Reading along to Calendar Girls

Wow, what an utterly brilliant weekend I had!

So much so, that I didn't want to leave, which resulted in my not getting back to London until gone 10pm last night.

I was in the Wild West erm... Country visiting Jenny M, who's a hotshot theatre director don't you know.

Summer, with it's deluge of open-air plays, and unfortunately rain, is her busiest time, so I thought I'd squeeze in a quick visit before she became too caught up in cider, musketeers and Canterbury tales!!

We also decided last minute to go and watch Calendar Girls, which was showing at a theatre nearby. It wasn't captioned, so I was a bit worried about hearing any of it, but we had amazing seats six rows from the front so was a little bit hopeful might get something, so we took the plunge and bought the tickets.

But then I came to my senses and remembered I was deaf! Deaf! Unable to hear!

And so instead I asked Jenny M to use her excellent contacts and see if she could get me a script to read along to.

She wasn't hopeful as apparently, theatre scripts are closely-guarded things and no one likes to part with theirs – and I remember The Girl That Can't Help Knit saying something similar, too.

But by some miracle, the crew had several non-closely guarded scripts and, as a result were happy to give me one to follow.

And what a difference it made!

OK, so it meant I was looking down more than up most of the time but without it, I would have been asleep in my seat within 10 minutes as a result of the exaggerated Northern accents.

To be fair though, it was still fabulous, funny and all in all, a bit of a tearjerker, with a recognisable, in a don’t-I-know-you-from-somewhere way, cast, including Madge from Neighbours, Inspector Monroe from The Bill, somebody's wife from Only Fools and Horses, Charlie Dimmock from Ground Force and Dennis Waterman's daughter!

And when wandering around backstage afterwards, bumping into them, they all seemed rather lovely, too.

It did get me thinking though, I wonder if other deaf people would be happy to read along to a personal script in the event of subtitles not being available – I know I would always jump at the chance. And if they were, would the theatre companies consider having a couple of scripts spare that, on request could be loaned out with a deposit for the evening?

It would be amazing if this could happen. I could go to the theatre every night, instead of whenever Stagetext is there.

Don't get me wrong though, Stagetext is still royalty to me, but after finding out just how much time and energy goes into Stagetext’s attendances at performances, I'm not surprised it isn't able to do more.

So isn't this a lovely back-up plan?

What do you think?

Subtitles Tennessee Williams

Last night I went to see a Stagetext captioned performance of Spring Storm by Tennessee Williams, and I enjoyed it so much that I'm still grinning from ear to ear over 12 hours later.

Tennessee Williams is my favourite poet and playwright you see. In my final year at uni, I lived, breathed and even spent all my beer money on that man, ordering rare books from America, soaking up the poignant mix of tragic characters and humorous lines, and generally falling in love with him. He’s even on my dream dinner party list, along with Jeremy Clarkson, Clive James and Katie Fforde.

When I saw there was a performance of one of the few plays of his I hadn't dissected through lengthy study sessions, I jumped at the chance to see some of his work from a fresh perspective.

Now, I'm still quite out of practice at going to the theatre and when I read that the performance was 2 hours and 45 minutes long, I was slightly concerned that I might fall asleep or get bored. But what I was forgetting was that I would be watching it as a hearing person. I would be able to follow every single little thing.

And not only was it magical, it was also the quickest 2 hours and 45 minutes of my life. I didn't want it to end. And even though I know Tennessee rarely gifts his characters with happy endings, I couldn't help hoping that this time he would.

One hilarious moment was when Hertha, the dowdy bookish underdog declares that at 28 she's an old maid. At 29 and 30, and both single, Miss K and I burst out laughing. It was a fascinating perspective of Deep South attitudes of that period, and how one mistake could leave you sat rocking on the porch until the end of your days waiting for your man to come back.

If that's the case, I'd better start looking for a house with a porch! Teehee!