13 April 2012
Let me tell you a story about a suit...
A while back now, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to escape from the roar of the city, kick off my shoes and head up to Stratford for a couple of days by the canal. It would have been near idyllic – picture swans gliding along the gilded waterways; kitsch narrow boats meandering around the happy couples in punts with names like, ‘Romeo’ and ‘Desdemona’; tourists laughing in the British-Indian Summer, blissfully unaware that they were blocking the only footbridge into town – you get the idea.
As it was, our train journey there was epic in the Greek sense of the word, the sky looked like a slapped arse and some cretin had convinced the council that it would be a good idea to landscape the entire park, rendering a Somme-like scar on the visage of Shakespeare’s stomping ground. We went to the pub.
Elegant men and women waltzed from water hole to well, laughing with increasing vigour and conjunctival redness as the evening progressed; the finest actors in the world strolled about the partially cobbled streets in search of their lines and it is here that we enter, The Dirty Duck.
The Black Swan, by any other name has been the tipple of many famous faces for as long as anyone can remember, which considering the APV of local ale isn’t all that long, and so it was that my friend twisted my ulna into a pint(s).
“We might meet the cast of Hamlet!” She bawled, throwing herself out of the house in a flurry of raincoats, rushed make-up and excited squeaks. “Jean Luc Picard is in it and everything!”
“Patrick Stewart? You do realise he’s…”
“Whatever, come on! We’ll miss Doctor Who!”
“David Tennant!” I put my head in my hands and tried to hide in the airing cupboard but, in that strange way that women have, I found myself at the bar of the Dirty Duck, my wallet and head somewhat lighter. So what has this all got to do with the suit, I hear you cry into what is probably a cold and unloved mug of tea or coffee?
I’ll tell you.
Rhapsidia is an old, Eastern European game involving fourteen or more players and as many two pence pieces as one can hold in a hand. Maybe. I might have made it up but regardless of its origins, who should we meet outside on the pub’s heated patio but the Doctor, Hamlet; Tennant himself. After several rounds of drinks and an hour of attempting not to look too horrendously, ubiquitously star struck, we found ourselves surrounded by empty shot glasses, copper coins and the cast of ‘Hamlet’ shouting “Rhapsida!” at an unpleasant volume. Needless to say, my memory ends abruptly here.
To cut an even longer story short: My friend and I have one of David Tennant’s much coveted suits. We’ve tried contacting him but his PA just laughs and hangs up the phone.
Yours honestly for a hundred quid.
J. x
A Suitable Tale • Opuss № I