Wednesday, Oct 12th, 2011
I am finally seated in this hall at this place called The Water Poet, on Folgate Street. While browsing for art related jobs, I stumbled upon this ad on Artshub. These people run a website and invite new writers & artists to submit their scripts. The chosen ones are screened on the 2nd Wednesday of each month. It is my first time to attend this event.
Coming back to the tiny, dark and congested hall in the basement of a busy pub on a not-so-busy area of Liverpool Street. Honestly, the hall and the crowd aren’t looking very promising. Everyone, well, not everyone, but most of them look like they are here for some free drinks. Since I don’t drink, I don’t really understand the pleasures of free drink offers people receive at such places. You go to Leicester Square and you see guys holding out cards to this fancy club or that posh club with first two shots free or whatsoever and the crowd happily following them!
Anyhow, I go up to the counter that is at the corner of the tiny, dark, congested and now overpopulated hall and politely ask if I can get a non-alcoholic drink. Thankfully they have orange juice. I take my glass and proceed towards the hall. The seating arrangement is unique, combination of totally different sized chairs, couches and sofas. I find a comfy chair with hand rest and sit next to two other girls. There is an extremely tall person, seated in front of me totally blocking my view of the tiny stage. I change my seat and get a one in the row ahead. And now here I am, sitting next to an old man to my left and a middle aged lady to my right. As I open my notebook and start writing, the lady turn towards me and I see her peeking at my notebook. Instantly, I raise my thigh upon which I was resting my book and hide the words from the nosy lady then suddenly realizing what a childish thing have I just done.
Contrarily, people should know that it’s a rude gesture if it’s a personal dairy. It reminds me of the innumerable times I have seen people in underground just reading the newspaper from their next seat companions. Just sitting comfortably, not holding the newspaper in their hand but still being informed. Like watching news at home while lazying around on your couch.
Back to my writing, I stop as the lights go off and the show starts. But just before that, the old man to my left also noticed me scribbling down and asked me if I was going to take notes. I tell him that I am observing the people and writing about it. He was amused or so I think. He tells me that he is an actor and a writer. I tell him proudly that I am a writer too. (This has become a trend in me, something recent but I find it so…sophisticated. “Hi, Nice to meet you. What do I do? Well, I am a writer”… wow and of course I leave the dirty bits behind that I am a writer who is unemployed and more than willing to work any horrific retail job that makes me look stupid and gives opportunities to snobby idiots to ridicule me! The old man is Harry Dickman and he is lively. I like that about him.
The show starts and there is silence. I couldn’t help but notice a girl sitting in one of the front rows. I could only see the back of her head (and one bare shoulder) but there was something peculiar about her. She appeared as if she was uncomfortable on her seat as she kept shifting. She had thick, wavy long blonde hair and she had placed them on her bare shoulder while her baggy shirt hanged just below it. The movement of her shoulder kept bringing small strands on her face. She jerked her head backwards, straightened her hair, placed them neatly and then jerked again. Then repeat. I felt like pulling her hair. Sometimes I can be a wild peoples hater.
The host was awful and gay. I am not homophobic but his gay jokes were sad. Sad and totally dead. He mumbled. He tried praising himself. A poor attempt to bring some humour. He tried self-deprecating jokes. Fail. The girl with the abnormal right shoulder movement laughed loudly at his jokes. I resisted pulling my hair. The gay, sad host talked about his 600 GB shoes. Few more idiots in the audience laughed. I started shifting on my seat. I couldn’t believe his nerve. Mostly, I was mad because he didn’t make any sense due to his pathetic mumbling and the frequent use of anyway, anyhow and whatever!
He said he gets irritated by the sound people make when they are gulping down water and then horrendously picked up a bottle of water and put the poor mic next to his neck so that we could hear him gulping into the mic. Throughout the show, he did this more than twice. I felt bad for the mic as it was being molested by the host. Some people found that funny and I am not counting the girl with the abnormal shoulder movement.
At one point, he bent down on the stage and made a doggy position while narrating his days of struggle in the art industry. I don’t blame the industry for being harsh on him. He should’ve been told not to try harder. It looked like he never gave up. God had mercy on me and there was a call for interval. People made their way to the bar.
Harry looked at me and smiled; I smiled back at him. His smile was so genuine that without thinking I blurted out “ Do you like the host?” the smile faded, he cringed and made such a remarkable annoyed face that I laughed hard.
The first thing he said was “ I want to shot him down”.
I felt my irritated nerves calming down. I exhaled smoothly and from there we started bitching about our sad, untalented, humourless, gay host. It was so much fun and reassuring that British people still have their great sense of humour alive. Since Harry was an actor and more accurately a comedian, he was gutted and annoyed by the host. I felt the irritation peeking from his eyes and his gestures and it made me laugh so much. He said he was resisting passing a loud comment about the bad attempts of the host at being funny. But he was invited by a friend and thought better than to ridicule his friend and their group.
The interval got over and once again we were at the mercy of “the host”. Meanwhile, some of the plays were really fascinating. It wasn’t such a bad experience to not go into my dairy. Now sitting on my bed, sipping tea and recalling the event, I wonder that tall person did a favour to me as I would have not survived the evening without Harry and oh yes, I made a friend too!
outrageouslyoutspoken 