Rooms for manoeuvre... scene from Calixto Bieito's A Masked Ball at the London Coliseum. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Finally, someone's said it out loud: the underprovision of female loos in theatres is a disgrace. Michelle Barkley, the chair of the gloriously titled BS 6465 committee, which is reviewing toilet provision for the British Standards Institution, wants the number of ladies' rooms doubled.
"The regulations as they stand amount to sexual discrimination," she said. At the moment, the minimum number of toilets required at a venue is based on an equal male/female split of the largest possible audience. But women end up queuing interminably because they spend an average of 90 seconds in the john, while men are in and out in 35 seconds.
West End theatres are especially bad. Tucked away halfway up staircases or behind the bar somewhere, toilets tend to come in measly ones or twos, and can usually be identified by the throng of grumpy-looking women wishing they were slugging their gin and tonic rather than spending the 20-minute interval in a line.
The queues at the Old Vic are pretty bad; and the last time I was the Donmar, to see Phaedra, it quickly became acceptable practice to go into the gents' next door, cheerfully ignoring the males using the urinals. (Men: is this annoying, tolerable or, erm, exciting?)
Those venues that have been through expensive renovations are, however, generally marvellous: every time I go to the Royal Opera House or the London Coliseum these days I rejoice in the blissful lack of queue, the gleaming cleanliness of the surfaces, the chic basins and plentiful supply of mirrors. As far as museums go, the Tates are rather good, and have the comedy value of notices informing one that the toilet paper comes courtesy of an anonymous donor.
In the Royal Festival Hall, before you get to the ladies' loos on the first floor, you are presented with an actual wood-panelled powder room. It's slightly rundown but beautifully designed, making you think of glamorous girls circa 1955 smoothing down their flouncy New Look frocks and applying killer red lipstick. I'll be most put out if they get rid of it during the present refurbishment.
