The theatre

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Ocean at the End of the Lane - based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, adapted by Joel Horwood at The New Wimbledon Theatre - I'm fairly sceptical with Neil Gaiman these days, after being a having been a big fan of his in the late eighties / nineties, but a friend saw it when it was playing in the West End and really rated it. It's now on tour and I got tickets for the front row of the upper circle for £16.80, and am genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed. If you've read a lot of Gaiman / fantasy then there'll be probably little new here for you, but I was really impressed with the characterisation, and the cast were on great form, the script had a good few, smart and funny lines, and the effects are quite stunning in places (the hand emerging from the bath, Ursulla's door games, the final attack by the hunger birds). Thematically it's not that deep, and the ideas about the importance of stories and being creative are less than subtle, but I really enjoyed this, and for once would have happily stayed in this unusual world for longer. 4.5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Back in 2020 I posted the following in the "Culture Consumed In Quarantine" thread:

Eugenius - A really fun stage musical that the makers have put up a video of on Facebook, it's all about a teenager in the 1980's who's writing a superhero comic that a Hollywood producer becomes interested in, and is packed full of nerd culture references in a non-annoying way, the songs are all fantastic and it's great in general. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=519159602015175

Now it's back in an all new "reworked" version, whatever that means, at The Turbine Theatre and I didn't enjoy it half as much. Now my memory's appalling so I can't remember what the differences were, except that this seemed to be trying far too hard to be a cult, camp musical, and a lot of the jokes weren't getting any reaction from the audience. I still liked the majority of the songs, but for a musical that sells itself as a celebration of geek culture it got quite a few things wrong, like a song about love contains the line "Batman never had to deal with all that stuff", whereas anyone with a passing knowledge of the character would know about his romps with Selina Kyle (and 11 others - https://www.cbr.com/batman-bruce-wayne-major-love-interests-chronological-order/#julie-madison---detective-comics-31-1939) and while that might seem petty I really think it's big problem that the musical has, in that it only has a surface level knowledge of the subject, and there were quite a few other references which didn't work either. Hmmmm, I don't know, maybe if I hadn't seen the 2020 version I'd have lowered my expectations and enjoyed it more, and I did still quite like parts of it, just not as many as I thought I would. 3.5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Splintered at the Soho Theatre - A selection of monologues and short plays based on interviews the writer carried out, its three cast members explore the Caribbean and Queerness, in what was a sometimes funny but sometimes emotive piece. It's extremely well performed and it gave a real insight in to a part of the world where being gay is sadly still illegal in certain places, and due to this why so many women have difficulties coming out to their parents, if they're able to do so at all. Yet at the same time the play discussed finding joy despite such circumstances, especially when it came to carnivals, and how change is gradually still being made, and all of this combined made it a fascinating and engaging production. 4.25/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Beak Speaks by Sarah Thom at Hen and Chickens, Highbury & Islington - Sarah Thom plays an actress who calls herself "The Queen Of The Fringe", and is here to give us all acting tips. Except that's a minor part of the show, the tips aren't all that amusing, and there's lots of use of acronyms which are a bit embarrassing, and in places it echoes Colin Hoult's Anna Mann, though was much, much weaker and made me wish Mann was on stage instead. To be fair it wasn't all average, there's a decent amount of audience participation and those in tonight proved very game for it, there's a slight narrative running throughout the show about Beak ignoring a request to return home and who instead decides the show must go on, and towards the end it suddenly becomes a lot funnier. For reasons I will refuse to explain even if you kidnap and threaten to torture my entire family I saw this for free, and otherwise I'd have been harsher on it, but I just about don't regret seeing it. A generous 2.75/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Oubliette by Tom Barr-Forrest at The Other Place Studio - An extremely odd musical set centuries ago but with modern day vernacular, where Jasper and Scott are living in an Oubliette, a dungeon underneath another dungeon that people are thrown in to when the King wants them to die a slow and miserable death. The duo do anything they can to try and prevent going completely mad, and the inventive directions they attempted often surprised and delighted, allowing the production to play around with a number of different ideas and concepts.  There's a good few supporting characters including an angry Scottish jailer and a wet nurse who feeds them out of pity, while two devilish imps are on hand to represent Scott losing his mind, and given the set up I was surprised by how funny it was, and while it was deliberately foul at the beginning to capture the misery of the situation the humour becomes increasing unpredictable as the play goes on. It also dabbles with the tragedy of their lives, especially when Scott sings of love, and I kept on having this feeling in the back of my mind that this crazy mishmash of ideas shouldn't work, but they were somehow pulling it off, and impressively so too. My only complaint is that there's a period in the second act without any songs which really needs at least one number added, but apart from this it was a play which I found myself captivated by, the cast were superb, and while it's a weird old thing that won't be for everyone, and I can't ever imagine it ever transferring to the west end, I hope it becomes a cult hit at the very least. 4.25/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Re-Member Me by Dickie Beau @ Hampstead Theatre - When this ended a woman sitting next to me who I'd never met or spoken to before turned to me and just couldn't stop saying how great it was - and I was in complete agreement, we spoke to each for about three minutes about how blown away we both were. It's a very unusual piece of theatre too, a mixture of film and a live performance where Dickie Beau lip-syncs to a mixture of interviews he carried out with people like Ian McKellen and Richard Eyre, performances of Hamlet by famous types (though this is only a minor aspect), with the majority of the show being a reflection on a performance of Hamlet by Ian Charleson which sadly was never recorded, and it has been almost forgotten about too as Charleson replaced Daniel Day-Lewis in the late eighties as Day-Lewis quit the role due to exhaustion. Beau is just stunning in this, and it's an absolutely fascinating work, and I think it might also be the best (non-comedy / musical) thing I've ever seen performed live, so if you're able to see it I'd really recommend doing so. 5/5

