26 replies to this topic

[Backdrifter]

My favourite is the Landor - very friendly, nice food and a great place for celeb-spotting and seeing (hopefully) future stars.

Good tip - thanks. As I said, I'm already a confirmed frequenter of various fringe places but want to add to this. So, any more tips from anyone greatly appreciated.

[Jaybee]

Is there a definitive comprehensive listing of all London fringe venues? A few websites I've looked at have very selective listings.

As a Londoner, and an avid theatregoer, I'd like to try visiting each venue. Although I've already missed a few that have closed before I could get to them.

Has anyone here done them all, to their knowledge?

How annoying must it be when you post a simple question and everyone has to chip in, without actually having the answer.
Here: all london theatres, from the best-known West End to the tiniest fringe. happy visiting. http://www.fringereport.com/venues.shtml

[armadillo]

What was cliquey about it? I usually go with friends so obviously then we'd be talking in a  group before the show but that would obviously apply wherever we went. When I've been on my own, I just read a book which would be the same anywhere and I'm not bothered by others chatting. Obviously the cast come out and have a drink in the bar afterwards but surely you wouldn't expect them to go somewhere else as it's a pub theatre? And anyway, I'm usually there to see the show rather than the audience!

It does good and varied stuff and it's quite easy to get to - just a couple of blocks from Clapham North. Easier than the Almeida or Hampstead or Greenwich (well, for me, anyway!).

[Backdrifter]

Jaybee thanks for the weblink, that's pretty comprehensive - even though I still think there's the odd one or two I didn't see on the list but by overlapping all the lists I've found, I reckon I've got them all covered now. The Big Fringe Theatre Push begins! By the way I appreciate your sympathetic comments but I actually don't mind a thread developing like this and spinning off into other areas - its one of the beauties of these message boards, I think. We're discussing fringe theatres and that's okay with me.

By the way, after saying I don't find them cliquey - I might have to revise that after my first (and I suspect only) visit last night to Upstairs At The Gatehouse, to see Keeler. The play was poor, that's not the fault of the theatre itself as such, and the theatre was actually okay. It's a fairly typical upstairs-at-a-pub venue, very like an Edinburgh fringe venue, welcoming and friendly and very proud of itself in a good way - I enjoyed scrutinising the many photos, news clippings and old posters up on the walls. But the audience... Skylight jokingly suggested I'm a social butterfly and there is actually some truth in that but rarely have I felt so out of place as I did last night among the Highgate villagers.

An unpleasant footnote (don't read any further if you want to avoid mentions of puke): a (literal) stain on the elegance of Highgate village with its genteel little parade of shops and its security-gated residences - as I marched back down the hill towards the tube, a black cab was pulled over while its passenger stood next to it, having just disgorged the contents of his stomach in the gutter and delicately dabbing at his face with a tissue before climbing back in and being sped away by a no-doubt twitchy driver. "Oh that's nice" I thought, then turned the corner into Archway Road and was greeted by a virtual lake of vomit, to the extent that I had to skip this way and that all the way to the station to avoid going for a swim in it. What the hell was happening in Highgate last night?!

[armadillo]

Have you ever been to the Finborough, Backdrifter? Chelsea fans downstairs and posh Earls Court ladies who lunch watching Noel Coward upstairs. It's quite a contrast!

[El Peter]

For me, it's mainly the National, medium-size and small and fringe venues that make London Theatre bearable. More interesting plays and generally cheaper than the big West End theatres whose ubiquitous musicals and high prices are a double deterrent (of which I am not complaining), it's the smaller places that I find so welcoming and which give distinction to the city's cultural landscape.

[Backdrifter]

Have you ever been to the Finborough, Backdrifter? Chelsea fans downstairs and posh Earls Court ladies who lunch watching Noel Coward upstairs. It's quite a contrast!

Heh heh heh - no I haven't! But I plan to. This year I'm planning to tick off as many of the fringe venues as I can.

Which gives me an idea for another thread...

[El Peter]

The Finborough has put on interesting-looking plays yet I've never gone beyond inquiring, telephoning the once, to an 0870 number, and being told things I didn't want to know but which I was paying to be told. There's far more than the Finborough that does this, which is one reason why I won't use 0870 numbers nor pay spurious booking fees. It limits my theatre-going, and I'm happily complicit in this process.