Crossing the line with Billy Connolly

Apr 4, 2011 | Enjoy life/Reviews, Other Reviews, Pondering Life, Review

The other day I witnessed yet another act of generosity, I love hearing about these. One of the girls behind the Cottesloe Lifeboats installation gave her mother two tickets to see Billy Connolly at the Burswood Theatre and unselfishly suggested she take a friend. How amazing was that, to have a ticket to a great show and not use it yourself, surely that’s pretty rare. Anyway that friend turned out to be me, and incase you’re wondering, no, all selfless acts do not have to end with me being the recipient. I was thrilled to put it mildly.…and then I heard the catch.

The tickets were front row.

Okay, okay I can hear some of you rejoicing, front row, woohoo, but not me. Most people associate fear with creepy crawly things like spiders, cockroaches and big bitey things like sharks. Well for me top of the list is front row seats for some reason. Freud would probably look back at my childhood and remind me of a time when as a bored toddler I’d decided it would be more fun to totter down to the front row of a theatre and flip all the empty seats down, thwack, thwack, thwack. Perhaps the resulting stares scarred me for life who knows. Anyway to this day I would much rather linger in the back row than risk being seen down the front. So nice as the offer was, I took time to consider it, and as the weeks counted down my anxiety rose.

Finally drawing on my new found ‘just do it’ attitude, I said ‘yes’. Arriving at theatre we were quickly ushered into our seats….front row…middle seats. This was the view before us.

Not so bad. Lulled into a sense of false security I made the mistake of turning around.

You know that movie The Fly, where Jeff Goldblum turned into a giant fly well it was kind of like that. Like ten common house flies had gone down one back alley too many, sipped on some devilishly moreish mixture, morphed into skyscrapers and sensing motion, instantly trained all one million lenses on me. Stifling a scream I quickly turned around and sat very, very still, shallow breathing, my eyes averted to the floor, again employing the ‘if I can’t see them, they can’t see me’ childhood theory

It was then that I noticed the line on the floor. Looking along the row no other seats had this line only us. Great, x marks the spot I thought, well ‘T’ really but you get the idea. My companion decided to test the waters, suggesting a precursor to the events ahead.

Before I could set an exit strategy in motion the man himself arrived on stage, no turning back now.

Grey mane flowing Billy paced the width of the stage, back and forth, a lion crossed with a fashion conscious zebra (vertical strips good, horizontal bad).

For two hours he dispensed anecdotes and stories that crossed several lines of political correctness.

Then suddenly at the two hours mark he stopped for a drink.

By now my bladder, having made itself known at least half an hour earlier, was screaming ‘get me out of here’, but I didn’t budge. Especially not when the full force of a Connolly spray had just left spittle resting on my companions forearm.

Shortly after a couple of brave English lads behind us, who’d obviously had few ales prior to the show, couldn’t hold on any longer, so stood and made their way out.

‘I thought it was only ladies that went in twos’, an incredibly controlled Billy announced to the crowd before adding that he couldn’t remember where he was in the story, so that was the end of that anecdote.

Thankfully after another half hour Billy gave us a reprieve and signaled the end of the show.
And so while waiting for nearly two hours in the carpark exodus I pondered:

Clearly age is no barrier when a 60 year old can perform for two and a half hours without taking a break. Some younger performers who charge twice as much, for considerably less time, should take note.
Blinding lights, twirling acrobats and video screens are superfluous when the act simply has substance.
How did Billy maintain bladder control? Were his stripy pants a decoy, secretly hiding an adult nappy?
If blog readers will overlook fuzzy photographs given the deft slight of hand needed to take them under threat of being found out.