The email was apologetic in its tone, if apocalyptic in its content. The entertainer I’d booked for my daughter’s fifth birthday party was no longer available – she’d been invited to perform as an extra on Strictly Come Dancing, an opportunity too good to miss. I swallowed my surprise (aren’t these appearances negotiated months in advance?) but couldn’t quell the mounting panic that anyone who has struggled to source a children’s entertainer at short notice without remortgaging their house will recognise.
With no expert in charge, a kids’ party is simply a mass socially-sanctioned sugar-fuelled breakdown – and that’s just for the parents. Even with an expert’s help (I eventually found a princess impersonator prepared to corral 20 screaming youngsters into a Hokey Cokey for the price of a weekend break) it’s a train wreck from which nobody escapes unscathed.
So it was with interest that I considered the question posed by Carrie Johnson, wife of former prime minister Boris, following a Fireman Sam-themed party to celebrate the third birthday of their son Wilf this month.
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