The Fringe, 1980

Duncan Gillies MacLaurin

We picked up my sister and Gail at the station -
'we' being me and my friend, Michael Boyd.
He needed a flatmate, the sooner the better,
and Gail had been looking for somewhere to stay,
so now they were meeting at my invitation.
Too dishy for words and enchanted with Freud,
she showed us her goldfish the minute we met her.
The general idea was to take in a play.

Politely informed that we wouldn't be able
to get into Latin! Tobacco and Boys,
we ended up choosing my second suggestion,
a Hamlet so wretched we laughed till we cried.
This guy spent an hour assembling a table.
Not once did he speak, though he made lots of noise.
'To BE-e, or NOT to be: THAT is the QUEStion...'
a speaker intoned, and our merriment died.
... (continues)