Saw the second preview of this and thought it had a lot to recommend it. It was my first trip to the Chocolate Factory and I did the meal deal (during previews this is £29 for a two course meal in their very pleasant restaurant - fantastic service, good Eton Mess - and tickets - probably not the best tickets, we were diagonally positioned towards the stage - but absolutely fine.) Every single seat in the theatre was filled.

It's a farce which depends on lots of door slamming and surprise entrances and offstage sound effects which I thought would be difficult in such a small space, but actually worked really well (very funny 'appearances' from an dog.) Edward Baker-Duly as the caddish Clive was excellent - and also sings very well (funny line when Gerald Popkiss complains about him holding Rhoda's hand 'trying to sing.' ) Mark Hadfield was also v. good and memorable in golfing shorts.

So for an absolutely light-hearted, escapist, trip back to another era (with daily women, cigarette cases and dressing gowns) this makes a fun evening out. My favourite bit was 'I found some biscuits' - when you see it, you'll know why.

One odd thing - there seems to be a nightclub next door and halfway through the third act loud music came pounding into the auditorium. Does that always happen?

The club is called XXL and it’s for larger hairy gay men and their admirers known as Bears and Cubs. When I recently saw Trevor Nunn’s (uninspiring) production of A little night music it gave a drum beat to send in the clowns. It’s really quite annoying.

In the future I will book for week days (but I think XXL may be open on Wednesday’s) or for matinees

Ah, that would explain it. I went on their website - I'll have some explaining to do if my laptop is ever confiscated - they are advertising some 'fur-filled' nights and a special leather event in early May and they are very local. According to their opening hours they run on Wednesdays and Saturdays - I was at the Menier on a Friday, so maybe that was a special event?? It really did break the atmosphere of the last act, you could see some of the audience looking around with 'What the....?' expressions on their faces and it must be a real treat during musicals!

In a recent BBC interview Maureen Lipmann explained that once she stormed round to the club (in her 1900’s Swedish costume) to complain about the noise only to be told it was a Skins party. Skins as in the TV series not for Combat 18 and their admires! So I guess we can’t guarantee silence. Bummer

How funny! The Menier is going to be presenting 'Forbidden Broadway' this summer. Maybe they could work the XXL nightclub/Send in the Clowns/Maureen Lipmann in costume into one of their numbers ('Send in the Bears?')

Apparently when Connie Fisher was doing They're Playing Our Song (in which she wore a rather striking and not entirely convincing red wig) she had a fast costume change whilst running from one side of the stage to the other; she made it easier by taking a shortcut round the back of the theatre and past XXL and the club's smoking area. She often got a round of applause.

I had a friend there who spotted her. His companion didn't recognize her and said: 'why is that drag queen running away in his underwear....?!'

Oh great - I'm seeing it on Wednesday so no doubt I have the backbeat to look forward to. I'm also on the meal deal, what flavour Eton Mess is it?

By the way, should this thread be in the Off West End forum? It's usually pretty thin & undernourished and could do with feeding up and a few more visitors.

Done!

i still don't really get the point of this section. a play is a play regardless of which theatre it's on at

Beat me to it. As a professional librarian I would ask exactly the same thing. Moving posts just to fill an underused section does mean that fewer people are likely to read it.

quite a few of us moaned at the time about the setting up of this section and perhaps the fact that this section is so under used demonstates the point.

could wos give us one of their explanations for this area?

I saw this at the matinee last Saturday - when, fortunately, XXL was not in session - & agree with most of these comments. Edward Baker-Duly was certainly excellent but, for me, the main honours go to the ever-excellent Neil Stuke who must be totally knackered after each performance. (Can't wait to see him play CJ in the new Reggie Perrin) I was also facing the stage diagonally and, whilst the sightline presented no problem, I found the seat incredibly uncomfortable on the bottom ( Memo to Menier : Soft padding on seats please!) Incidentally there were a couple of rows of empty seats but, for it's pure energy, this deserves a packed house every night.

It was my post that prompted the move - I mentioned it partly as I think it's a shame this section, which in theory should be buzzing, is so quiet and unpopulated. But perhaps I should just finally accept that people on this board aren't very interested in fringe & off-West End stuff. Before this separate forum was created, I'd regularly start threads in the Plays forum about fringe productions I'd seen, only to see them sink without any responses. So right from then it was clear that aspect of theatregoing didn't attract any discussion.

I naively thought if some of the off-West End stuff that does get some attention, like the Menier and the Almeida, were posted here it would generate a bit more life in this forum. But I suppose, as Trev said, it's more likely to kill those threads as people just don't visit this forum. To me it's a chicken-and-egg situation - if people routinely posted their Off West End threads here, then it wouldn't be so quiet. But by now I think WoS have to realise members just won't visit here. And despite having tried to champion it, I think they should consider whether to retain it. Either way, it won't make that much difference - you'll have either fringe threads that languish unread here, or ones that sink beneath the tide of west End threads in a general Plays forum.

It's a shame, considering the breadth of theatre experiences there are not just in Greater London, but throughout the UK - check the "Regional" forum for a similar lack of posting activity. I think it's laudable for WoS to have those sections, and it's such a pity that some people felt they had to "moan" about this forum being set up, but in terms of this message board the focus is almost entirely on what's on the stages of the London West End and the NT.

Just looked back at WoS's thread about the starting-up of this forum - and here I am agreeing with another poster that it probably won't be used much! See also my post immediately after. I'm guessing WoS's thinking was along the lines of what I said - that many of the fringe/regional threads don't get much of a chance to breathe in the main Plays forum.

Foot note: a very quick scan through the 45 or so threads started in Plays during April indicated that about 20 of them were either regional or fringe/off West End related. So you can argue either this shows there's no need for the separate forums, or that the separate forums would actually be quite active if people used them. But I still say WoS have to consider the fact that we simply don't seem to want to make them active.

I usually post under 'plays' wherever it is on, Almeida or Hampstead or Arcola, just three places I have visited off West End. Not v adventurous! I agree it is a pity we don't cover the fringe better.

Reich and Trev, I'm with you. Like Lynette, I post under Plays wherever it is on - it's not like people are posting about 20 or 30 plays a day in the Play section so the fringe ones get lost - if they have some general appeal or interest then they do get follow up comments (like the Tusk Tusk thread - or this one, until it was moved.)