When it comes to measuring time, sixty is an oddly benign number. It moves the seconds into minutes and the minutes into hours quite stealthily. But when the number is used to mark the passage of years—three score can give one quite a jolt. So when the occasion crept up on me last week, I was in need of rejuvenation.

An outing to the theatre would be the tonic I thought. But with the next Wilde play not until later in the month, I would need to find another balm for my (increasingly) furrowed brow.

What then if not Oscar? Perhaps something pre-Oscar…