Middle Aged Weekend

Last night Graeme and I went to see I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (the long-running BBC radio 4 comedy) being recorded at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland. I've never been to the Empire before. It's unlike any other theatre I've ever been in. It reminds me slightly of the Lyceum in Sheffield, except that the interior plausterwork is painted rad and gold. It's less open than the Lyceum, giving it a very Victorian, music hall feel. Arriving at the theatre gave me a similar feeling to arriving at the Knitting and Stitching Show. Most people there appeared to be over 50 (at least).

Because I'd booked early, thanks to Rob's encouragement, we were sat in the middle of the stalls. We actually ended up sat almost directly behind some friends from uni (Sam, the famous pyromaniac from bonfire night and co.). We had a cracking view of Humph (Humphrey Lyttelton), the pannelists (Tony Hawkes, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer), Colin Sell and of course the lovely Samantha.

They recorded two shows during the evening, each taking around 45 minutes to record. The whole thing was quite entertaining and only slightly marred by the Captain Birdseye-a-like sitting next to us, who laughed raucously with tears streaming down his face for the entire performance. It was funny but it wasn't that funny.

The only low point of the evening was spending half an hour waiting to get out of the multi-storey car park. However since Graeme and I have been working like mad for the past few weeks it did give us chance to have a chat. (It comes to something when your only quality time together is spent waiting to get out of a multi-storey car park). I'm glad I went, though I'm shattered now. Better get on with tomorrow's planning if I'm even going to get some knitting time tonight.