EmiCardiff

All I am asking is why do people feel the need to take a picture of everything they see. After all the set at the beginning of Peter and Alice is only rows and rows of books. Why is that so interesting that a picture must be taken of it!

BurlyBeaR, on 29 April 2013 - 12:41 AM, said:

I've been trying to think how to answer this post for a while. I don't want it to sound patronising at all. I think if the first time I saw the show was on tour with that bus, then I would've enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I saw it in London. However, having seen it in London first, seeing this touring bus would be a huge let-down, there's no way around it - it's not as impressive. You do pay more for top price tickets in London so you expect more.

The bus is obviously a massive problem for touring this show - the show's named after it for crying out loud.

The shows that I've seen in London and on tour that I know best are Starlight and Sister Act. The best adaptation from London is Sister Act. Yes, the set in London was huge and moved a lot more but the only bit which suffered slightly on tour was the Fabulous, Baby reprise as the Nuns weren't on their platform at the back so weren't as easy to see from the stalls. However the set NEVER affected the plot.

The opposite can be said for Starlight. It was inevitable as there was no way they could've toured the London set round the country. The races have been turned into 3D film. For someone who's seen the show in London (and in Germany in its purpose-built Theatre) the tour is missing something despite the amazing cast on the most recent tour.

Basically, once you've seen a show, you can't unsee it. This is why the Priscilla bus looks disappointing. Those who saw Starlight on your for the first time probably enjoyed it as much as I did in London but I did not because I'd seen it done on a bigger scale. There is no way around this as touring productions need to have sets which can be moved more easily. You, and the producers, however, must expect that people who saw the London production of Priscilla will be disappointed by the touring bus and we should be able to express it - especially on a Message Board for opinions on the Theatre.

EmiCardiff, on 08 May 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

  I suspect more or less every woman over 45 there is motivated by Allam fangirlishness...

Coggit, on 07 May 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

Yes that't the one.  Oh my how I disliked it.  David Essex appeared to be the only one trying.  Having see the OLC I felt it was very inferior.  I didn't like the lighting, sound (but then I often have issues with the sound quality at The Mayflower) or the set. We all have different takes on shows though. Sorry off topic

The only time I heard booing at a play was in New York a few years ago at a performance of Sly Fox, Larry Gelbart's take on Volpone.  Richard Dreyfuss was the star (at a time when he could still be bothered to act) and when his bow turn came a man near the front emitted a loud BOO.  The cast were all in a jolly mood - the show had gone well - but Dreyfuss was clearly taken aback.  I could hear him saying to the actors next to him... "A boo?  I get a boo?"  The others seemed to find it funny - not sure he did.

I would just withhold my applause if I thought a show was that bad; I've only done this once at a touring production of Aspects of Love. Totally dire. My parents went the following night and left during the interval.  I reserved any booing for panto which is acceptable.  I think it's hard enough for the actors to struggle through a duff show without the audience making it worse

Why does everything on TV or at the theatre have to involve contemporary culture- by which I presume you mean appeal to young people? Hello- but the world does not revolve around young people!
I pay a licence fee like anyone else- so why should new programmes have to appeal just to the "yoof" market? I personally found it funny, along with the following programme Job Lot- OK they cannot replace the drama of Broadchurch- but for goodness sake people- make up your own minds about something instead of waiting for a review to come out you before you watch something.

You do realise there is the technology now if you go on Iplayer or Catchup and  start watching and don't like it - they have invented a stop button.

EmiCardiff, maybe you also saw Caligula by David Greig after Albert Camus in Cardiff last week? The senators were played by local senior citizen community performers and they were seated amongst the audience. They muttered audibly to each other all the time while the senate was being addressed by Caligula. I guess these comments were improvised in rehearsal but they must have been carefully selected because some of them were hilarious. My favourite was towards the end when Caligula, becoming ever more extreme, rhetorically demanded of the assembled senate: "Do you ever think how it is to be me, in my position?" and one of the elderly senators quietly and nonchalantly responded with a quiet: "Not really...", which brought the house down.

In general 'theatre at the cinema' is a good thing for the kind of reasons other posters have mentioned. That people well beyond London and for whom NT provincial tours do not include their local city, can now see NT productions presented to theatre audiences while they sit with their fellow audience members in a cinema is a wonderful thing. It makes the community of those interested in theatre much larger.

Maybe theatres will have to start doing "relaxed" performances for BB adults !

Special matinees where everyone can come & go as they please, eat, drink & be merry, sing along loudly, chat & explain the plot to their companions, take pics & video, tweet & blog during the show, answer phonecalls & take a nap if tthey wish. And the cast just have to be very tolerant & carry on in good humour...

As theatre staff, it sometimes is difficult to deal with problems immediately, despite how frustrating they can be to other customers.  I work in a receiving-house theatre, and each company gives us instructions on how they want issues dealing with - for example at present we are not allowed to use our torches to get a customers attention except from extreme circumstances (constant flash photography during a performance, for example).  This can often mean that whilst we are perfectly aware that somebody is taking photos or being noisy, unless they are sat within a few seats of an aisle there is not a lot that we can do besides collar them at the interval.

From the production's point of view, I guess customer complaints and the necessary compensation relating to one disruptive customer is less damaging than a dozen complaints due to Front of House staff being noisy going up and down stairs and flashing torches half way across rows!

There should be no food at the theatre regardless of where you buy it. It's not beyond the realms of possibility to go for 2.5hrs without food. Eat before you go to the theatre or eat after, not during. I don't care if it's a McFlurry, theatre bought ice cream or a picnic (as per a tweet of mine from long past) it's really NOT necessary.  Heck I love my food but I can manage a few hours without it.

New on this forum so this might have already been said but, whilst I'm not necessarily condoning people bringing their own food into theatres, if theatres didn't charge so much for food/drinks then people might not feel the need to bring their own in? Just a thought...

I was initially sceptical about this and having not been to see one yet, I still am. However I was recently at a wedding and got speaking to a guy who manages a theatre in Bournemouth. They have put on the Met Opera a couple of times there and I believe are soon to do one of the NT productions and he said they sell out these events. For me, selling out theatres that wouldnt normally have that kind of attendance has always got to be a good thing. Theatre has to embrace the digital age in one way or another, at least in a theatre/cinema setting they have the sound set up to recreate the type of sound you'd get in the actual theatre. Something I'm a little more dubious about is DigitalTheatre as there is no way you can recreate the feel of a theatrical performance through a laptop/ipad.

Welcome EmiCardiff to the Board. Keep posting.