Christopher Gray is surprised by the food and drink on offer when he attended a London production of The Full Monty

Champagne and oysters were served to the whole audience — or to as many of them who chose to stay —after Tuesday night’s opening of The Full Monty, at London’s Noël Coward Theatre. This struck me as a commendably egalitarian gesture, in the spirit of the play itself, and a contrast to other starry openings where guests — if they’re guests at all — are led off into different ‘layers’ of carefully graded hospitality.

Mind you, bearing in mind the subject matter of Simon Beaufoy’s story, Stone’s bitter and fish and chips might have been more appropriate fare. This was certainly the favoured tuck when I lived in Sheffield for a year on the cusp between the 1960s and 1970s. In those days, most of the chip shops were run by Chinese people — in some wheeze designed to secure a late-night supply. They had soon got into the local habit of calling everyone ‘love’. Odd it sounded.

It did on the buses, too, where as Simon points out in a useful programme note, you were likely to find garrulous locals telling you their life story. These days I would compare them to Greeks, who have no word for privacy. At that time, the Sheffield Theatres — which, in a first, have imported this production to London — were but a glimmer in the future. I passed around refreshments at parties designed to raise funds to build the Crucible (then called the Arts Theatre), because the family with whom I lodged were supporters.

The Sheffield Playhouse was the scene of my theatregoing. David Bradley, later an RSC stalwart — their most recent Titus Andronicus — and caretaker of Hogwarts School, was a prominent member of the repertory company.