St. James' Church Piccadilly turns out to be really close to Piccadilly Circus - you just have to make sure to turn down Piccadilly. Amazingly for Piccadilly Circus Station, this turned out to be quite easy - as you exit the barriers, a sign pretty much straight ahead directs you to "Piccadilly (South Side)". After a moment's thought, I decided that the South Side was where I needed to be - and lo and behold, when I exited at street level, I was in exactly the right place!
The church is a little ways down on the left. When I got there, I discovered a covered market in the courtyard, and remembered when I was last down this street, years ago, and came across the same market. Tonight, they were just closing up. I made my way into the church, keeping my eyes open for a group - I didn't know what the organiser looked like, but anyway, there wasn't anyone I could identify as part of a group, and after posting on the event site to ask whether anyone else was there (and getting no response) I made my way over to the ticket desk and told her whom I'd booked the ticket with. She got all flustered, and said I should talk to the lady over there.
Which was how I met the organiser. I remembered her from last night - she'd been sat in front of me, scribbling furiously in her notebook. She told me I needed to get a ticket from the desk, and I explained how they'd sent me to her. So she came and got me one herself. Then she was asking me about last night - she'd come with someone else, who wanted to leave at the interval, and she was curious to know what she'd missed in the second half. I started to tell her how I'd left myself at the interval, but we were interrupted by the arrival of another couple. And she told me to make my own way in, and sit anywhere.
Right! That was the last contact I had with anyone in the group. There was no effort to gather us together - perhaps they were a bit more sociable in the reception afterwards, but I'd had no interest in paying an extra £15 for wine, canapés, and a chance to meet the performers. Hell, I was even too cheap to pay £1 for the programme. I didn't regret it - I wasn't familiar with most of the pieces, as it turned out. And I can Google the rest.
I took an aisle seat, near-ish the front. It's an Anglican church, and pretty enough, but to someone used to Catholic churches, rather sparse:
I overheard the woman who, with her partner, had interrupted my chat with the organiser. They were wondering where to sit, and she pointed me out to him, but he wasn't keen - wanted to sit over the side for a quick getaway. So I sat alone. Well, amongst people I didn't know - it was quite full by the time the concert started.
The host wasn't familiar with the use of a microphone. She got that she had to pick it up, but completely forgot about it after that, waggling it all over the place while she was talking and most people couldn't hear what she was saying. Even after people yelled at her that they couldn't hear, she was still waving it somewhere over her ear as she spoke.
The concert programme comprised songs from musicals, as it happened. Ironically, for a concert to promote two young singers, one couldn't make it. Alison Langer has tonsillitis, it seems - poor lass. Lawrence Thackeray was there though, and in fine voice, as was Alison's replacement. The other girl was the weakest of the singers, but had it been a dress competition, she'd have won hands down - she wore a stunning black lace number (Catherine Walker, I believe), backless, with the most enormous train. Really, I pitied anyone having to walk behind her! The train took a few seconds to follow her around..
I find it a bit twee, listening to songs from musicals out of context. Still, by and large the singing was lovely - and being filmed from the side. It occurred to me to pity the poor young musicians, having to parade themselves at a reception afterwards. We had been instructed not to clap at certain intervals between songs by the same composer, but most people blithely ignored that and clapped away anyhow.
There was a 15-minute interval, after which the elderly lady in front of me suddenly became quite cranky. I started to wonder whether she had Tourette's. First, she was vexed by the woman in front of her, who was moving her head. Now, my mother becomes terribly vexed by girls tossing their long manes of hair about, like horses - that's not what this was, the lady in question was middle-aged and didn't have much hair to toss. But she was one of those people who tend to move their heads a bit. In time to the music, at least in part. The elderly lady kept darting her hand to her and pulling it back - I really wondered what she was up to. Finally, she tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to stop it.
Next, she became vexed by creaking. We were all sitting on wooden pews, and they do tend to creak, you know. Well, unfortunately, she blamed the whole thing on me. Any time anyone moved, she darted a glare at me, behind her. Me, quiet as a churchmouse and twice as still! Apart from her husband, there were three other people on her pew, but somehow I was supposed to be making it creak. Indeed, there were times she glared at me when I couldn't hear anything at all, and I wondered whether she was hallucinating. She banged her seat. She jumped in it - you know, as you might if you were trying to get someone to stay still without saying it. At one point between songs, she glared back at me and snapped, "Oh, won't you just keep still!" At which point I caught the eye of the lady sitting nearest her in her pew, who smiled sympathetically.
Not a great experience, then. But the singers acquitted themselves admirably, and I did get a cheap ticket. I was glad to get out of there, and again, home nice and early.
For tomorrow, I checked the films, but more interesting than what's top of the list is a play that one of those Meetup theatre groups is going to - one of the groups that charge a fee for the privilege of going with them. So I booked my own ticket, to The Beaux' Strategem, at the National. It's a period farce about two young men who seek to make their fortunes by marrying for money. Cheapest tickets available on the venue website, since they don't charge a booking fee.
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