West End Live!

For decades we've had the odd weekend in London once or twice a year. There's usually an exhibition or show one or both of us wants to see and there's always other stuff to do there.

On an impulse in April I booked the Comedy Store for one of their Sunday night improv sessions and coincidentally tickets for Who's Line Is It Anyway? (on a short run at the Adelphi) came on sale at the same time so I booked for the Saturday. Both shows were utterly brilliant; I laughed solidly throughout both evenings. The inimitable Josie Lawrence performed twice and there were many other familiar faces who (with the surprising exception of Paul Merton) threw their all into every game.

After travelling down on the train on the Saturday morning we spent the afternoon in galleries and walking between them with the result that we were so knackered neither of us was up to spending the next day exploring Kew Gardens as planned. (In your 60s you think you can do everything you did in your 20s but it ain't like that!) So after a lie-in we pitched up in Trafalgar Square where it was the annual 'West End Live' event. The whole square is taken up with a stage in the middle and stalls at the back and most of the shows contribute a song or two by way of advertising themselves.

"We'll just go in for an hour" quips C, as we bypass the lengthy queue at the eastern entrance and walk round to the west side of the square where they are letting folk in through what will soon be for exit only. It's about 20 minutes before the noon start but the area in front of the stage is already quite full so we stop by the steps and C plonks herself down. I'm not particularly keen to sit on dirty steps but eventually give in and join her.

Our hotel gave us a running order sheet. What this doesn't indicate is the 10 minutes of inane flannel -sponsor acknowledgement, where to get tickets, empty banter etc - you have to put up with from the comperes in between each performance. Not that the music was especially interesting: Bacharach Reimagined, Lion King, Stomp, Matilda, The Committments... After an hour I'm wondering whether and when I'm going to get any lunch, but C is well into it.

I pass the time by observing members of the public passing to and fro. The steps are full of people now. My bum is getting sore. The two Clangers which were in the crowd prior to the start have decided the proceedings are not rock-and-roll enough and have buggered off. A pigeon craps on the head of a girl in front of us. I'm determined not to point out that the "one hour" is stretching out to two and that I'm really hungry because C is obviously having a lovely time. (And this might come in handy...)

Thriller is mildly interesting; the two Michael Jackson vocalists doing pretty good impersonations, but mostly I'm trying to remember the words of the Weird Al song "Eat it". Then it's Billy Elliot followed by Memphis something.

Finally the words I've been waiting to hear: "We'll go after the next one". Which is Carmen. Not Matthew Bourne's Car Man. It transpires that C has been holding out for this slot in the mistaken belief that it is a piece of contemporary dance. As soon as the (I'm sure excellent) opera diva opens her mouth we're off. Lunch at last!