An Afternoon in The Lung Hospital

To the National Theatre yesterday for the Matinee. About...what? 600+ people in the audience, and I would estimate that approximately 75% of them were in the last stages of lung disease: pneumonia, emphyzema, miner's lung, asbestosis, farmer's lung, and bronchitis.


...any chance of a Bovril??

 And those not suffering from these ailments all had serious congestion, colds, flu, and various other complaints that meant the entire auditorium was filled with the sound of wet, hacking, phlegmy coughs, sneezing, wheezing, throat-clearing, and the clanking of oxygen cylinders being dragged up and down the aisles to accompany their dying owners.

Seriously, I have never heard such a commotion. If you can't sit still and quiet through a performance, for God's sake stay away. No one wants to hear you hacking and honking away. It was so bad I kept missing the dialogue:

“But I say, dash it all Inspector, surely you don't mean to imply…”

“Oh but I do Colonel. The fantastic yet inescapable conclusion is that the murderer is none other than…”

“HHOONNNNKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!” as the Queen Mary docks in Row F behind me.

Bloody disgusting.