SO WHAT’S your ideal day out? The chance of a bargain and an opportunity to queue?

The bad news is that if that’s your perfect double, you’ve just missed it - possibly for another four years!

Strange, I know, but last Saturday, that is exactly how some people kicked off their weekend. So explain it to me could you?

Just why would over a thousand people line up to forage through rack after rack and box after box of second-hand clothing, some of which might well attract a few stares, but not all, it has to be said, for the right reason?

Yes, I know that there are a great many bargains to be had from charity and second-hand shops across the nation.

Thriftiness is never to be knocked and creativity is but to be sighed over, especially when what you thought was old curtain is whisked from under your nose and whipped up into an outfit that is both cheap and stunningly cheerful.

All of that I understand, but I’ve yet to fathom the kind of tenacity shown by those who queued last weekend hoping to find something that was rather better than a cast-off from the dressing up box.

That said, this was after all, the mother of all dressing up boxes that was being turfed out. The cast-offs no less of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

It seems that they have rather a lot of them. After four months of the kind of mix, matching and accessorising that even Gok Wan, fashion’s sequin and stapler to the stars, would have been impressed by, the RSC racked up no fewer than 10,000 bits and bobs.

It makes any girl’s wardrobe clear-out look like none of us are trying. Not even Imelda Marcos, normally a shoo in for number one collector of designer slingbacks could have competed here.

Bring ’em on. Spear carriers’ er, spears, over there. Sir Ian’s shirts over there and Who’s ....?

Sorry darling, if any of that came anywhere near David Tennant, take it to the building next door. He’ll have a queue of his own.

Well he probably had. First fan out of the starting blocks in pursuit of a piece of the divine David’s apparel was Jane Hewson.

Sensible Jane showed up in Stratford-upon-Avon having done her research.

Her costume for this bold adventure included her very own thick hat and two pairs of gloves.

She supplied her own props – one foldaway chair and one sleeping bag and did what you might expect. She queued.

And very soon, someone correctly picked up her cue, which in theatre parlance means that the next person in this unfolding scenario noted her action and responded. They formed the next link in a very different queue right alongside her.

And there you have it. Spontaneity, engagement, the very things that art is all about.

Ten undoubtedly chilly hours after Jane first took up her supporting role, somewhere presumably downstage of the RSC workshops rooms where the sale took place, the first bargains were snapped up.

Now I don’t doubt that many of the items bought will have been beautifully crafted and made by the highly skilled people who help to create some of the best quality stage productions in the country.

But queuing for hours for a pair of David Tennant’s slippers, or a selection of shirts worn by Sir Ian McKellen in The Seagull doesn’t quite cut it with me.

The RSC admits that its wardrobe doors are bursting with a staggering 400,000 items. Some will undoubtedly have great historic and artistic connections attached to them. A lot will not.

Is it sceptical to think that the former are the things still firmly under lock and key or better still on display for us all to share – and that last weekend’s foray into Bargain Hunt was all just a bit of theatre.

After all, a great publicly funded body like the RSC will have had every remake and hire possible out of a costume before casting it out on to the reject pile!

And while great acting might be influenced by costume there’s no substitute for the person inside any amount of chain-mail or tulle.

So to the person who got David Tennant’s slippers. Enjoy.

But I think I’d have got more for my money by spending it at the box office, on a ticket. That’s where the real magic of theatre is.