It's a delicious, delighting and exciting time. The first read through.

You steel yourself. You're about to plunge into it. Then Ross says - perfectly reasonably of course given that no-one knows anything about the script - "what's it about?"

So you stutter around the houses, babbling to recount a scarce-remembered plot, trying to retain a bit of theatre and not give the end away, trying to carefully egalitarianly make each part sound perfectly equally vitally important (but oooops oh oooops - "now that's a cracking part" she says, carelessly. Well, if you weren't there, you'll never know). And then you're dwelling on stuff that isn't at all important and not actually really telling anyone anything about the actual heart of the play. The actual reason you like it.

"It's just funny," you manage to spit out oh so eloquently. "And dark."

Oh great, think the onlooking actors, must make sure I go out of my way to audition for that.

And then the reading itself stutters into life. And you're sitting there, laughing like a drain at the slightest joke because, for this hour and a half, this play is (almost) 'yours'. Probably the only time that it really is, before everyone else starts (how wrong) feeling that they can lay some sort of claim to it.

And isn't it sounding lovely? And isn't it dark? But isn't it funny? And oh how they're laughing so sinisterly but delightedly at the darkest of dark jokes. They must like it. Do they like it? Are they laughing because I'm laughing? Or is it actually funny? It's funny, right?

And set alongside this frantic scrutiny of the onlookers' facial reactions (they hate it oh my god they hate it), you're also staring like a hypnotised cat at your watch. Because what you need to know above all else, above any sort of audience pleasure or artistic merit, is whether the little bastard will come in on time. Will it run at an hour and a half?

And this little script goes on for at least eight pages after I'd expected it to finish. And they're densely worded pages. Not just the quick witty repartee and banter that skips one page through to the next. Suddenly, the characters are all heartfelt pleas and soliloquies. And the minutes are ticking inconsiderately by and I'm thinking I'm maybe seeing my watch face at a Dali-esque angle and it's not that time at all but wait it is but that means I've only got...

And then. Phssssew. It's done. One hour and a half. A stunned (you imagine) silence. Because it's brilliant.

Right?