We’ve won the lottery!” my girlfriend messaged me on WhatsApp, which did not excite me. An actual National Lottery win is call-worthy, no? Even FaceTime-worthy. As ever in our relationship, I was right. “We won the lottery for front row seats for Plaza Suite!” What? A quick check confirmed this was the revival of Neil Simon’s Seventies play starring New York royalty Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. I quickly messaged back: “Can you take someone else?”
I’ll spare you the details of subsequent discussions, and who won or lost, but at the weekend I found myself sitting with my nose on the lip of the stage watching the triptych of scenes about marriage as an arena for the disappointments of ageing. Since I’m both curmudgeonly and infantile, its despairing view of life combined with slapstick comedy effortlessly won me over.
