It occurs to me as we head towards my landmark birthday that is somewhere between 59 and 61, that I have been attending live theatre as an adult making my own decisions for some 45 years. In that time I have seen commercial theatre change radically, sometimes for the good and sometimes less so. Going to the box office with cash in your hand, and to be handed tickets ripped from a book seems like the dark ages today but that is exactly how it was on many occasions. We could of course still make a phone booking if we couldn't get to the theatre, and for West End shows this was always the case, and you would always rely on the knowledge of the box office clerk on the end of the phone when it comes to choice of seats, and mostly their advice was always spot on because of course, they had years of experience doing just that. Today the world is a very very different place. People are different, and it has to be said more demanding, more entitled and this is where the shared experience of theatre sometimes ceases to be the joy it once was in my opinion. But lets start with the journey we all take.
THE HYPE
Very often today social media platforms are where the hype starts. The show could be a completely original project (getting rarer) or it could be a revival or more likely in musical theatre a version of our favourite movie or a project starring an actor or actress (they/them... whatever floats your boat) which is where the major interest lies. We will be informed via some fancy graphics that tickets will be going on sale on a specific date although at this point very little is revealed as per costings of said tickets or performance schedule. This is the point the producers sell us 'the dream'. This leaves us full of longing and anticipation. Particularly if its a chance to see your favourite performer in a much loved show. Whilst we are on the subject of the advertising it will generally say BIG STAR in NAME OF PLAY. But omits to mention that some members of the cast will only be performing a certain number of times a week. Now I am the first to agree that an unexpected illness or a family emergency is out of everyone's hands. But it is disappointing that some performers are contracted to a certain schedule, which isn't made clear to the audience at the time of booking. Where possibly clarity should always come first. The producers make sure they are covered with a term and condition of the booking which says "The producers cannot guarantee the appearance of cast members" or similar. But if there are performances where well known performers are not contracted to perform (ie mid-weeks matinees, Monday evenings etc.) this again should be marked at the time of booking. Not for the audience to turn up and find that this is the case. So anyway, if this marketing strategy works we will all be sitting by our computers or mobiles waiting for the release of said show to the website of choice. For high demand shows, we will sit in a queue and eventually be given access to the tickets...
THE BOOKING
After the wait comes the reality. We get into our booking screen and choose the performance of our choice when we see probably for the first time the range of prices. Fuck! Yep, theatre is expensive. If you have got a few years on the clock like myself, you are no longer interested in sitting in the upper circle looking down from a cloud at the tops of performers heads. You need to be able to clearly see the faces and hear the dialogue / music. That means inevitably front / centre stalls or front circle. That always puts me in the price bands A or B. This is precisely where we find package seats, sometimes called VIP packages or similar which will offer you a programme and a glass of cheap prosecco for an inflated price on top of the original inflated price. Typically a good seat for a West End musical will cost between £90 - £110 or somewhere in that vicinity. This though is increasing steadily. However these can go up to £200+ for a VIP experience. I never book these, I will have a more less price enhanced Baileys on ice in the pub over the road before taking my seat cutting out the need for these money spinners. But even this simple task of choosing a seat is beset with obstacles. Chief among these is the work of the devil - DYNAMIC PRICING. The ability for a producer to increase seat prices at will based on how a performance is selling. So, I could go into show and see seats for £80, go away and talk it over with friends and come back and those same seats are now £105. Producer greed is now a way of life. They call it supply and demand. Yes it is, but its also supply and take the piss. However, this can work the other way. Recently Sting played the Theatre Royal Drury Lane with his musical The Last Ship (one of my favourites) but with reasonably positioned seats for my needs priced £300+ from the off it was a no brainer to leave the booking page without a purchase. It was reported that many performances were less than full during the short run, which I presume the producers were happy with. Over play your hand and people will walk away. Theatre over decades has worked hard not to be an elitist art form, but increasingly it looks like returning to just such a position as the cost of visits is not sustainable to hard working families already struggling with inflation and the cost of living.
Now many London shows will offer ticket lotteries or a tranche of tickets each week at a very economical price. If me and my husband lived in London that would be great, I'd hop on the tube and get to the theatre after work - no problem. However, we live on the border of the Midlands and North West and with train tickets costing in the region of £100 each generally these days to London and back and having jobs that we cannot leave at will, things have to be planned ahead both logistically and financially. So by and large most of these lotteries or apps like Today Tix which offer discounted seats on the day are of little use if we have specific shows we very much want to see. If we were in London and not bothered much about what we saw, then of course there are cheaper options available but that is very rarely the case. Often with evening performances in the West End there are no trains back to our local station after curtain down so an overnight hotel is necessary (again easily £100+ for a room centrally). I'm not moaning about living outside of London, but pointing out the realities of our theatre going habits with West End shows. Of course we are lucky in that regional theatres in our catchment area include Manchester, Leicester, Wolverhampton, Birmingham - so we do get to see some amazing stuff, much closer to home. It is often more pleasurable to visit one of these closer cities than the quagmire of civilisation that is London. But again, its what is on the bucket list to see. Some productions you know you can only experience in London, and are not guaranteed to tour and if they do they will be in some cheaper, cut down form. We have choice, our budget is modest and so we plan very carefully a list of shows which must be seen and those we'd like to see if we have enough money.
