A few years back I had to make the ultimate Sophie's choice. I'd
bought a straight friend who takes these things very seriously a
ticket to the theatre then realised to my horror that it was the
same night as the X Factor final, which for me is must see TV. To
be fair, the tickets were so cheap that the stage was miles away.
Our field of vision was so narrow I could have been watching the X
Factor through next door's letterbox for all I knew.
It was hot and stuffy in there, and the flat gin and tonic you get
at theatre bars is a lot easier to quaff than the evervescent
variety; plus I'd loaded up on enough of it by that point to
tranquilise livestock. I was doing the 'noddy head' thing for a
little while until it finally came to rest on my friend's chest. I
blame the cadence of her gently heaving bosom for sending me to
sleep.
I can't actually remember nodding off, but anyone who was in the
theatre would remember the moment I woke up. Unfortunately I'm
quite an exponent of the wake-up shout, although usually the
content is quite mundane. In the movies people wake shouting the
name of another woman, whereas I've been known to wake shouting,
"Take that wall down!", or " It needs an undercoat!", like
some kind of demented bedtime Sarah Beeny.
Unknown to me while I was slumbering the whole theatre was holding
it's collective breath during a moment of quiet intensity. Until
that is I woke myself up shouting aloud, "DANNII MINOGUE?" I
remember the tone was one of surprise as if I'd been expecting
someone else. It must have been a cry for help; an anxiety dream
about missing the X Factor, but I do see how it could possibly have
been misinterpreted as a sex dream.
My theatre lovie friend was mortified. The fact that my head was
still lingering on her bosom suggested a closeness from which she
was now keen to distance herself. She was probably also
smarting from the fact that all the while I was parked on her chest
I was actually dreaming about Dannii.
The outburst attracted much tutting and neck craning from our
immediate neighbours as well as people in the stalls below. Two of
Britain's finest actors were putting in a tour de force performance
about a married couple who had fallen into a vortex of misery and
rage and I choose this moment to remind everyone what they were
missing over on ITV.
The interval came shortly thereafter and we decided not to
return. As we shuffled down the stairs to the exit my friend
looked at me with a mix of incomprehension and disappointment and
said, "Dannii Minogue? I knew I should try to explain, but just as
I was opening my mouth she interrupted, "Kylie yes, but
Dannii?"
