The best of times, the worst of times.

Joan noted yesterday that we had seen "The Lion King" in Sydney, and now we can say we've seen it in Sydney twice, or at least the stage was so far away if it wasn't in Sydney it wasn't too far from it and it definitely had a different postcode to where we were sitting. To make things even more interesting, our seats were also quite elevated as well. To be more accurate they were so far up the stairs that I'm fairly sure if we'd turned left instead of right we would have actually seen StPeter manning the other door. To be fair though, the seats were very cheap in a relative sense, (compared perhaps to the cost of purchasing the entire theatre for instance) and there were binoculars for our convenience attached to the seat backs which could become unattached by simply inserting a Pound in a slot. It is suffice to say that despite that generous offer, none of our binoculars became detached.

Perhaps it was the seats, or perhaps it was the production with which Mr Disney has so cleverly captured the imagination of the common man, but we found ourselves seated among all manner of theatre going riff raff. Throughout the performance the upstairs crowd seemed to want to compete with those on stage, serenading us with a constant drone of chatter interspersed with the occasional "clap along completely out of time and a few bars behind, no in front of the music". When ever the lions got to within a few inches of holding hands, wolf whistles would echo through the the theatre. Wolf whistles for crying out loud, for the King of Beasts. It was enough for me to want to send an email to the lady in front of us who was clearly attending electronically to matters of state during the performance.

At no time did the lions ever get as close as the couple next to me though, who seemed to be preening each other's tonsils in turn. Surely they must have met in the theatre and become instantly smitten. If this was a preconceived plan, they could have had a night at the Savoy for the same price as two Dress Circle tickets in the Lyceum.

Note to file: Next time there is a choice between standing in the freezing rain and waiting for some jumped up teeny bopper "star" person to turn up at his third rate movie premiere in Leicester Square, OR buying "half price bargain tonight only you're in luck we've have four just come in" theatre tickets, choose standing in the rain.

In the background, the show wasn't bad either.