THE VENUE & THE AUDIENCE
Ok, so we have our tickets and have driven or taken the train some distance to get to our chosen show. So now we are at the mercy of the theatre and our fellow audience members. Chief bugbear for me are ATG Theatres. They now offer a cinema style experience. Overpriced drinks and confectionary (on top of the overpriced tickets, which can be up to £10 a ticket more expensive than other theatres or theatre chains). And wait for it... buckets of popcorn. Yes we take our seats, the lights go down and from around you you can hear a constant munch, munch, munch from some heffer who simply cannot wait until the interval for further sustenance. Its is the Working Men's Club ethic come to theatre. And then there are people pushing past you to go to the loo and top up their drinks. Theatre etiquette is pretty much now a thing of the past with commercial theatre it would seem. There have been some horror stories hitting the headlines of performances discontinued because members of the audience have been drunk and rowdy during the show. Again entitled behaviour, they figure they have invested in a ticket so are entitled to behave how they please on their night out. But I find the most annoying behaviour of all is a constant stream of discussing a moment that has just happened on stage by a group of friends in front of, or behind you. Again for these people waiting until the interval to discuss their opinions on what they have watched is not an option, they have to have a full on conversation about some aspect of the show whilst the rest of us are trying to take in the ongoing action. I have regularly told people to shut up rather than continue to listen to their babble in the middle of a show. They of course act as if its me disturbing their enjoyment rather than the other way around. Of course much of the time I bite my tongue whilst my mind is turning to thoughts of murder. Again, the experience is diluted because my attention is taken away from the very thing I have paid for and been looking forward to. And I'd like to say it was an isolated experience but I would think that a good 3 out of 5 theatre visits are spoiled in some way by audience behaviour now to varying degrees. Then there is the mobile phone epidemic. Constant glows from phones around you are very distracting. A phone buzzes so someone takes it out and looks at the message coming through, but the blue-ish light emitted catches your eye and again is distracting. Why can't these people just turn off their phones or just wait until the lights go up to check their messages? I know I will be classed as an old moaner for bringing these things up, but its precisely these things that make a visit to the theatre increasingly a bitter-sweet experience. The theatres themselves don't care. Mostly the ushers are nowhere to be seen, they've got your ticket money and snacks / drinks purchases for many of the audience. They are happy with the status quo, I can put up with the odd bit of distraction here and there but it goes away beyond that on occasion.
The actual seating can be a deciding factor in just how much you enjoy your night out too. Lots of venues have amazingly comfy seats, which can be a godsend when a production careers towards a 3 hour mark, which some do. Likewise, there are a few theatres (mostly older ones) that offer a seating experience which borders on torture for the lack of cushioning and minimal leg room. Having booked Nanny McPhee The Musical for the Aldwych next year, we know we face an evening of discomfort as it has to be one of the worst offenders in the West End. Even the ticket has seat dimensions printed on them. But what choice do we have if we want to see the new show? My husband is 6 feet 3 inches tall and so legroom is a major factor for us, and we generally have to find aisle seats to make sure there is some room available in case the seat in front is a little too close for long term comfort.
THE SHOW
Having gotten through all of the above, this is the bit that should make it all worthwhile. That is if your favourite performer is actually performing that night and there are no show stops. Technical show stops have become a regular feature of theatre nights out with productions employing more elaborate scene changes which bring current health and safety factors to the fore. A short show stop is usually what the audience experience but from time to time performances have to be abandoned as a result. Recently when attending the musical Pride at the National Theatre, a piece of scenery got stuck halfway up when flying out of the scene. This resulted in a 10 minute show stop, and as there was only about a quarter of an hour of the performance remaining, the decision was taken to perform the rest of the show with the scenery still in its position. It didn't spoil the experience, but was merely a slight annoyance. This is live theatre and anything can happen. And sometimes does. In todays digital age of technology, the sound in theatres is better than its ever been and the mixing of the voices vs. the band is generally down to the Sound Engineer on duty that night. Its at this point in the journey that the Dream is fully realised. When you see a play or a show that penetrates your soul, there is nothing like it on earth. Not every play or show will, but when it happens it is almost a religious experience. In my 45 years of going to the theatre, I must have seen well over a thousand theatre productions, it is an obsession and as much of a drug as any opiate. I still battle through the current downside of the mass theatre experience to get to that high. Theatres need to do more in educating those fed on computer games and streaming the behaviour expected of them when they enter the building. Sometimes just a graphic of a mobile phone with a cross through it just isn't enough. And there has to be better enforcement of those restrictions too.
British theatre remains the envy of the world, we are one of the most cultured nations on earth. Productions have tried to embrace multi-media using cameras and projections, but this is a side step - live performers in a real time setting is what sets the theatre as unique from the technology that has infiltrated our lives. Some of our best experiences of late have been in smaller venues, where these tricks are not relied on. The theatre has to evolve of course, but along the way never losing that core magic of real life performance.
I am happy that the theatre bug claimed me in my teens. It has given me the best life, travelling and experiencing places and people I would never had access to. I hope future generations can enjoy the experiences I have had without the increasing disruption to that experience. I live in hope that visiting a live performance remains a thrill for everyone. The future rests in the hands of the theatres themselves and equally those of us who continue to attend. We need each other at the top of our game.
So endeth this lesson
Rob
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