[lauraxsynthesis]

The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre, London
Following on from the one above, this is also Hamlet-related. Based on the memoirs of two actors, it's about a production of Hamlet on Broadway in 1964 directed by John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton, who had just married Elizabeth Taylor. The playwright is Jack Thorne. Performances, script, staging are all fantastic. It's chock full of delights for folks that know Shakespeare/Hamlet, love theatre and especially London theatre.

I've checked Twitter a couple of times since seeing it and my experience wasn't unusual- one of the best experiences in the theatre I've ever had in 30 years of regularly seeing plays in London. I think it's the first time I've joined a standing ovation at the National and it's the longest SO I've seen there as well. It is a stunning, excellent play.

I think it's sold out but a performance this week is being videoed and it'll get a West End transfer.

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/the-motive-and-the-cue/

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre, London
Following on from the one above, this is also Hamlet-related. Based on the memoirs of two actors, it's about a production of Hamlet on Broadway in 1964 directed by John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton, who had just married Elizabeth Taylor. The playwright is Jack Thorne. Performances, script, staging are all fantastic. It's chock full of delights for folks that know Shakespeare/Hamlet, love theatre and especially London theatre.

I've checked Twitter a couple of times since seeing it and my experience wasn't unusual- one of the best experiences in the theatre I've ever had in 30 years of regularly seeing plays in London. I think it's the first time I've joined a standing ovation at the National and it's the longest SO I've seen there as well. It is a stunning, excellent play.

I think it's sold out but a performance this week is being videoed and it'll get a West End transfer.

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/the-motive-and-the-cue/

Oh wow, that sounds awesome, there was a fair amount of audio of Gielgud talking about his own Hamlet in last night's show, and some of Burton performing, but I had no idea Gielgud directed him. It's a real shame it's sold out, but I'll definitely get tickets for the west end transfer if I can.

How do you hear about productions like this out of interest? I've recently subscribed to a fair amount of theatre newsletters, but I still miss out on a lot, and only found out about Re-Member Me by chance.

