A Crying Shame

This month, Olly Mann reveals how a performance of Teletubbies Live unexpectedly moved him to tears.

When was the last time you cried? You may be able to answer that very specifically, if your tears were triggered by a traumatic event. Euthanising a beloved pet, for instance. Or you may be the kind of person who cries all the time: at romcoms, at weddings, at Christmas carols; each and every time the plane lands, or the kids get a new sports kit. In that case, you probably won’t even remember when you last cried, because it’s such a routine occurrence.

I fit into neither of these categories. I’m somewhere in the middle. I cry when something truly awful happens, of course. I shed a few tears the day my father died, and (such are the eccentricities of grief ) wept more heartily on perhaps half-a-dozen subsequent occasions, initiated by sudden, small sadnesses, such as wanting to call him for a chat, or seeing how much his grandson admired his vintage car.

I’m not a serial blubberer, though. I’ve never been moved to tears during the final reel of a movie, or a stirring verse of poetry. But there is something that gets my waterworks running, and it’s a little embarrassing. Without fail, the one thing that always increases the flow of oxygen through my body, and provokes an instant moistening of my eyes, is… children’s theatre.