There are Two Types of Tabs: A Wedding in Cambridge.

 I'm in Cambridge, on the bowling green of Trinity College, sipping a flute of fizz. About me are ancient red brick walls and tall, neat hedges. The lawn is tufty, tousled with yellow grass and, at least initially, speckled with fox shit. By the time we're all sitting down, the poo has been magically spirited away by an invisible army of college staff.  At the far end, beyond a raised embankment and small wall, is the river Cam, ferrying an endless flotilla of posh boys with poles and, on at least one occasion, a hen party, replete with an inflatable man which, credit where it's due, is an excellent buoyancy aid. You can probably use the penis as a workable rudder. High above this, latticed by the branches of the trees, are two stone eagles, regarding everything as imperiously as I do, and beyond them a perfect blue sky, a faultless canopy over an immortal English summer's day. 

I'm here for a wedding. Adam Turns, a man I have seen paint with his testes, and stake a vampire on 8 square feet of eye-wateringly expensive rented astroturf, (Who rents astroturf? Adam does), is getting married, and this whole thing has been arranged by Josh, the bride's brother, who is a fellow at Trinity (Adam describes him as a "Russianist" - a Russianist at Cambridge University and you're telling me he's not a spy? Sure. Actually, nobody told me he wasn't a spy, so...) Over the course of the day, Josh, doughty, unflappable, a manifestation of Officer Class, will do most of the things that need to be done. He is the celebrant ("Does it feel weird to marry your sister?" is a question I didn't ask him), he is the de facto M.C. throughout proceedings, as he prods and pushes the crowds from the place they are to place they next need to be next, like Brucie on the Generation Game. Later he will take his shoes and socks off and punt the married couple up and down the Cam. In a boat. Not like he was converting a try. Later still, at the surprisingly well signed "Hidden Rooms", he will get his freak on to Wannabe on the dancefloor, and later even than that, having put in a serious shift, he will personally guide Susan and I to a taxi rank. I take this opportunity to make polite conversation about Bulgakov's The Heart of a Dog. It's the first time I see him look tired. It's like asking the Arch Bishop of Canterbury where he got the pretty frock from. Fair play, Josh. Somewhere between a valet and a household god. Every wedding should have one. 

The Cam. The day before yesterday. 

Which brings me to Adam. I've not really spoken to Adam for five years and I've never met Maddy, so I was initially surprised to be invited to the wedding. Don't get me wrong. I like Adam. He's a funny man. He starred in and directed a lot of my plays. We devised and performed a League of Gentlemen quiz, called "A Local Quiz for Local People", ensuring a selection of confused Belfastards turned up, expecting to be quizzed about the Divis flats or the old Curzon cinema on the Ormeau Road. They stayed to the end, regardless. I think they enjoyed the cross-dressing. But it was this last thing that made me understand why I was in that room. Adam's speech ended with the catchphrase of a famous League of Gentlemen character - you can probably guess the one from the context - and he need someone in the room who would get that joke. I was that man, and I didn't shrink from the task I'd been given. I laughed hard. I shook with mirth. I applauded. It was a solemn duty, and I treated it with the utmost respect, as it was every bit as important as being the celebrant, or knowing how to punt, Josh.

I did it beautifully. 

Speaking of beautifully, Adam was in a green seersucker suit, and tan Loakes brogues with red laces. He looked slightly frazzled. I'd assumed earlier on the bowling green, where he stood alone, with his back to the congregation, he was doing a bit. You know what actors are like. Mucking about. "Oh no my wife's not turned up!" But no, there was a genuine delay as some of the party had gone to the wrong Trinity College. When he came to do his vows, they included a pledge that he would put the bins out in perpetuity. 

Maddy, the bride, stunningly beautiful, daisies crowning her long dark hair, her dress a wrap of white silk, apologised in advance for her vows, more properly wows. "Mine is SO much longer than yours!" she said, but what they were was a flowing, adoring celebration of Adam, like the Song of Solomon rolled out in in England's green and pleasant land. A strange thing happened: I began to reassess Adam. I began to see him as Maddy saw him. Far from the fox-faced stick-boy from Sunderland, who once told me my DJ name should be Fatboy Fat, he was transfigured, shining in raiment green, as one of the great lovers of legend: a Lancelot, a Tristan, a Pyramus, Abelard, with his knackers still attached*. 

I'm being flippant, of course. A classic English response in the face of genuine emotion, to an outpouring of shining love. My eyes began to glitter as this litany of love flowed out of the bride. This paragon wasn't my Adam, but who cares about me? I was lucky to be there, to hear this. This was Maddy's Adam on their special day, and this delightful, sincere woman was happy to tell the world that he was her hero. It was lovely. I wept. Later, Adam announced the football scores during the groom's speech, and my tear ducts shut up forever. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen - The bride and groom!"

This was an aesthetically pleasing event. I'd been at Art School in Cambridge thirty years earlier, and in those days my horizons extended no further than the College, The Student Union Bar and the Bosporus Kebab shop (sadly, no longer there). It was always overcast. Always autumn. I had no money. I stayed in my room. 

Today at Trinity, a simple expedition to find the toilets, saw me discovering a 15th Century memorial, featuring a painted, headless couple, and a Japanese Choir rehearsing in an adjacent studio. I'm a man comprised largely of regrets, and the sort of donkey-grey chest hair you could stuff a sofa with, but all this glorious historicity, carved into every stone, each nook and niche, does make me wish I'd pulled my head out of my arse and looked about a bit more while I was here, when all this was on my doorstep, a doorstep worn butter-smooth by 600 hundred years of expensively shod feet. 

Also, the bus drivers are really friendly. That's definitely new. 

The wedding meal was delicious. Good food at a wedding? How does this even happen? The bride's sister, Verity, had put together a fabulous display of flowers, which we were asked to take home. Ours didn't make it back to Belfast, but did make it as far as my brother's house in Hitchin, where they are thriving (as of writing). 

Where I had me tea

After dinner, there was cake cutting, a trip up and down the river in a chauffeured punt, and then onto the reception at "The Hidden Rooms", which proved to be a charmingly old school club with a free bar. The best kind of bar. The DJ set had been picked democratically by the attending guests, and there is something reassuring, in a world utterly going to tits, that the biggest floor fillers are still Wannabe by The Spice Girls and Dancing Queen by Abba. Reader, I danced often and well, my arse was a bee's wing. 

It was a genuinely beautiful wedding, and Susan and I felt so lucky to be part of it, even if we're both awkward and shy. At one point, as we sat on a bench talking only to each other, Adam approached. "What are you doing? It looks like you're constructing a damning critique of my wedding." My fault. I have resting pen-dipped-in-vitriol face. But, in fact, I was preparing a delighted description of a beautiful day. It was an honour and a pleasure to attend, and I wish the bride and groom every single happiness for the future. 

This has been my toast. Cheers. 

*It didn't really work out for any of those guys. I'm hoping for a better outcome for Maddy and Adam.