Festive despair at a Hamburg hotel
Because German producers expect companies to perform on Boxing Day, sometimes even Christmas Day, I have while touring with Natural Theatre Company had to spend the festive season ensconced in a variety of hotels.
A corporate hotel at Berlin Airport was surprisingly hospitable. It was just us and a Christian youth choir in residence on the big day itself. The choir went to bed early, but we stayed up of course. The hotel kitchen somehow came up with a goose and all the trimmings.
And an axe with which I chopped up the giant Toblerone I had purchased in town earlier! Gosh, we knew how to live in those days.
Pension Schmidt in Hamburg was a different kettle of fish. It’s been demolished since then (or more likely fallen down), so I can be rude about it.
The rooms were tiny, the bathrooms shared by many and the view from the back was of one of the busiest railways in Europe. Even more disturbing was the view from the front. It faced directly onto the five star establishment where our agent was staying in palatial luxury.
If I say that it was the place where James Bond drove off the roof and that Tom Cruise was a frequent visitor, I think you get the picture.
There was even a guy in full braided livery and a top hat on the door. We would traipse out of our low-grade accommodation, cross the road and get him to hail a cab by pressing a huge shiny brass button on the back of one of the pillars. I doubt a taxi would even consider picking up at the Schmidt.
Breakfast at the Schmidt consisted of a sharp knock on the door signifying that a plastic basket had been left on the doormat.
In it was a sachet containing a slice of processed cheese, a portion of instant coffee powder, a little tub of UHT milk and a small dry bread roll. Sometimes there would be a single serving of margarine and a mini-pot of jam, just as a special treat.
We soon found that if you didn’t immediately scoff the lot, there would be another sharp knock. If your empty basket wasn’t on the step, someone would come into get it, whatever state of undress you might be in.
On Christmas Eve morning, the basket came with a note saying there would be no staff on duty on Christmas Day. Consequently, the basket contained two of each of the aforementioned delicacies. Plus, a gold sprayed pine cone! This pathetic attempt at Christmas jollity simply sent one plunging into a pit of despair as one stared through the sleet falling onto the railway tracks below one’s grimy window.
I imagined the management having a riotous time at home, party hats, streamers and a huge heap of past it’s sell-by date processed cheese.
It was definitely a one-cone Christmas at Schmidt’s. And worst of all, when they barged in to collect the empty basket on Boxing Day, they took the pine cone away with it.