I was with my beautiful sister Mary the first time I saw it. That must have been about twenty-four years ago – I remember I was recovering from meningitis at the time and Mary thought I could do with some fun in London and take in some shows. Everyone loves a good musical – don’t they? (Just not the Copa Cabana – enough to put me off Barry Manilow for life!) Of course, we hadn’t pre-booked anything (we’re spontaneous like that) and we just turned up at London’s West End, hoping that there would be vacant seats available for one of the big musicals.

I seem to remember that we paid the princely sum of £6 for our seats in “the Gods”. We very soon realised why they are so named – it was like being perched on the inside of a tall chimney – and, upon summoning the courage to look down at the stage, we could see only the tops of the ant-sized actors’ heads. My head reeled and I felt sick.

“Don’t worry,” said Mary (always so loving and caring), “just sit back and listen to the music, and in the interval I’ll go and see the manager.”

So, in spite of having excellent sight in those days, we didn’t actually see much of the first act. Come the interval Mary disappeared and reappeared several minutes later with a smile on her face and an urgency about her (the foyer was a long way down!).

“Come on Sally, the manager is waiting for us downstairs – he’s giving us new seats – oh, and wipe your make-up off and try to look more ill!”

Sufficiently pale and sickly-looking to appeal to the sympathy of the manager, I was ushered by the kind man and my sensible sister to perhaps the best seats in the house. I didn’t feel very attractive (I kept the pallor and pained expression going – in case the manager had his opera glasses trained on me during the performance) but that was a small price to pay for the joy of sitting in £60 seats and seeing everything in the last act perfectly.

Two nights ago, Friday night, our old friend Roland took me to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at South Bank (near another West End, ten thousand miles from London). The seats didn’t cost the equivalent of £6 and, although the Lyric Theatre is huge, we did not feel as though we were sitting in a chimney; in fact, as the lights went down and the curtain went up on “Les Miserables” we could see and hear everything wonderfully well.

“It’s rather high – isn’t it?” whispered the lady next to me to her companion.

“She should go to Shaftsbury Avenue,” I whispered to Roland.

I thought of Mary and had another brilliant night to remember.