ottoman Empire, or an evening watching West Wing and eating curry.
But! And to my surprise… I actually found myself having fun, and even trying (badly) this dance thing. I was lucky in that of my two fellow lampies, one is already a very good dancer, and kept on poking until I finally started moving. I was lucky in that of the music chosen, I knew about 60% of it, which is a very high percentage for me, as my ignorance is pretty profound in this area. And finally I was lucky to be able to watch the cast of this particular production dancing, and realise that, no matter your training and physical confidence, everyone looks like Wall-E on a voltage overload when trying to dance to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ after too much sangria.
I am also not really a night owl. When at a really good bit in a book, and I’m talking the last 5000 words, with knobs on, I will work through to maybe 1 a.m., but really much past 1 a.m. and even I will admit that the quality of the prose drops so low that there’s really no point trying. As a lampie, my working day tends to finish around 10 p.m., at which point I shuffle off to bed, only calling via a bit of late-night reading if it’s been a very stressful day. (One of the sad truths of this job is that after a particularly exciting day at work, or an especially edifying bit of theatre, turning off is one hell of a chemical process.) But this part of town we were in – between Leicester Square and Covent Garden – hasn’t really grasped the concept of turning off anytime before 3 a.m., and so when I eventually staggered out into the night, bewildered and dazed, I was surprised at how teaming the streets were and how busy the crowds. The night bus was packed, every seat taken, and not a bus stop but wasn’t inhabited by women in heels or men nursing their heads. Make no mistake, you could tell the hour by some of the people on the street – the man who grabbed me by the wrist and told me I was a goddess was an interesting exemplar of the species.
I was walking up Charing Cross Road when he accosted me, holding my right wrist in his left hand and announcing my divinity. I nodded and smiled – not exactly in consent, since I knew where I’d been that day and how unlikely all of this seemed – and kept on walking; but rather than let go, he came with me, insisting I was the most beautiful creature he’d ever met and asking me where I lived. When I failed to give him a decent answer to this question, and just as I was beginning to wonder whether this was the kind of situation for which six (bruising) months of jiu jitsu had been destined, he changed his mind and renounced both my divinity and looks, embarking on a tirade which continued for a good thirty yards down the street as I managed to disentangle and walk away. Make no mistake, I didn’t feel threatened – the street was busy and like I said, I was perfectly prepared to give wrist lock number two my best shot, even if I wasn’t fully confident it’d do anything more than give him a slightly bruised thumb. But it seemed like a good summary of the hour of the night, at once social and frightening, bustling and lonely, busy and quiet.
So, while I’ve certainly overcome a lot of my own inhibitions in the last few weeks, thanks to various unlikely circumstances, I still remain doubtful as to whether this whole clubbing experience is really me. I get the gist, I think, and will admit to having a lot of fun that night, but I remain what I am – an essentially gangly, socially awkward individual who knows a fair deal about narrative structure and how to wire an LED baton, but can’t yet tell you the difference between the greatest hits of the 1980s, and the music of the present day.
