Led astray by my wife

It’s my birthday, so I suppose it’s by way of celebration that my wife is taking me to see a pornographic pantomime on Friday.

Of course, it doesn’t describe itself as ‘pornographic’ but as ‘adult’. Still, the posters show that it has a certificate restricting access to 18-year olds and above (interesting that ‘above’ really only means ‘older’). Since stage shows don’t usually get such certificates, I can only suppose they awarded it to themselves.

When a show has to tell you that it's raunchy, it probably isn’t that out of the ordinary. It’s just like those people who tell you how hard, or how well, they work: pinches of salt are always in order.

The pantomime's called Alison Wonderbra. That may give a pretty good indication of just how wild it is: a little naughtier than Alison Nightdress, a bit tamer than Alison G-string, perhaps.

We were sold the tickets by a pleasant and most helpful lady. There were only seats one behind the other available at the time we saw her, but we’d not been home long when she rang: ‘I’ve had a cancellation and can seat you next to each other if you prefer. Would you like to pop in and exchange your tickets?’

Just how much better can service get?

Anyway, before we bought the tickets we checked with her just what kind of a show it was.

‘Is it funny?’ we asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘very. As long as you’re not easily shocked.’

I felt like telling her that I was indeed shocked by gratuitously obscene acts such as the decision to cut funding to libraries up and down the country. But then I realised that wasn’t what she meant. So we took the tickets.

Come to think of it, since she actually works for Luton Central Library, which houses the theatre that’s putting on the show, she’s probably as horrified as I am by the impending fate of our fine public services.

Equally, given that it is Luton Library that's staging Alison Wonderbra, it’s probably safe to assume that it's more wholesome than the ‘18’ certificate might imply. ‘Adult pantomime’ perhaps, but with the accent firmly on ‘pantomime’.

Still, it's fun to think that in the week of my 58th birthday my wife still wants to take me to a show that's a bit on the wild side.

Getting us in the mood: detail from the poster