Happiness? I’m not banking on it

Oh, straighten your face at the back there!

Yes, you, the Dundonian with a puss like a burst bag.

Just because the Bank of Scotland tells you your happiness quotient has plummeted by more than 10 points since this time last year, there’s no need to pout. Get a grip. When did you last believe anything a bank told you?

The very existence of the Bank of Scotland Happiness Index ought to alert you to the fact that we are dealing with Cloud Cuckoo Land here.

When did you ever hear a sane person mention the words “bank” and “happiness” in the same breath? Certainly not since they closed your local branch, I’ll be bound.

This same survey also claims the happiest people in Scotland are Fifers, which conjures up an image of those wee arrows on either side of the English Channel in the credits for the original version of Dad’s Army, only Fifers and Dundonians are now thumbing their noses at each other from opposite banks of the Tay.

Speaking as an adopted Fifer, I also find the pressure is being piled on by this sorry charade of social comment, as I am a woman.

Women remain the happiest people in Scotland, it appears, as do those over 65.

I do not, I must hastily state, quite qualify for that particular treble whammy just yet, as a kind of poor person’s Usain Bolt.

However, given that premise and on the principle of “two out of three ain’t bad”, there should be two people in this very household currently in a permanent and continuous state of cheer. Erm, not so’s you’d notice. So just remember the old joke. Why are some Fifers always so happy? Because they’re Leven.

Wonderful

I don’t know why I’m telling you this because it’s sold out but we went to see Dundee Schools Music Theatre’s (DSMT) production of Starlight Express this week and it was wonderful.

As a show, it makes about as much sense as Donald Trump but creators Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe, probably completely unwittingly, came up with a show all those years ago (it ran for years in the West End in the 80s) that is almost perfectly tailored to the energy, enthusiasm and sheer enjoyment brought to it by a cast of extremely talented young people.

Anyone who has seen a DSMT show before will know how good they tend to be.

Earlier this year, Lord love them, they outdid Michael Crawford by putting on Barnum, with all its circus high jinks, before tackling this deeply strange tale of anthropomorphic trains falling in love and plucky underdogs winning through to become the fastest and best.

It’s the Olympics all over again, folks, only with better frocks and without all that annoying “medalling” and “podiuming”.

They sang everything from hip-hop to country ‘n’ western; they danced; they rocked and they learned to rollerskate – and made it look easy.

In my days treading the boards it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other without tripping over my Lady Macbeth nightie, let alone attempt anything on wheels (apart from an ill-judged entry on a jerry-built sledge while playing Guinevere in Camelot. They didn’t have much in the way of all-singing, all-dancing, allsledging technology in those days…).

Also in my day, it was all you could do to get teenage boys to sell programmes, let alone don a costume resembling a cross between David Bowie and RuPaul and stride (or skate) around the stage like they owned it.

Given that Starlight Express is, apparently, the most popular musical ever in Germany, where they have been known to make the trains run on time, there was also a very good gag about the British train being late and having to be shunted off up a siding.

BR-exit

Does that count as a BR-exit, for those of us who recall the bygone days of British Rail? Or a BR-anson, if you’re looking for what passes for a light at the end of the tunnel…

Any road up (or any track up?), the plot, such as it was, resulted in Rusty the steam train eventually triumphing and getting off with Pearl the First Class carriage. Eat your heart out, Jeremy Corbyn… DSMT is presenting Legally Blonde next week at the Whitehall Theatre. It doesn’t (to my knowledge) have roller skates but if there is a ticket to be scrounged, cajoled or just plain nicked, go see it.

PS. You know you have succumbed to the malign influence of popular culture when you read the headline: “Britain bakes on hottest day of year so far” and immediately think of soggy bottoms and Mary Berry… not necessarily in that order.

PPS. It’s not often you see a pairing made in heaven but then the Tinder that is fate goes and throws together Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, confounding the whole theory that opposites attract.

As my granny used to say: “As God made them, God matched them.” And somewhat more hopefully: “It’ll keep them from making two other perfectly innocent people completely miserable.”

Ah, Granny, if only you knew…

Picture: Kim Cessford. Dundee Schools Musical Theatre’s production of Starlight Express, which made Helen very happy. But then, living in Fife, she already was, according to the Bank fo Scotland Happiness Index.