A Twitter backlash made me rethink what I share on social media – and where I stay on tour

After complaining about the cleanliness of a hotel, I was inundated with furious tweets about my apparent snobbery, writes Jenny Eclair. The stress of it made me ill

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A strange thing happened to me last week, I made myself ill, so ill, I convinced myself I had Covid and did a lateral flow test (negative). I still wasn’t convinced, so I sent off for a PCR test but by the time it arrived I was feeling fine, the awful headache had gone and my breathing was less laboured.

Eventually the penny dropped, I was stressed, and stress had triggered a thumping migraine and accompanying palpitations. But why was I so stressed? Well, it’s a bit of a saga and the stress was sort of self-inflicted but certainly not deliberate.

What happened is this. I’d been to The Isle of Wight and complained on Twitter about the standards of a certain hotel, referring to it as a “derelict flophouse”. At the time, I refrained from naming the hotel on social media, just posted a photo of me looking miserable in the room. Within 30 minutes, I’d received a barrage of furious tweets about my apparent snobbery.

Hmm, I wasn’t really being snobby. Although admittedly I can be an awful snob about interiors – and many, many hotel rooms offend my aesthetic principles – I don’t really kick off about cushions and wallpaper, I kick off when a hotel is dirty.

This hotel was dirty. My tour manager and I knew we were in trouble as soon as we pulled onto the forecourt where weeds abounded and there was a discarded coke can on the front lawn.

We had obviously made a mistake; I just didn’t know I was going to pay for it on social media.

Ok, so this is how my tours work, I have a tour budget that includes hotel costs and my tour manager, who also drives and does all the theatre technical stuff, books the rooms. Post-Covid, UK hotels have gone through the roof and occasionally we crash our budget.

Basically, we’d overspent in Exeter and Devon and needed to claw some cash back on The Isle of Wight, where we both felt pretty confident of ending up somewhere cheap and cheerful rather than downright squalid. What can I say? We were very unlucky.

The hotel was cheap, but decidedly uncheerful, it was grotty and certainly didn’t match the photos on the website. I casually made my feelings known on Twitter and in doing so, upset a lot of people including some locals, who felt I was attacking the island and not just the hotel.

Sadly, considering we needed to get to the theatre for a sound and lights check, some microwaved soup and a costume iron etc., we didn’t have time to trawl the internet for nicer accommodation. It was half-term, all the usual budget chains were full and there were no last-minute deals to be had, but considering it was just one night and fortunately I travel with my own pillow, I decided to get a grip. After all, when I first toured in the Eighties, an en suite was considered the height of luxury.

Then, just before the show started, I was idly browsing my phone, when it became apparent that the local paper had picked up the story and I wasn’t coming out of the situation very well.

Instantly, I became consumed with a sense of dread and paranoia, not enough to put me off doing the show obviously, but I was shaken. During the second half, I confided in my audience about what was going on, outed the hotel and an audible groan greeted the mention of its name.

In the meantime, while I was onstage, the number of tweets accusing me of being a diva continued to grow and I felt terrible.

Let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep that night. The combination of social media disapproval and the prospect of a night in the hotel made me twitchy.

However, in the morning an audience member alerted me to the fact that back in July, the place in question had been closed due to unsatisfactory health and hygiene standards.

Finally, I felt justified, the dangerous gas and electricity issues had obviously been tackled prior to reopening, but in my opinion the hotel was still relentlessly down at heel. There was a long black hair attached to my toilet lid, a dead spider on the bathroom floor, ripped net curtains, what looked to me to be a soiled pillowcase, a filthy skirting board, bulb free lamps above the bed and a deceased moth on the windowsill. I took forensic photographs and the Twitter protests dwindled.

In terms of social media spats, it wasn’t particularly vicious, but I felt very bruised by the experience, and it took two days to get over it.

So, what have I learned? That Tripadvisor is definitely worth checking, that people on social media will take offence at anything, that many people haven’t a clue how touring works and that people hate you if they think you’re an uppity cow.

Hmm so am I an uppity cow? Well, I think perhaps I am, if by being an uppity cow you mean I require a a certain standard of cleanliness, even in the cheapest hotel. Yeah, take that Twitter.