Amusing Bouches: Afternoon tea at the Haymarket Hotel, with John Barrowman, London, 25th January 2014

The main reason for us spending a few days in London was because at some point before Christmas without really knowing much about it I'd paid for me and Mom to join an afternoon tea event hosted by John Barrowman.

We've been John Barrowman fans since we saw him in "Sunset Boulevard" in about 1995. Since then we've seen him live on quite a few occasions (touring, panto and in "La Cage aux Folles") and enjoyed watching him in Torchwood. Essentially he's been putting on a few special events to help promote/fund a new album that is going to be released later in the year.

I'd been quite stressed about what to wear, so was pleased that my outfit choice sat comfortably in the middle of what the other guests (all female apart from 3 men) had chosen. We were greeted with a glass of champagne on arrival and then moved through to the tables. For about the first half an hour John moved round the tables giving everyone the chance to have a picture taken with him and signing autographs. Through this period tea and cakes were served, I was concentrating on other things and so forgot to take any pictures of the food. I do remember that the scones were very nice. I had a bit of a conversation with the woman sitting next to me who'd come to London especially for this from Germany! Other people had come from USA and belgium.

Scott (John's husband), was also there and spent time talking to each table. Whilst he was clearly not as natural at such things as John, he is still gorgeous, seems like a nice bloke and him and John are certainly great together. Gavin (John's manager) was also around and he was probably the person who was most interested to see the programme we's brought from when we saw John in "Sunset Boulevard".

After everyone had had a photo opportunity there was a Q&A session, where people asked predictable questions about when/if he was going to be touring/appearing on stage, to slightly more personal questions about whether him and Scott would like to have children. Scott and John also sang a short duet of "Any dream will do".

It was a lovely afternoon and he'd clearly made a number of peoples' dream come true. I wasn't sure about paying to go to such an event but he really is as charming in real life as he comes across on the TV so why shouldn't he be able to capitalise on such an asset and make people happy at the same time?