Me here at last on the ground, 

You in mid-air, 

Where are the clowns? 

Send in The Clowns by Stephen Sondheim, from 'A Little Night Music' 

The other night, my soul utterly broken, I found myself sitting in my father's chair, mindlessly surfing late-night television, looking for anything to distract me from the horrors I'd just watched on my phone before it — much like my hope for humanity — gave up, and died. 

Beirut was burning. So too the planet. A comet from the Oort cloud was set to orbit earth, circling some 44m miles away. It wouldn't pass again for another 80,000 years. It needn't bother, I thought, there'll be nothing left for it to orbit.

I'd love to say my children were sleeping peacefully upstairs, but increasingly their own existential anxiety is growing. Overexposure to news and pensive adult conversations, coupled with a genuine interest in the lives of others, they stopped asking for McDonalds many months ago and fully understand the reasons why. 

They are only children, though, and bedtimes should be about bicycle kicks, not bombs. 

What privilege, I know. It's actually disgusting. 

As some kids burn in their beds, we worry about how long it'll take ours to get to sleep.

What to tell them? “This too, shall pass” seems a little disingenuous, especially since they were already told covid, their first world event, was done with, when it clearly wasn't. 

Children will never remember to do their homework but will absolutely hold you to account for something you dismissively said on a car journey three years before. 

So, when, lying beside you in bed they ask you in a worried voice “why won't they stop it? Who's going to stop it?” you resist the urge to fib and tell them it'll be OK, because you're so unsure yourself. 

Instead, you opt for a word salad so dense it could qualify you for a job as spokesman for the US State Department. “Well, it's not for me to say...” Your only hope is the filibustering will put them to sleep. Your lies will certainly keep them awake.

Back to the chair, and late-night TV. 

It's even more depressing than the phone. There seems to be only three choices: News, the awful Jimmy Fallon, and re-runs of British sitcoms — but not good British sitcoms. Really bad ones starring those comedians who are routinely on Graham Norton's couch, introduced last, and always seated furthest from the Hollywood A-listers. 

Their anecdotes inevitably involve fat-shaming themselves, and a story about a clogged toilet that leaves Jessica Chastain looking decidedly uncomfortable. 

Anyway, Those guys.

Then, just as I was about to retire, I happened upon one of those programmes that does nothing but show back-to-back-to-back live musical performances, without any commentary, and seemingly apropos of nothing. 

I had no idea what the name of it was, what channel it was on, and am certain I'll never find it again. Yet there I sat, no phone to distract me, utterly frozen by the genius of BB King playing Everyday I Have the Blues live from Cook County Jail, to Suzanne Vega explaining the origin story to Tom's Diner, before singing it note-perfect, a capella, while staring through the camera and deep into my soul.

I thought I was drunk (I wasn't). It didn't stop. 

Next came Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks belting out Silver Springs, while giving Lindsey Buckingham the deadliest of death stares. The little explainer script at the bottom of the screen giving me more gossip than a 10-part podcast ever could.

The coup de grâce, though, came from a most unlikely source. As the credits of the show began to roll, some old footage of a Parkinson show appeared, and Glynis Johns moved slowly towards a solitary stool, from which she too stared, dewy-eyed, directly into the camera and sang a song I knew but couldn't place. 

I don't know why but watching her cry singing Send in the Clowns was the perfect antidote to the apparent pointlessness of an evening almost lost.

Maybe it was the shake in her voice. Maybe it was the message. Maybe it was the absence of gimmickry. Whatever it was, in that moment she got through, and even in the desperation of her voice, hinted at the promise of a better tomorrow.

Sure, she was only acting. But these days, aren't we all?

Don't you love farce?

My fault, I fear

I thought that you'd want what I want 

Sorry, my dear!

But where are the clowns? 

Send in the clowns 

Don't bother, they're here