A Times reader called Jennifer Galton-Fenzi recently gave some helpful advice about how not to fall asleep during boring plays.
Carry into the theatre and hold in your palm a small, round, Japanese flowerarranging kenzan implement. And if you feel like conking out, well, clench your hand.
‘It is studded with pins,’ wrote Ms Galton-Fenzi, ‘and is sufficiently painful to guarantee that you will not nod off.’
As one who has reviewed maybe 8,000 shows in his time, I can’t tell you how useful pins. I only wish the theatre assistants had handed them out with the programmes we critics were given free.