The bear and I enjoyed an outing to see Oliver! yesterday. I’d booked it months ago, happily oblivious to the fact that it would coincide with Wales v England at the Millennium Stadium. As someone who has an aversion to musicals in general, and cheerful Cockneys in particular, it’s not the sort of thing I’d have chosen to see myself, but the bear had become hooked on I’d do anything! and so I thought it would be a nice treat.

Although she’d attended some local productions of plays and a few pantomimes, the bear had never been to a proper show in the West End before. And this was a full-on theatrical experience: the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a magnificent pre-Victorian theatre seating thousands, and this was a full house on a Saturday afternoon. The show was immensely accomplished, Rowan Atkinson was a brilliant Fagin, and the whole thing was a generally agreeable experience.  We had seats right up in the gods, which nearly made me dizzy, but enabled the bear to discover the joy of opera glasses, another new experience. (Her final verdict on the show was that it was “the best thing ever” in her entire life.)

So for once, an unqualified success. And Wales won the rugby too.