Until very recently I was a Spiegelvirgin. I got as far as the door (or more accurately the flaps) of the famous Spiegeltent last year when it was pitched in Dublin's Wolfe Tone Square, but the thing was so packed with fringe festival revellers that the bouncers wouldn't let me in, writes Róisín Ingle.
Anyway, because I had this idea that the tent was only going to be full of arty types, waffling endlessly about Ben Barnes and the Abbey while getting all worked up about whether theatre was really dead or just in need of urgent resuscitation, I never felt I was missing much. As so often happens when I make assumptions based on absolutely nothing, I was wrong.
"Spiegelwha?" I hear those of you ask who are not on nodding terms with the box office staff at most of the capital's theatres. Think of the most ornate circus tent you can imagine. Now fill it with cut-glass mirrors, a draping red velvet ceiling, teak floors, ornate wooden booths, stained glass windows and essence of Marlene Dietrich who, according to Spiegel-legend, sang Falling In Love Again in a similar tent back in her day.
Now conjure up a gorgeous lounge boy who wanders around collecting glasses even though it's a miracle he can see anything at all through that effortlessly floppy fringe. Relax under the dim lights, order a long cool beer and start chatting to the earnest arty type sitting next to you. It will probably turn out he isn't that earnest after all.
I am practically living in the tent at the moment and am considering seeking squatter's rights. I think technically this makes me a Spiegelfloozie. I've given up even bothering to look in the programme to see what's on. I just turn up with whatever assorted friends and family I have convinced to join me, commandeer a booth and prepare to be entertained. I've admired the dance troupe Tango, swooned over Dublin singing sensation Chuzzle, dropped my jaw at the genius of DJ Jamie Riddle and got more excited than is probably appropriate over a contemporary Irish barber shop quartet. Within one week, I have had five excellent nights out in Dublin without feeling remotely ripped off or having to wait longer than a few minutes at the bar.
My first experience of the tent - used since the 1920s as a travelling dance hall and wine-tasting marquee - was in daylight hours, when I went with my mother to watch a live recording of Rattlebag, RTÉ Radio 1's daily arts programme presented by Myles Dungan. I should mention that my mother wasn't the only female present who is thinking of protesting to RTÉ about the fact that Dungan is hidden away in the radio centre and not given a television programme so that he can be admired in all his glory. Comic and chanteuse Karen Egan seemed most taken by him, while Dungan himself - perhaps it's the light dusting of freckles or the elegant black jumpers - had a lucky escape from the tent, given the amount of ladies who tried to stop him on his way out, as they were anxious to inform him of what top Spiegeltotty he was.
But it's after dark, after 11 p.m. really, that the venue comes into its own. The bubbles blowing prettily from the Spiegeltent box office brighten up the dampest Dublin evening and the tent turns into a festival club with an assorted crew of cabaret folk, DJs and Eurotrash merchants taking to the stage or the circular dancefloor. The performances can vary from the sublime to the downright disturbing, but in my experience Spiegeling is never, ever boring. And I think that element of surprise more than anything else keeps me coming back.
I have never been a nightclub kind of person. Ever since my early dodgy disco days and even into my adult clubbing years I have always felt there was something missing from the conventional night out. I gravitated to places where there was something other than just music and dancing going on, whether this was Foosball in Rí-Rá or free makeovers in a now-defunct club called The Beauty Spot. I didn't even know it existed, but in my heart I yearned for something exactly like the Spiegeltent.
The - sniff - sad thing is, there are only two days left until the tent is packed up and transported to the next lucky city, and it is sad because the Docklands, where the tent was pitched for the last couple of weeks, has been transformed by its presence. The area around the Irish Financial Services Centre, mostly dead after 6 p.m., has been buzzing with people crossing the Liffey for a night out, many, it is understood, for the very first time.
Each time I go back to the tent, I see a lot of the same faces. People fresh from Dublin Theatre Festival or Fringe Festival events around the city. But as far as I know the doormen don't check you for arty credentials on your way, so there is no reason why everyone can't Spiegel. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not Spiegeled, as Virgina Woolf might have put it. Head tentwards. You have nothing to lose but your Spiegelvirginity.
(For details of the final Spiegeltent events log onto www.fringefest.com)