1. I will leave the house at 5pm today. Time to collect my French and Saunders ticket! I’ll be sitting in AA16. SQUEE!
2. I’m in the very front row!
3. The Theatre Royal’s slogan is ‘a really useful theatre.’ How can a theatre be really useful?
4. Damn. Failed to steal chocolate from Dawn French.
5. Lenny Henry and Robin Williams are here.
6. Highlight of the night: Dawn French: [dramatic sobbing] Me: *laughing* Dawn French: “Look, Jen, that girl’s laughing! Stop laughing!”

Erm, that didn’t tell you very much about my night, did it? Oops. I’ll explain more later.

I’m going to see French and Saunders! And I now have a seat at the very front!

On the 29th of October, I paid ¬¨¬£68.25 (approximately $130) to go and see French and Saunders. I thought, “Well, you know, it’s French and Saunders, I might as well get a good seat…”
I ended up getting Row M3, which was ‘meh’, now that you think about it.
My plan was to go and see French and Saunders, have a kickass night, and microblog when I could.
It’s a shame First Great Western didn’t think the same way.
I was running slightly late, but not too late to be of concern. I got on a train going to London Paddington at Ealing Broadway at 19:33 (the show was due to start at 20:00). Normally, the train journey from Ealing Broadway to Paddington takes 10 minutes. Once I reached Paddington, it would have also taken me 15-18 minutes to get to Piccadilly Circus station on the Bakerloo Line, and change for Covent Garden. These figures are all taken from the TFL Journey Planner, btw.
I was cutting it a bit close, but I would have made it in the nick of time, and at most, would have been 5 to 10 minutes late. I wasn’t bothered by that.

Halfway to Paddington, the train stopped, because there was another freight train in front of us. 5 minutes went by, then 20, then 30. The driver only gave us two updates in the 38 extra minutes that we were stuck in a tunnel, getting me more panicked by the minute (and with good reason, as I later found out).
By then, I was in tears, not just because I was hopelessly late, but because I had phoned the Theatre Royal, but as I had bought the tickets off Ticketmaster, I had to phone them. As luck would have had it, Ticketmaster had a strict no refunds/exchange policy, no matter what the circumstances were. I’ve never had any problems with Ticketmaster and their tickets before, but I knew that arguing with them would be hopeless. I realised that I had spent almost ¬¨¬£70 on a ticket to a show that I wasn’t even going to get to see. This is where I’d like to say that the people on the train were awesome. They gave me tissues and talked to me, and if I ever meet them again, I need to give them a massive hug.
It was 20:21 when I got off that train at Paddington, making it 38 minutes late (the arrival time was supposed to be 19:43). Add 10 minutes on for the time the journey was supposed to take, and I realised that I had spent 48 minutes in that train. I knew I had also completely missed the first half of the show – the first half would be over by 20:45, and the 15-18 minutes that it would take me to get there would mean that I would arrive in time for the interval, if at all.
Speaking with First Great Western did not help either. All they could offer upfront as compensation was the cost of my travel. As I’m a ‘child’, I get drastically reduced rates for travel, so the journey from Ealing Broadway to Paddington was 50p. 50p for being stuck in a train for almost an hour seemed like a slap in the face to me. “They were not responsible for consequential losses,” according to the snobby call centre worker. If I wanted to appeal for more, i.e. the cost of my F&S ticket, I would have to send them proof of the ticket, along with a long letter about why I wanted them to pay up.
… Which leaves me where I am now. Part of this post will make up my letter to them. There is no guarantee that I will get my money for the ticket back, although I certainly feel that they should cover it, seeing as I would have been on time if it wasn’t for them.

There’s a final part to this story. After speaking with First Great Western and screaming in frustration, I had to go and get my ticket from the box office, didn’t I?
I arrived right in the middle of the interval, where everyone was milling around, talking excitedly about the show.
The theatre staff gave me my ticket, if I promised to go and see the second half of the show, as ‘they were not sure if I’d be able to get my money back’. They were right, and I knew this also, but I was not in the mood for comedy, whether I had paid for it or not. In retrospect, I know the theatre staff meant well, but when a person has spent an hour in a train, making phone calls and getting frustrated and upset, they don’t exactly want to be in a place where people are laughing all the time.
I sat there for an hour, whilst everyone around me was laughing. They probably thought I was a miserable old cow.

And there’s my tale. If you’d like to help me get another ticket, please(?) go to buyrammiafrenchandsaundersticket.chipin.com.