To The Vaudeville theatre for 'Lady Windermere's Fan', directed by Kathy Burke. I am a great fan of the Saturday matinée performance, allowing, as it does, a chap to indulge in a decent lunch beforehand; so it was that, fortified by a suckling pig and a couple of bottles of Rioja, I eagerly salled to the theatre, keen to enjoy Oscar's bons mots.

How I enjoyed the first 10 minutes of this quintessential Victorian parlour farce! The set, the costumes, the language... I was transported straight back to 1892 and I was walowing in it. Until Lord Augustus appeared on stage. A fine actor, no doubt, and perfectly capable of giving an extremely fine Lord Augustus. Except that, to the consternation of my suspension of disbelief gland, the chap was black and spoke with a Jamaican accent. I was rocked back a bit, I admit, but bit down hard and tried to return my brain to its previous 19th century surroundings, until... in walked Lady Plympton. An enormous African lady who spoke ina barely intellgible west African French accent.

That was me fúcked.

I suppose that being unable to accept this display of tokenism which did nothing other than detract from the play defines me as a racist, in which case, so be it.

What a lot of nonsense.