Our Friends in the North #2

Or,

Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will Goes Investigative

OK, listen up. You know that canoeist, the chap who disappeared five years ago off Seaton Carew beach and turned up this week at a London police station? Well.

A source close to Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will, who happens to live in Seaton Carew, was talking to this blogger on the phone last night. Amid talk of Christmas presents and free beer, the topic of the canoeist came up, partly because our source had the news on in the background, and there were pictures of Seaton Carew beach being shown thereon. I said I thought there might be a play in there (although actually, Fin Kennedy's written it). But as it turns out, real life is sometimes just as interesting as plays.

"Yeah, I thought he'd turn up", said our source. "A couple of days after his disappearance I had a couple of pints with him in the Staincliffe."

When I had recovered from my astonishment sufficiently to pick up my shopping, I pushed further. There was more.

This chap, name of Darwin, had not only not actually "disappeared", in the strictest sense of the word, but this non-disappearance was fairly well-known among the Seaton Carew community. The list of those in the know includes more than one police officer and the staff of at least one hotel.

Shortly before his "disappearance", Darwin bought two very large sea-front properties (total value: around £600,000, very possibly more). It is not known precisely when he took out his life insurance policy, but adding these properties to his portfolio can't have done that policy any harm.

Yet he was a prison officer. Where did he get that kind of money? Well, the fellow he bought the houses from was the local cigarette smuggler, who'd recently been sent down for nine months. Did they change hands for well below the market rate, to avoid an uncomfortable meeting between the Inland Revenue and a convicted smuggler? You may very well think that: I, of course, couldn't possibly comment.

Since he was declared dead in 2003, his wife has been living in Panama. Where has he been? Do you want to know my guess? Panama. As reported in the Daily Mirror, a photo of the couple was taken there last year. The BBC says it hasn't been independently verified, but this is me, verifying it, now.

So why has he come back? Again, pure playwright's speculation, but I'm betting: he's fallen out with his wife and, since she holds the purse strings on his life insurance policy, he's getting back at her the only way he can.

And now he's been arrested, which never happened to that pianist they found. We know not on what charge, but I'm guessing insurance fraud is only the top of the list.

Now there's a story.

DISCLAIMER: the above is mostly either single-sourced or speculative. Take it with a pinch of salt. Personally, I trust the source, but this should not be taken as a guarantee of fact or even a reliable allegation. It's speculation. I like stories, that's all.

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Seaton Carew, by the way, is the only place in the world where I've ever attended a funeral with a Mob presence. That's Mob, organised crime, not mob, gang of yobs. Even though, for once, everyone's wearing the same kind of suit, you can still tell who's who.

Metropolist!

I've said before that the extent to which I usually agree with Lyn Gardner is a little giddying. Some people like a critic who's a reliable barometer of their own tastes. Some like to stand proudly aside from the whole hubbub. I'm in the latter, smug contrarian, camp. But Gardner consistently hits the mark.

All of which is prelude to a rare but impassioned quarrel with her most recent post on the Guardian blog. I don't disagree with anything she says in her "tips on the best drama around the country". The shows in there I've seen are great, the ones I haven't I want to. So what's up?

The clue is in that phrase "around the country". Let's do some sums. By my count, seventeen events are recommended. Of those, thirteen will take place in London. Of the other four - or, to look at it another way, of the shows mentioned in the one paragraph that looks outside the M25 - two are by London-based companies, and a third (A Play a Pie and a Pint) is noteworthy because someone in London (Paines Plough) borrowed the idea. Tim Crouch lives and works in Brighton. Gardner even goes so far, in her mention of Gecko's new show, as to say "if you want a sneak preview [...] before it arrives at the Lyric in January", thus managing to imply that anyone watching theatre outside London must be a Londoner looking to get ahead of the game.

I'm not seeking to deny that much of the country's best theatre is originated and/or performed in London. Obviously it is, and I frequently go to London to catch up on new work. But not all of it is. And if you're going to give us a column on the best theatre around the country, then tell your readers beyond the orbital something they don't know, or stick to London and be done with it; and get Hickling to blog on the north.

Our Friends in the North #1: Sheffield, 21:35, Monday

(The first in an occasional series)

It's always alarming, that moment when a drunk starts bearing down on you in the city centre at night. This one was no different. Mid forties, hoodie, bald as a snooker ball and lugging a Lidl bag presumably stuffed with the booze that's causing the lurch.

I have this terrible habit of making eye contact with people. Once that's done, you have to smile. And who knows where that might lead?

He nods. "Alright, fella."

"Alright."

"How you doing?"

(I'm going to miss my train.) "Really good, thanks. Yourself?"

He's unmistakeably lunging towards me now.

"I shouldn't be drinking," he slurs. No shit.

"Night in tonight, then?" No chance.

"I'm going to the pub." He points to the pub in question. I doubt they'll let him in with his goodie bag, even if his demeanour doesn't put them off. He's definitely swaying and spit comes out when he talks. He's going to carry on talking to me first, though.

"What you up to?"

"I've just been working at the theatre." Please god don't make me have to explain a physical comedy workshop. This guy is a physical comedy workshop.

"I went to the theatre once."

"Oh yeah?" I hope this doesn't sound as sceptical as it looks in type.

"Just once in my life I went to the theatre. What do you think I saw?"

Cinderella? Babes in the Wood? I hazard no guesses and just ask him what he saw, but he's drifted back to the sotten world in his head. I ask again and he tells me.

"Swan Lake." That was unexpected. He continues: "Swan Lake. And do you know what it made me do?"

I definitely don't want to know the answer to this, but I figure he's going to tell me. I wait for him to negotiate his way through whatever thought process allows him to speak.

"It made me cry." Now that was unexpected. Then with a lurch of logic to match his gait, "how old are you?"

I tell him, and he reciprocates by asking me to guess how old he is. Why do people insist on doing this? There's no way of coming out of it well. I once worked at a drama group peopled by asylum seekers and I guessed the age of an Afghan called Khan at 45. He was 28. I don't think booze has quite the same effect as war, but I decide to play it safe anyway.

"36"

"I'm 45. You've got everything, Dan" (when did I introduce myself? I suppose I must have done. Come to think of it, that explains why he's got hold of my hand at this point.) "You've got everything. I've got my dinner here. Bread, baked beans and sweetcorn. You've got everything. Go out there and give 'em hell."

He shows me the contents of his bag. Wholemeal bread, baked beans and sweetcorn it is, multiple cans of Stones it isn't.

"Go out there and give 'em hell."

"Um. Cheers. Have a good night." And I go off to catch my train.

For the five years I've been going there regularly, Sheffield has maintained a minimum of 90% building site. It's looked like someone's lost a tenner and is systematically uprooting the whole city in its pursuit. But now it's finished and a light show of mirrored steel and waterfalls illuminates the walk from the theatre all the way back to the station. It's not always what you would expect.