The Joy of Cancelling on Yourself
Breaching terms & conditions and living to tell the tale
Apologies in advance if what follows is blasphemy, but sometimes I just can’t be bothered to go to the theatre.
We all know that secret thrill. You made plans weeks, or maybe months, ago with a friend, and in the time between making and activating plans, your world has slowly imploded. Work got busy, you got ill, the clocks moved forward. You want to cancel but don’t have a good enough reason. Then the best thing in the world happens; your friend cancels on you. Suddenly you have a guilt-free evening spent alone on the sofa binging a life-changing k-drama on Netflix.
The trouble comes when the person you have plans with is yourself. As someone who treats cultural events in London like Pokémon I am often filling my calendar with solo tickets to plays, screenings, and talks that seemed like a good idea at the time. The idea of cancelling those solo plans last minute comes with the guilt of missing out on a cultural treat, and wasting the money spent on the ticket. Sometimes you get lucky, and the theatre cancels on you, but you can’t always rely on that.
Paying for membership of an arts institute comes with perks. The most popular draws are often reduced fees, early booking, or other cost-saving measures but the real perk I am learning to leverage is something different. My two favourite buildings in London sit side by side on the Southbank; the National Theatre and the BFI. Both of these offer the ultimate perk, see if you can spot it:
The ability to return tickets for credit! The NT actually offers this to everyone, whereas the BFI keeps it as a bit of a secret membership perk that requires sending an email or, god forbid, calling them on the phone, to unlock.
And for everything else there’s Twickets. No doubt breaching terms and conditions all over the place, Twickets allows you to resell your tickets at or below the price you paid for it. You aren’t guaranteed a sale but when you just aren’t feeling the night out you planned for yourself, it is worth a punt to see if another punter wants that ticket you no longer need.
Tickets I have sold to give myself a breather:
The Beckett Trilogy at the Coronet Theatre
I struggle with Beckett and have never been to the Coronet Theatre so thought this would be a good way to spend my Saturday night. I spent the preceeding week cat-sitting in Sheffield and as the evening approached it became less and less appealing. Three hours of Beckett? Ending late in the evening?? In Notting Hill Gate??? I listed my ticket and it was quickly snapped up by a grateful Beckett enthusiast. Winners all round.
Bring Them Down at the BFI London Film Festival
It was the last day at the London Film Festival and I had already seen 28 films across the previous week and a half. The Sunday started with me getting up for an 11am screening of Grand Theft Hamlet and staying around to watch Bring Them Down would have involved killing 6 hours in central London. Not an impossible task but an unappealing one at that point in the festival. The screening was sold out so I listed my ticket and suddenly my Sunday was my own again.
Operation Mincemeat at the Fortune Theatre
Mondays are often my downfall. They are where cheap tickets are most abundant but are also the night in the week when I most regret the plans I’ve made for myself. Late last November I had won the ballot and bought myself a cheap Monday ticket to see the show for the third time. As Monday night crashed closer, the idea of taking off my Oodie and leaving my flat to see a show I had already seen, was unthinkable. I like to think my ticket ended up in the right hands.
Patti LuPone: A Life in Notes at the London Coliseum
Patti LuPone is a musical theatre icon and I was lucky enough to see her in Company on the West End back in 2018. When it was announced that she would be performing a concert for one night only in London I snapped up a ticket in the nosebleed seats. It didn’t help that I was in the middle of my Spirited Away delirium and so the London Coliseum felt like a home away from home. The week before Patti’s concert I got my hands on a late minute ticket for Hadestown with the original cast. I won’t go back over my parasocial relationship with that show, but suddenly my Sunday was overstuffed with culture. Reluctantly I had to let Patti go so I could focus on crying at a musical instead.
What’s my point? That when you have made plans with yourself, there is no sense in waiting for someone else to cancel those plans for you. Embrace the freedom that comes with taking the first step and freeing up your evening. 99% of the time on this Substack I will be advocating for getting out there and trying something new. But the other 1%?
Give yourself a night off.
Oodie??