[lauraxsynthesis]

Oh wow, that sounds awesome, there was a fair amount of audio of Gielgud talking about his own Hamlet in last night's show, and some of Burton performing, but I had no idea Gielgud directed him. It's a real shame it's sold out, but I'll definitely get tickets for the west end transfer if I can.

How do you hear about productions like this out of interest? I've recently subscribed to a fair amount of theatre newsletters, but I still miss out on a lot, and only found out about Re-Member Me by chance.

I get emails from the National Theatre with early notice of productions. I'm not a paying member though so don't get early box office access. They tend to release tickets for several productions at 9am a couple of times a year so I buy online then.

Btw you can still get Friday Rush tickets. My friend got some last week.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I get emails from the National Theatre with early notice of productions. I'm not a paying member though so don't get early box office access. They tend to release tickets for several productions at 9am a couple of times a year so I buy online then.

Thanks for the info there, I've only recently signed up but will do my best to get a ticket the next time they release them.

Btw you can still get Friday Rush tickets. My friend got some last week.

Unfortunately due to the nature of my job (I teach online, often using zoom and sharing my screen) I've not been able to do that, but I'm more than okay to wait for the west end transfer, when tickets go on sale at 10am for certain shows I'm able to be online and buy them at that time as I don't start work until 11am most days.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Grindr The Opera at the Union Theatre, Southwark - This is only an opera in the sense that pretty much every word is sung, otherwise it's a mix of rock and pop and it is one of the best things I've ever seen, I loved it so much that as soon as it ended I went in to the foyer and bought the soundtrack on cd, and I may even go back and see it again before the end of its run in July. The story follows four guys who use Grindr, with the app personified in the form of one of the best singers I've ever seen live, and it's really funny but also surprisingly touching and affecting. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but for £30 and unreserved seating it's an absolute bargain, I loved all of the songs, and well, it's easily taken a slot in my top 3 musicals. 5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

My Sister Is Missing by Izzie Winter at the King's Head, Islington - A one woman musical starring Winter, I think this might be one of the worst things I've seen, and that's largely due to Winter's portrayal of mental illness. She plays a character called Basil who lives on their own but whose sister is missing, and she's desperate to try and find her. Winter makes a point of not identifying the psychological issues Basil suffers from, with the suggestion that people can't easily be classifiable, but then she tries to have her cake and eat it as Basil is without doubt autistic, but also appears to be bi-polar and suffering from schizophrenia, but the way it's handled is akin to someone whose read "Mental Health For Dummies" and not done any real research.

To explain why I found this play so appalling goes in to spoiler territory, but the biggest issue is that Basil feels like a character written to show off Winter's skills as an actress and singer, and they exploit mental illness to do this. There's mentions of the character having no memory of entire years, and they hear voices in their head, but the dialogue used to describe how they feel comes across as if it was written by someone who may know someone with autism, but they've never been within one hundred miles of anyone who has suffered from mental illness.

Winter's performance is terrible as well, it's all tics and tricks as they leap around the stage, rolls around on it, and there's sudden flashes of anger before she's all smiles again, and it all seems bizarre, often they comes across as a spoilt seven year old, and their vocabulary doubles down on his, and it's exhausting to watch them acting so inconsistently. It's also signposted early on where the Sister actually is, and so by the time we get to the big reveal it's of no surprise, and then there's a big reset button as Basil conveniently forgets what's happened over the past few weeks and starts the search anew.

I really believe this is an irresponsible piece of theatre, that Winter is using mental illness as a way to show off her supposed abilities, and anyone who has lived with the conditions Basil is supposed to have would find this deeply insulting, it's a mass of inconsistences, and the way her family treat her is absurd, and if they're supposed to have all of the conditions Winter suggests there's no way she'd be able to live on her own, especially given the ending which suggests they're trapped in a spiral and constantly stalking their sister, and will do for the rest of their life.

