Joanna Lumley has joined Bertie Carvel, Glenda Jackson and Rupert Everett in lending a voice to a campaign for more ladies’ loos at the theatre. Taking a cue (or should that be queue? – thank you, I’m here once a week) from a long-running segment on US talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! called Celebrities Read Mean Tweets, London’s Old Vic has recruited its favourite thesps to read tweeted complaints about the fact that there are 10 women’s lavatories in a 1,067-capacity venue.
It’s part of an attempt to raise funds for a refurbishment that will provide more lavatories for female and disabled audience members, being a genteel collection of mildly irritated status updates, with nothing to rival the brutality of Ted Danson reciting an accusation that he enjoys the anatomy of a donkey. Naturally, Lumley is given the best line. “The ladies are about to storm the men’s loos. They can’t manage to have a drink and a waz at half time,” she reads, with Patsy-ish flair.
Many theatres were built in the very olden days, when women simply didn’t wee for fear they might swoon at the effort or, worse, reveal an ankle. As a result, these beautiful Victorian buildings are simply not made for modern audiences. Since racewalking is an Olympic sport, they should consider trying a heat during an interval in the West End. The problem, though, is with public spaces in general and, as a wider issue, it has been given its own moniker in the US – “potty parity” (surely they missed a trick by not labelling it a bowel movement).
Gigs, pubs and even street celebrations such as Pride, where plastic urinals come out in force, require strategic thinking if you can’t pee standing up: either a strong, map-based working knowledge of public loos or careful planning, in a kind of “liquid + time – facilities = I’ll pass on that drink, thanks” equation.
There are upsides to enormous, never-ending queues that make you miss the first two songs of a gig – conversations with strangers, the opportunity to develop Zen-like patience, time out from the hustle and bustle of enjoying entertainment you’ve paid for – and when it comes to equality, obviously there are bigger fish to fry.
But if Lumley, who once survived on a desert island alone with no food for days, famously fashioning shoes out of her bra to protect her feet from volcanic rock, is miffed enough about the level of discomfort to speak out, then perhaps it’s worth a listen.
Let’s hope Margot Robbie’s antihero truly is emancipated
Margot Robbie has revealed the inspired new title of the Harley Quinn-based Suicide Squad spinoff film, which she will produce and star in. On Instagram, Robbie posted the title page of the script for Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), which sounds like the long-lost album of a tortured 1990s singer-songwriter whose “thing” was emotional rawness. I hope it starts a trend for wordy blockbuster titles: The Avengers 27 (And the Profitable but Superfluous Continuation of a Very Popular Franchise).
When Suicide Squad was released in 2016, it looked as if it might be a new kind of superhero film – darker, more adult, a bit of something extra. It was extra, all right. Its villainous rabble of baddies done good was so gleefully violent towards its female characters that criticisms of its misogyny emerged, most of which focused on Robbie’s character, who, to skim, was punched, snogged while unconscious, leered over and tricked into falling in love with Jared Leto, which really takes the biscuit. Even more egregious was the “hero”, El Diablo, even though he was a domestic abuser who murdered his family in a fit of rage, because he found salvation when he realised he, like, shouldn’t have done it. The end.
Suicide Squad makes it hard to have high hopes about Birds of Prey, but in among the mess of that first film, Robbie managed to come out of it with dignity. So with her involvement, a new director, Cathy Yan, and a title that suggests some lessons were learned, there may still be a cinematic world in which Harley Quinn can be the best good-baddie of all.
What an uber foul-up by Uber
Celebrities doing normal things is one of my favourite subgenres of showbiz reporting. (What with all the queuing for the loo, I’ve had time to think about it.) Last week, Emma Thompson discussed receiving her damehood while wearing trainers – “I don’t care,” she told the My Dad Wrote a Porno podcast, and, with that kind of rampant anti-establishmentism, it’s a wonder they didn’t rescind the offer, but even better was lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart’s first experience of ordering an Uber.
“I ordered the most expensive version to pick me up on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in front of Tiffany’s,” she wrote on Instagram, in a post since deleted, detailing a car that didn’t show up and a second facing the wrong way, parked too far down the street. “On top of it all the car was a mess inside and out!” she concluded, with eight exclamation marks and photographic evidence of the dirty floor.
Then, in a more conciliatory “I’m not mad, just disappointed” tone, she added: “And I want Uber to succeed!” She did not mention the star rating, but I suspect the driver will not have come away from the trip with five stars and an Awesome Music badge.
• Rebecca Nicholson is an Observer columnist
