This week, I’m living with a pensioner. It’s a peculiar state of affairs, as a man in his mid-thirties, to be sharing the home of a woman forty years my senior, who I hadn’t met before this weekend; after all, if I’d wanted to be in a Joe Orton play, I’d have auditioned for one. But that’s the theatre digs list for you.
The whole notion of digs is fraught with competing interests. Speaking as the visitor, you’re looking for the ideal combination of anonymity (the ability to come and go as you please without having to engage in lengthy conversation), private and modern conveniences (a bathroom of your own, say, with working appliances – for me, a shower is purely utilitarian and of limited value as an ornament), and keenly priced (the Equity touring allowance doesn’t stretch to long stays in major hotel chains. Nor short stays in minor ones, come to that).
People put themselves on the digs lists for all sorts of reasons; evidently, the main one is to make some money from a room/flat/outhouse that would otherwise be lying empty. And it’s funny how overriding a concern the filthy lucre can be, as I’ve met plenty of landlords and landladies who like that part of the arrangement but are less keen on the actual ‘having someone else in their property’-bit. Mind you, John Cleese noticed that thirty-five years ago, and made something of it, so it’s hardly a novel observation.
But there are people who do it for other, or, at least, complementary, reasons: I’ve stayed in the granny-flat of a landlady’s late mother, who worked at the local theatre, so being on the digs list was a fitting way of finding a use for a now empty annex; with people who work in other branches of the arts, who use it as a way to meet other interesting, like-minded types; with a hearty Christian, who provided the best breakfast I’ve ever had from guest accommodation, and who saw something of a vocation in putting people up for the night. They all wanted paying, of course, but there wasn’t the usual avaricious glint in their eyes, and they actually exhibited what appeared to be genuine concern about about my comfort.
A typical view from the bed
But it is an odd arrangement. My current landlady has been very good about stating explicitly that I have free reign in the house: that I can use the kitchen to cook whatever I like, that I can sit in the living room or go into the garden, that I can, to all extents and purposes, treat it like my home (this isn’t always a given: once, in digs in Watford, I cooked a meal, washed up and put everything away. The next day, the set of pans I’d used had vanished from the kitchen, replaced by something from Steptoe’s yard). But, it’s not my home, it’s hers, and she’s living in it. Coming in, after the show at night, it would be lovely to make a cup of tea, slouch into the sofa and watch an old, fourth-time-round repeat of Never Mind The Buzzcocks (well, you know what I mean). But as this would mean taking the remote from her hand, switching over from Midsomer Murders and turning the volume down 65 notches, I’m not inclined to.
I bought a loaf at the start of the week to make sandwiches. I put it on the side in the kitchen. Next day, it was in its own plastic box, on a tray, with a knife and plate, all of which was covered by a tea towel. That’s the infuriating thing about digs – you’re never left truly alone. Though I’m sure she thought she was being in some way helpful, it meant that, even in the simple act of taking and replacing the loaf from the box, I no longer had autonomy over the simple act of making a sandwich – she had become part of it. And when you’re already spending the majority of the week in the intense bubble of the company of people you’re touring with, being robbed of your tiny amount of personal time and space – the time in which you make a sandwich and dream your dreams – is exhausting.
IN SUMMARY: £25 a night. £25!
