Diary fragment · 3 min read ·
The Applause I Log
I time the house's applause every night by the stopwatch and write it in the lobby book, and the durations for the nights still to come are sitting in it already.
- dated: "the winter season"
- narrator: "Tom Gidley, front-of-house"
Tues 3 Dec. Front-of-house at the Walford, and the winter season is panto, eight weeks booked. Nothing in my line runs without a measure — ice-cream sold by the tub, coats checked by the rake — and since Mr Salloway gave me the duty I log the applause each night in the lobby book, stopwatch from the first clap to the fall-off, house by house, to the second. He likes a number he can put in the monthly report.
Tonight's figures: first house clap 41 seconds, final bows 63. Act falls: 22, 38. Totals written up at half past ten and the book back on its hook.
Thurs 5 Dec. The book was not on the hook this morning but on the shelf, and open. Wrong for here; the shelf is where Mr Salloway reads his paper. I checked my figures for Tuesday against my figures for Tuesday. They had come up different by nothing. Mine were there, in my own hand, and under them a set for tonight, in my own hand as well, that I had not written.
The stopwatch sits in my coat pocket of an evening and I only open it at the first clap, so a number in that book is a number the hall made. The Thursday set read 44, 22, 37, 61.
I ran Thursday. 44, 22, 37, 61. To the second, one to one, and I have timed applause for six winters and no two houses of the same show ever agree like that. Applause is people, and people do not keep a figure.
Sat 7 Dec. I have taken to reading the book before I open the house instead of after. Tonight's page was written up when I came in at six, book flat, my ink, my figure 8s with the style they ask about at the bank and get. I have not lent the stopwatch out, I have not lent the book out, and the hook is above the height of any child that comes to the matinees by a good foot, which is a thing I checked with the tape rather than say to anyone.
The Saturday set stood 40, 25, 36, 70. The panto is loud on a Saturday. It was, on the night. Those were my numbers coming back off the stopwatch, every clap of the house falling where a me had already been.
Weds 11 Dec. Mr Salloway signed the monthly report off the lobby book. He put the winter figures against last winter's and said the house was steady, which it is. Steady to the second. He wrote well of me for the regularity and I have let him.
The sets agree going forwards and they never agreed going back, six winters of the book prove that, so whoever writes my hand in ahead of me is not copying the house. The house is copying them, or the stopwatch never needed opening at all: one page near the end of the season is still blank, and I am not bold enough to leave it unwritten to find out which way it fills.