in scarborough

Five minutes before my play opens I overhear someone sitting at a table in front of me. A white-haired, large headed man, is eulogising The Chuckle Brothers to his female companion.

Forty minutes into the play I see a woman reach for tissues to dab away a tear. This surprises me.

After the lunchtime show, the cast and company sit outside at The Alma, in the sunshine, drinking through the afternoon. A worn down, middle-aged blond woman comes over. She shouts at the two outside tables. Saying that someone has stolen her rabbit and locked it in a car. Or stolen her children and locked them in a car. Or a rabbit has driven off with her children. Or her car. She is seething. We soak up her tirade. She tells us she hates posh. Who don’t give a fuck. She swears and swivels in the sunshine, voice trailing down the street.

The American lecturer sitting at the next door table, whose wife ran off with John Hurt, says that this is unusual for Scarborough. No-one believes him. With a diffident smile, a man called Karl, drinking halves of Guinness on his own, says he’s from Yorkshire; he doesn’t do friendly.