what good is sitting alone in your room?

a most willkommen pleasure

Last night I went to see Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End — a spectacular, immersive production and rare treat (given the extortionate ticket prices), courtesy of visiting out-of-town pals. As musicals go, Cabaret is never not relevant but in light of recent events it felt momentous — an all-the-world’s-a-stage-moment, a great big vajazzled champagne-soaked catharsis. We are all Sally Bowles now, ladies.

By sheer coincidence, on the tube journey into town I happened to listen Jon Ronson’s Desert Island Discs in which he describes his personal obsession with the show, including the fact that he saw the Sam Mendes Broadway production no less than five times. (He chose the title track sung by the Jane Horrocks in the legendary 1993 Donmar Warehouse production.)

I arrived early so I nipped across the road for a drink at the bar at the Corinthia. Can there be any finer, more civilised pleasure for a woman on her own?

I ordered a Bombay martini with olives and chatted to Pietro, the Italian bartender who was just flirtatious enough, cordial and attentive without veering into self-parody or worse, making me worry I was being ever-so-slightly mocked. Whenever I sit at a fancy hotel bar I think of a gorgeous girlfriend of mine who, in the aftermath of a gutting divorce, soothed her broken heart by taking up a new hobby she called “analogue Tinder.” Whenever she was feeling low, she’d put on a little black pencil dress, high heels and lipstick and head over to bar at the Connaught with a book. After six months of rebound sex with random business men (and the occasional woman) she felt refreshed and restored to her former self.

I’ve never been much of a random-shagger, heartbroken or otherwise, but I love the idea of analogue Tinder. Why would a self-respecting, hard-up woman bother with swiping when she could just take her book to the bar IRL?