A few months back, Emma Barber suggested in an interview that “no straight man ever willingly goes to the theatre.” Since the interview was published, Barber has met every straight man in the UK who enjoys the theatre, and one of them turned out to be her editor, who promptly assigned her to start going to some plays herself. Five evenings of theatre later, Barber is unmoved: “Where do you start listing what is wrong with it? The booking? The building? The queues for the loos? The surly bar staff? The undrinkable wine? The rip-off programmes? The torturous seats? These can all be summed up in the feeling that from the minute you embark on this excursion you have set yourself up for a sucker.”