81 replies to this topic

[armadillo]

Weez, on 04 February 2011 - 08:49 AM, said:

Hypothetical situation time! Let's say it comes to a theatre and proves immensely popular, selling out at weekends, 80-90% capacity the rest of the time. While internet message boards full of theatre "cognoscenti" are complaining about the lack of originality in the West End, our parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, and colleagues are going to see this play and loving it. It's a financial success, everyone is filled with praise for the cast who were pretty unknown before but are now being offered roles in forthcoming major TV drama series, while the creative team don't know which way to turn for all the job offers that are now being hurled at their doorsteps.

Got all that? Good! Now, please explain to me how that would be a waste of a theatre.

As long as there is an audience for a production, it is discourteous and inaccurate to say it is a waste of a theatre. There's a lot more of the General Public than there are of us message board denizens, so please don't be too shocked when I tell you that theatre is not being produced exclusively for and with high hopes of pleasing exclusively us.

Indeed - some people seem to be channelling Michael Billington's latest blog in which he fulminates against the wrong sort of tickets being sold

http://www.guardian....ces?INTCMP=SRCH

If every theatre had a show I wanted to see, I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway so what would be the point?

[Jan Brock]

Weez, on 04 February 2011 - 09:27 AM, said:

See my last paragraph about how theatre is aimed at FAR more people than just you or me.

Yes, but you seem to think that that is a good thing. I don't.

[Weez]

Really? You think it would be better if theatre only appealed to the few, to some sort of elite, and therefore never made any money, resulting in no work for anyone and no possibilities for any new works to appear and to grow? Well, each to his own, but I'd rather take the rough with the smooth and have a thriving theatre scene, even though I know not all the shows are going to appeal to me and - horrors! - not all of them are even going to be any good.

[Kathryn2]

armadillo, on 04 February 2011 - 09:44 AM, said:

Indeed - some people seem to be channelling Michael Billington's latest blog in which he fulminates against the wrong sort of tickets being sold

http://www.guardian....ces?INTCMP=SRCH

If every theatre had a show I wanted to see, I wouldn't be able to afford it anyway so what would be the point?

He does have a point about ticket prices, though. It's ridiculous that it costs so much to sit in the balconies of most theatres, and that you can be charged £75 for a 'premium' seat and £60 for the seat next to it which is just slightly less central.

[Weez]

Billington's point about ticket prices is both well-made and very true. It is also tangential to the idea that a theatre is wasted unless showing something that will only appeal to a minority of snobs.

[igb]

Weez, on 04 February 2011 - 08:49 AM, said:

As long as there is an audience for a production, it is discourteous and inaccurate to say it is a waste of a theatre.

I want to see Billington review "Nude Jello Wrestling at the Barbican".

[dude-1981]

I meant a waste of a house from my point of view Weez.  And I'm sure this would sell well, but I can't understand why.  Most of the people going would have seen the film only a few months earlier, I, personally do see what they would be getting out of it.  But then I very rarely watch a film twice, never re-read a book, have never seen the same production twice and so on, so I am a poor judge.

[Jan Brock]

igb, on 04 February 2011 - 12:47 PM, said:

I want to see Billington review "Nude Jello Wrestling at the Barbican".

I still remember with great pleasure (even though it was many years ago) Billington's review of some sort of fringe theatre event where as part of the performance they chucked a bucket of water over him. These days he'd just hand a bus ticket and a pac-a-mac to Lyn Gardner.

[Whenindisgrace]

Amazing cast for this (The King's Speech).  I knew Charles Edwards and Jonathan Hyde were in it, but Emma Fielding and Joss Ackland too!  Very impressed.  Though I can't see the point of it at all.  

Adrian Noble will also be directing a Tempest in the summer in Bath, though no casting has been announced.  Does the world need another Tempest so soon after the last one?  And I'm not being London-centric here.  Last year Bristol had a Tobacco Factory one; the year before Bath had Antony Sher.  This summer there is David Farr's at Stratford.

The summer season in Bath also includes Terry Johnson reviving his own play Hysteria (the one about Dalí and Freud) with Antony Sher as Freud.  That is an enticing prospect - I loved the original production at the Royal Court.  And Jamie Lloyd directing School for Scandal.

[Jan Brock]

Cast on the basis of "let's get someone who looks a bit like the corresponding actor in the film". Failed dismally for "Cool Hand Luke".

As an aside, the RSC didn't transfer the Patrick Stewart "Merchant of Venice" to the West End because they couldn't find a theatre for it so I can't imagine this production will fare any better.