There is a very easy way to cope with a bad summer. Pretend it's winter. It's likely you spent a lot of June and July in your woollies, anyway, so why not go the whole hog? Ignore the ridiculous calls to the barbecue published in newspapers whose editors go loo-lah over a few stray rays of August sunlight; go for the half-coated homewheats, the Horlicks and the steak and kidney pie. Light a fire. Now. Doesn't that feel better?
By now your concept of entertainment should have narrowed to re-runs of TV soaps on bad days, and re-reads of Bleak House on good ones. The idea of going out to see a show may seem ridiculous - you need to make the Christmas cake and decorate the tree (you have lost all sense of reality, thankfully). It might seem ridiculous, that is, until we mention the word "panto". Panto? Of course, you must go to the panto!
And yes, the Gaiety Theatre, showing impressive seer-like powers, has programmed a real panto as if it were Christmas. Beauty and the Beast is billed as a "summer spectacular", but we know better; it's just the Christmas season come early. Considering the real Christmas season is due to start any week now, we can truly say all our Christmases have come at once.
The show's cast is a Who's Who of star personalities: there's Sophie Lawrence, who plays Diane Butcher in EastEnders, playing Beauty, there's Arvid Larsen from Norway, playing the Beast. Lionel Blair plays Danton, and Bella Emberg, star of numerous Russ Abbot shows, plays the Beast's housekeeper. Nicholas Grennell is the only well-known Dublin panto face, and that's because it's a bought-in panto, which originated with Ken Wood Pantomimes in England, and has taken in Belfast on its merry way to the Gaiety. Thankfully, the Gaiety assures us that it will produce its own Christmas panto, Cinderella, as usual, for no matter how niftily Ken Wood whips up his pantos, the good old Dublin panto tradition must never die! Never! Raise a glass to the Dublin panto! (Forgive the tear in the eye, but that's what happens when you over-indulge in mulled wine in mid-August)