Quizzical

It should have been remembered as "The Night of the Great Victory". It should have.

The Theatre Pub Quiz - bringing together two things I love perhaps more than anything else - theatre, and being right. Disaster nearly struck when it looked like I might be in Manchester and have to miss the quiz, but fate intervened, meaning I could attend after all.

Though by the time Manchester was cancelled, the team with my friends in was already full. At least that's what they told me. Even if I hadn't seen two of them before ever, and one of them looked suspiciously like a bag lady. These things happen.

So I was "assigned" a team. We shall come back to the "team" later.

This pub quiz was a dream. The questions were almost all literature and the arts. There were no sports questions or facetious entire rounds on James Bond's cars (still angry about that one). Rounds entitled "Period Drama", "Brush up your Shakespeare" and "Musicals" had me literally jittering in my seat with excitement. I introduced myself to my team. I warned them I could get a bit competitive and nasty at pub quizzes. They giggled politely.

The first round was brilliant - recognising musicals from their album covers. I'll come out and say it, I'm great. I got (sorry, "we" got) all sixteen albums correct, including some rather tricky ones like Sondheim's Into the Woods. Go me! (I mean "us".)

Then it all went downhill and becomes a bit of a blur.

Some flashes of things I may have said during the evening:

To the MC: "On what planet is Virginia Woolf an American children's author? She wrote potentially-lesbian literature and lived in fucking Bloomsbury. I demand a point!"

To a team mate: "Well done, you've sung half a nursery rhyme, now would you like to concentrate on the question we've actually been asked?"

To a different team mate: "James McAvoy was not Mr fucking Darcy. He's fucking Scottish. No, fool, not Mr Darcy. Mr Darcy isn't Scottish. Don't you know anything?"

To the last team mate who was still speaking to me: "Nellie the Elephant is spelt with an 'ie'. No, an 'ie'. Not a 'y', an 'ie'. Oh for fuck's sake, I'll write it."

I'm ashamed to say we came last. I'm also ashamed to say that I'm not allowed to attend any more Theatre Club meetings without firstly signing a behavioural contract.