The Lemon Table
Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, and touring

My mum, who had a long career teaching in Catholic schools, told the story of a parish priest visiting her class who, during the course of a catechismal interrogation, asked: “What happens in the Mass during the Consecration?” A short keen arm was raised, overlapping with the answer: “Everyone starts coughing, Father?”

While theologically incorrect, the pupil had precociously identified a social truth. Humans tend to fill moments of silence, solemnity, awe or awkwardness, by clearing throats.

Not now, though. As is increasingly the case in theatres, the performance I saw in Guildford last week passed without any expectoration, even mask-muffled. Post-Covid, bronchial sounds have become socially unacceptable, as potentially suggestive of infectiousness as buboes during earlier plague times.