Matinee Wednesday & Saturday

Matinee Wednesday & Saturday is a light hearted novella depicting backstage life in the provincial theatre of the early 1950s. Steve Rawlings has just completed national service in the RAF and is back home in Manchester looking for job. He locates one; working on a pantomime at the Palace Theatre. Captivated by the glitz of his new surroundings he finds himself in quick succession compromised by a nubile nymphomaniac chorus girl and propositioned by the elderly queen who plays the pantomime dame. Try as he might he cannot avoid romantic entanglements with the female cast and rapidly earns a reputation as a serial dater which gets him into even more trouble. His only platonic relationship is with Kitty Quill, the good fairy, with whom he loses contact when the show completes its run. Onwards to London and a similar position at the Palladium, Steve catches sight of Kitty in the street one afternoon. She looks undernourished and dejected and is carrying a baby in her arms. She relates her sad story; made pregnant then dumped by the male half of the adagio act in the pantomime. Steve helps Kitty financially, pledges to come back and see her; and then promptly forgets about her plight until he reads one night in the Evening Standard of her suicide. He is consumed with guilt over breaking his promise but it is too late to make amends. Six months later he meets the adagio dancer who wronged Kitty, thumps him, and is arrested on a charge of criminal assault. A court case follows which produces a stinging twist to the tale?