One other thing happened during the OP weekend. At the very end, on the last night. I was sitting on my bench, enjoying the jig, when I noticed Tim Carroll in the yard trying to catch my eye. He gestured me to come down. We had a talkback session to do immediately afterwards, so I thought he wanted us to get down to the Nancy Knowles before the crowd. But when I joined him he just stood there. We watched the jig come to an end, and then, Melanie Jessop (Lady Capulet) came to the front of the stage and asked for silence. What on earth was going on? I had to rely on Ben, who was in the audience with me that night, to tell me afterwards what exactly happened, because it blew my recall memory clean out of my head.

She thanked the audience and told everyone what a marvellous weekend it had been. There was a cheer. Then I was startled to hear my own name and my role described. I looked at Tim aghast. He was grinning. There was another cheer. ‘Where are you, David?’ called Mel. I gave a weak wave. And she called me up. I walked to the front of the yard. The audience had erupted into applause. Do you know how high that stage is? Over five foot. My chin reached it. All I could do was raise my arms and pray.