Watching snooker is like a large-scale piece of experimental theatre

Technically, I shouldn’t be allowed to write this column because the whole point is that I’m not meant to know anything about the sport I’m going to watch. I shouldn’t have gone to watch the snooker because I have played pool many times in my life.

However, the “technically” here is load-bearing as I am very, very bad at pool. No, worse than that. I promise you, you’ve never met anyone as bad as me. I once got screamed at by a regular in a bar in Brooklyn because she’d suggested a game and it turns out I was so bad she thought I was taking the piss. That bad.

As a result, I like playing my own special version of pool, which involves getting one point for hitting a ball – basically any ball – and several points for getting a ball into a hole. What this means in practice is that I walked into the room in Alexandra Palace, in north London, and I felt about as well-informed as a newborn lamb. “Oh, surely I’ll pick it up as it goes along,” I thought. Rarely have I been more wrong.

Some people were wearing jaunty little ear pieces in the audience, which gave them access to the running commentary, but I didn’t get one because I thought it would spoil the fun, somehow, so instead what I got was silence. That’s the thing that shocked me most about snooker: the room is entirely, oppressively silent.

Sometimes there is some light, polite clapping, or a small “oooh” echoing around the room, but that’s it. I could tell the atmosphere was tense and getting more so, but I had no idea why. Why were people happy? Why were they disappointed? Don’t ask me! None of it made sense to me. I only knew Marie Rules, and those weren’t helping me one bit.

Though it made me feel awkward at first, I soon began to treat it as a large-scale piece of experimental theatre, put together for me specifically, the only real audience member. Seen through that lens, it soon became fascinating – and hysterical. At some point, the screens above the table lingered for several seconds on a close shot of the white ball, and I had to bite the sleeve of my jumper in order not to laugh out loud. What did it mean? Who is she, this white ball? What is she trying to tell us? Was the real snooker inside us all along?

I could have cheated and looked up the rules during the break but I decided not to. I was having too much fun that way. The more that happened, the less I understood, and the more captivating it got. At one point towards the end, I watched one of the Marks – obviously both players were called Mark – prepare for a tricky shot.

This affable, chubby, middle-aged bloke hoisted himself up on the table and ended up practically lying there on the green carpet, looking like one half of a couple going for a drunken fumble. Everyone in the room held their breath. You could have heard a pin drop.

Those few seconds made me feel so deeply, maddeningly in love with humanity. As a complete outsider, what was happening in front of me felt silly and absurd beyond words. Still, there were hundreds of people there, caring so deeply about the game. I adored it! It made me feel so good about us, as a species. We just love ascribing meaning to the most random of things then taking them incredibly seriously. It’’s one of the things we do best. I hope we never stop.

Photograph by Adam Davy / PA Wire