Toby Young Toby Young

Status Anxiety | 1 August 2009

What chance does Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens stand against Ice Age 3?

issue 01 August 2009

Like most middle-class parents, I feel duty-bound to take my children to the theatre occasionally. Why is this? I tell myself it is a way of broadening their horizons, but really it is all about class. It is the same reason I encourage them to play with wooden toys and eat broccoli and say ‘please’. I want to have nice, middle-class children so people will think I’m a nice, middle-class man.

Judging from my trip to see Peter Pan last week with my son and daughter, the whole enterprise is doomed. ‘Will it be in 3D daddy?’ asked six-year-old Sasha as we strolled across Kensington Gardens.

‘Yes, of course it will. This is live theatre, remember? We’re not going to the cinema.’

‘Will we have to wear those funny glasses?’

‘What? No. And stop picking your nose.’

I told them beforehand that talking in the theatre was verboten, but they soon forgot this when the curtain went up.

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