‘You cannot cancel a date at Friends Fest!’

It’s been a busy week. Shortly after I received my copy of her dossier for the newly-appointed health secretary Sajid Javid, my goddaughter Caroline – the aspiring Tory MP – asked if she might come and stay with me for a couple of days. I was delighted. When Caroline’s parents Hannah and Matt asked me to be her godmother, back when she was called Coraline after the character in the Neil Gaiman book (which she hates), I had fondly imagined the day when I would introduce her to the wonders of London.

Unfortunately, when Caroline’s mother called to finalise the dates of the visit, they clashed with my putative date with Glenn the postie. He’d invited me to spend Thursday afternoon at Friends Fest – the festival/collection of burger stands and gift stalls dedicated to the cult nineties’ comedy, which had sprung up on the fairground on Clapham Common. I’d walked by it a few times and tried to get a glimpse of what was happening through the gaps in the fence. One afternoon, I caught the final bars of a Phoebe tribute act playing “Smelly Cat” to a crowd of six. Perhaps it was just a sound check.

I’d watched Friends, of course, but it hadn’t grabbed me to the extent that I could imagine spending the best part of thirty quid to look at “real props” from the show, which was what a glowing review promised. However, I did very much like Glenn and since he’d told me he was thinking of moving to Devon, I felt I had to grab the opportunity to spend time with him somewhere other than on my doorstep where our conversation would inevitably be gatecrashed by Brenda from across the road. On the other hand, for how much longer would my goddaughter want to spend time with me before she gave up on me because I still use Facebook?

“Of course those dates are OK,” I told Caroline’s mother Hannah. “There’s just one thing I’ll need to rearrange.”

“Nothing important?”

I told her the truth.

“No! You cannot cancel a date,” Hannah told me. “And it’s Friends Fest!”

“Friends Fest?” I heard Caroline pipe up in the background. She grabbed the phone. “I’ve always wanted to go to Friends Fest!” she exclaimed with a glee I hadn’t heard in her voice since the night of the 2019 General Election, when she turned the walls of her pink-painted bedroom blue with post-its representing new MPs. “I’ve loved Friends since I was, like, twelve,” she added, as though that was an impossibly long time ago. She is currently sixteen. “Can we go? After we’ve done the Cabinet War Rooms?”

How could I refuse. Glenn was gazumped. When he knocked with a pile of estate agents leaflets and a water bill, I told him my dilemma.

“We could all go together?” he suggested.

A few days later, we arranged a rendezvous at the bandstand in the centre of the Common. Arriving early, we took a circuitous route. Caroline was keen to know about the camp that had set up next to one of the ponds.

“It’s an anti-vax protest,” I explained. “I looked it up on Twitter.”

“Well, that’s stupid. How can it be an effective protest if you have to look up what they’re protesting about?”

As we power-walked by – since Caroline’s arrival I’d averaged 17k steps a day – a young man came out of a tent and sat with his feet in the pond while he practised rhythms on his bongos.

Caroline was scornful. “If you want to make certain everyone takes you seriously, bring out the bongos.”

“You used to love the bongos,” I reminded her. “I bought you a set for your birthday.”

“When I was three, Auntie Trudy. And you did it to torment my parents.” She was a perceptive child.

At the appointed time, we got to the bandstand. I was struck, as I always am, how very different the atmosphere felt compared with those awful days back in March when the news was full of Sarah Everard and the bandstand became a shrine. Now, children freed from the restraints of a Covid-secure school day raced around the grand Victorian bandstand in wild circles on foot and on scooters, high on Frubes. I was glad to see the place restored to a happier purpose, but all the same quickly bowed my head when I saw a tattered print-out of Sarah’s warm and smiling face, still tacked to a tree. Caroline, following the direction of my gaze, squeezed my arm.

“When I’m an MP, I’ll make sure women’s safety is a priority,” she promised me. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely lost to the dark side.

Glenn arrived, three tickets for Friends Fest in hand. We joined the queue to get in. It was peopled with twenty-somethings. If you’re old enough to remember Friends from the first time it came around…

What had caused its renewed appeal of Friends? I’d heard it was a thing, but could only imagine this younger audience were watching the show ironically. It looked hopelessly dated to me. The costumes on display made me cringe for the twenty-something I had once been, given to wearing unflattering bias-cut skirts and trying to coax my frizzy hair into a Rachel. Yet, Caroline was delighted. She knew the origin of every catch-phrase painted on the marquees. All around, people who weren’t born when the show first aired were quoting whole scenes. Caroline wasn’t even born when the last episode of Friends aired. I wondered what the equivalent would have been for my generation. A mania for On The Buses?

While Caroline and Glenn queued to take selfies on a replica of the famous orange sofa in a set based on the set of Central Perk, I slipped away to a gift stand and bought a keyring to thank Glenn for having brought us along.

“It was really kind of you to buy an extra ticket for Caroline.”

“Oh, I already had three tickets,” he said. “But my friend Eddie had to drop out. Self-isolating. He’s the Friends fan. It’s a real shame you didn’t get to meet him. I think you’d get on. He’s just split up from his wife.”

Slowly, the implication behind Glenn’s words sank in. Glenn had never considered this afternoon out to be a date for him and me. He’d invited me along in the hope I might fancy his friend. I had been friend-zoned at the Friends Fest.

Thankfully, just then Caroline bounced over, pleased with her selfie on the sofa. “I am having the best day,” she told me.

On the big stage, an actor playing Chandler Bing delivered his line, “I’m hopeless and awkward and desperate for love.”