It was 5:30 PM on Friday and I was packing up.

‘Joan, are you going to the after-work thing?’ my team mates asked. There’s an office party for our group every month.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to a play. My housemate Richard is performing in it.’

‘Really? What’s the play called?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It’s something to do with knights, some romance… I saw a flyer for it at home… There was a half-naked guy on it.’

‘Well, well, well…’ they tittered.

‘It can’t be that bad,’ I assured them, ‘because we’re taking our six year old housemate, too.’

I took the tube home and by 7 PM, Damian, Andrea, Neo and I were ready for the theatre.

It was a short fifteen minute walk to the ticket office. Damian, up first, told the ticket man, ‘Two adults and one child, please.’

The ticket man’s eyes widened momentarily. After a long pause, he leaned in towards Damian and said, ‘I have to warn you, there are sex scenes in the play.’

Damian glanced at Neo. ‘What kind of scenes?’ he asked the ticket man.

The man murmured something that I didn’t hear.

Damian looked surprised. ‘They don’t actually do that on stage, right?’

‘Oh no,’ the man said. ‘It’s simulated. But the actors, they’re quite good actually. It doesn’t go for too long. You could just cover up the child’s eyes. It’s clear when it’s about to happen.’

‘Not to worry, then. After all, Neo saw Die Hard 4 last week,’ Damian decided. ‘And he wants to see his friend Richard in the play.’

‘That’ll be £26, then.’

Oblivious, Neo had already run halfway up the stairs to the theatre bar.