It’s a terrible thing to see a star struggling on stage, as I have witnessed tonight.

I suppose it happens to the best of them. I’m sure that once in a while Gielgud or Dame Maggie Smith would have momentary pause to try and remember a line or perhaps even have stumbled over a polystyrene rampart. But this evening the lead performer merely seemed distracted, wondering where she should be – at one point drifting aimlessly from one wing to another, before standing at the front of stage, mouth open and staring blankly into the lights.

Thankfully this was when a member of the audience in the front row spotted an opportunity, rose from their seat, came forward and
gently stroked her ears.

I’m not sure that anything we have experienced so far sums up the oddness of the Olive and Mabel thing quite like today – an appearance on stage at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham as part of the town’s famous Literary Festival. I didn’t know quite what to expect – or rather wondered what the audience might have expected. One hundred had been allowed in under current guidelines and the tickets had disappeared fast. My concern was that half of them would get up and walk out after a few minutes, perhaps shouting obscenities while hurling their popcorn at us, to my shame and Olive’s delight.

The surreal nature of the whole event had been evident from the moment we arrived at the hotel, where we were met by a very excited organiser and one or two people wearing headsets who were soon delegated to arrange a bowl of water for ‘the headline act’.

The headline act had in the meantime decided that it was more in their interests to crash into the adjoining green room, where serious and seasoned authors were milling around and now having their serious and seasoned discourse interrupted by a dog or two appearing at their feet. On a few occasions it did look as if Olive was trying to sidle into the conversation with an amusing anecdote of her own, or more likely see if they might drop some crumbs her way – or even, such is her hopeful nature, that they would offer to fetch her a platter of assorted snacks from the buffet…

Continue reading the extract here…

Buy a copy of Dog Days here.