"And as we choose between reality and madness, it's either sadness or euphoria"

"You're all girly"
"Like Pink"*

"I arrived early because there's bound to be slight problems, like no piano..."

"Hurrah for Movin' Out and tee hee for Flash wearing heels. If it makes you feel better, I had to do something similar for JP's grandmother's 80th birthday. I nearly fell into a fireplace in front of all his relatives, and then I poured water in the butter dish."

Tuesday morning I woke up to the dulcet tones of JK and Joel on Early Breakfast. One of the things in Andy's Box was a Radio 1 Beat Bullying hoodie, which I've wanted since Aled's argument with George Galloway during Celebrity Big Brother; consequently I was wide awake at ten past six pondering the merits of ringing up Radio 1 versus waking up everyone in my house. Eventually I fell back asleep, only slightly amused by the fact that the contents of the box were won by a 43 year old milkman and more distracted by the fact that in little over 13 hours I would be at the premiere of Movin' Out in London's West End or possibly more importantly, James Fox's West End debut. Four hours later, after falling asleep again numerous times I dragged myself out of bed to jump in the shower and hopefully get some work done before I went to the hotel to meet Corinne, Cat and Val. Of course, because the clouds watch my house to see when I leave and the weather generally hates me, five minutes before I was due to leave, the heavens opened. In true Nik style I wasn't ready so decided to stage a one woman protest and refuse to leave my house until it stopped; obviously then it stopped but I wasn't ready. As if on cue, upon getting to Green Park, there was an announcement that the Piccadilly Line wasn't running and I emerged from the station to be greeting with hail stones, something which I didn't relish attempting to find a bus, or indeed even walking in, so I jumped in the first cab I found. If I had been in jeans, hoodie and converses, I probably would have walked half way across London and not cared, but I was in a dress and sandals with a 1 inch stilletto heel. Let's take a minute to document this. The last time I wore heels was September and even then they were wedge heels. I haven't worn proper heels in over a year so had major visions of falling over whilst Val laughed.
Upon arriving at the hotel, seven quid poorer, I soon discovered that Corinne had only slightly flooded the bathroom**, pills shouldn't be taken in the same mouthful as alcohol and Val's hairspray, though you couldn't see the glitter, was going to kill us all by coating our lungs with glitter.

***
After spending more time than was probably necessary straightening Corinne's hair, we left the hotel and negociated the tube to arrive at Victoria and discover that the theatre is smack bang in front of the station. Genius that. Cat nearly killed us making us run across the road in the rain but we survived to admire the poster complete with James's name and have a mini photo shoot in front of it.

***
As if on cue, whilst we were debating about where to get dinner, Fox arrived. Cue a mildly entertaining run down the road from me and Corinne, thus demonstrating that if I can't walk in heels, I can at least run in them without falling flat on my arse. Then we somehow managed to find a place for dinner with what we thought was the slowest service in the world thus sending Val into blind panic but after stressing that we needed fast service, they weren't too bad and we arrived back at the theatre with plenty of time.
Upon taking our seats however, I ceased complaining about walking in heels and took up complaining that the woman in front of me had a big head. Due to this I spent most of Act 1 moving my head in an attempt to see either side of her head. When it started I realised that Gill and Kirst had clearly rubbed off on me since I was noticing the dancers' arches and whether they were on pointe. The dancing was amazing. Now and again I'd look up at James on the platform and it was clear that he really was enjoying himself and it made me smile. Every time I did look at him, I was suddenly reminded that it was James. On a West End stage. And I'm so proud of him. He sounded fantastic too, putting his own stamp on the Billy Joel songs.
When it hit the interval, Corinne added to the complaints that the man in front of her had a huge head too so we decided if we moved along then it would all be fine. Unfortunately, we didn't allow for people moving into the empty seats and consequently I ended up behind man-with-big-head and Cat ended up behind woman-with-big-head. Do you have any idea how hard it is to appreciate use of stage space and choreography of a routine with a big head preventing you from seeing the entire stage at any one time?! Oh how I wanted to get a pin and pop it like a balloon; Cat said he was like a brick wall. It meant that when they were enacting different consciousnesses in separate sections on the stage, invariably one of them was blocked from view thus rendering appreciating it rather hard work and involving a lot of head movements on my part so it was visible either side of the man's BIG HEAD. Despite this, Act 2 was amazing. The dancers really were fantastic and when we got lost in the action on stage, we'd look up at James and you could see the emotion on his face and hear it in the song. At the end we gave a standing ovation**** because James really was tremendous.
Upon emerging from the theatre, we were greated by the cold weather and, in a matter of minutes, the rain. Knowing that James didn't want to be standing out in the rain for long, we told him he was fantastic, asked his shoe size and made our way to the station and then in what was possibly the best moment of the night, despite me complaining non stop about my heels, Val got her heel stuck good and proper in the gap in the pavement.

"I'll give you one hint honey, you sure did put on a show"

*The other week, Pink was a guest on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and the whole team remarked that she was all girly as opposed to her tomboy look.
**Unlike the Cardiff exploits...
***Photo, as usual, shamelessly stolen from Val.
****And the theatre snobs debated about making signs reading, 'I am standing for _____'.