There's a couple of positives I guess, Winter has a beautiful singing voice and a couple of the songs are enjoyable at the beginning, but there's long stretches without any, before about four come along at the end, though at this point I couldn't tolerate this frankly appalling attempt to examine a character who I simply didn't believe could exist in the circumstances she did. 0.2/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

A Strange Loop at The Barbican - A musical about a black gay man writing a musical about a black gay man who wants to write a musical, this is almost a little too meta at the beginning, but only almost, and it quickly develops in to a superb piece of musical theatre about what it's like to be black, gay, overweight, and with a wish to write a musical which reflects real life, and not the Tyler Perry version his family all seem to love. I don't want to say anything more as it would move in to spoiler territory, but I thought this was superb, and the moment I got I home I bought the soundtrack. 4.75/5

Hope Has A Happy Meal by Tom Fowler at The Royal Court - The PR blurb for Tom Fowler's play reads "Years and years ago, Hope disappeared. Now, she's back. To find something she left behind. But in the People's Republic of Koka Kola – a world of dwindling resources, corruption and corporate giants – what happens to Hope? Follow Hope on a surreal and frenetic quest through a hyper-capitalist country in this new play by Tom Fowler", while The Stage review claimed it was "'Equal parts quirky road-movie and biting satire'". But the weird thing is that those descriptions don't really capture what the play is like at all. The satire is pretty fucking lazy (names of locations are things like "Facebook Forest", or "Walmart Way"), there's a few digs at BP and privatised transport, and it goes heavy on the "police are cunts front", but mostly this is quite boring melodrama, where Hope tracks down her sister Lor as she wants to see the son she abandoned 24 years ago, but Lor isn't ready to trust her for a long old time. The acting's great, and it showed some promise at the beginning (with a frenzied cameo from Ronald McDonald especially fun) but half way through it grinds to a halt and becomes extremely tedious. 1.5?5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Jane Eyre The Musical by Paul Gordon and John Caird - This was at the Royal Academy Of Music and so technically a student production, but apart from the odd bit of dodgy acting from very minor characters you wouldn't be able to tell. The music was very likeable and the singing was superb, but the musical itself is only quite good, I enjoyed it for what it was but I didn't find myself rushing to track down the soundtrack like I do when I really love a production. 3.75/5

[Noodle Lizard]

Bit of a high ticket price I know, but if anyone saw this I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

https://www.theburntcity.com/

[buttgammon]

Really good reviews, SMBH. It's a long time since I've hopped over to London to go to the theatre and your posts are making me think a trip is in order.

I'm very excited to be going to see Druid's performance of Sean O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy later in the summer, even though I don't really like O'Casey. They've had events like this before where they perform a whole cycle of plays in a day but this will be my first time experiencing something like this. They're the best theatre company in Ireland by a mile and I've never seen a Garry Hynes-directed performance that wasn't brilliant, so this is going to be something special. I'm going to a Dublin performance on a Saturday which starts at lunchtime and there's just enough time between the second and third plays to fit in dinner at a really nice Korean restaurant that's very near.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Really good reviews, SMBH. It's a long time since I've hopped over to London to go to the theatre and your posts are making me think a trip is in order.

I'm very excited to be going to see Druid's performance of Sean O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy later in the summer, even though I don't really like O'Casey. They've had events like this before where they perform a whole cycle of plays in a day but this will be my first time experiencing something like this. They're the best theatre company in Ireland by a mile and I've never seen a Garry Hynes-directed performance that wasn't brilliant, so this is going to be something special. I'm going to a Dublin performance on a Saturday which starts at lunchtime and there's just enough time between the second and third plays to fit in dinner at a really nice Korean restaurant that's very near.

Thank you! And I have to say I don't know of Sean O'Casey, but I like the idea of a performance of a trilogy in one day, and I really hope you enjoy it.

Shewolves by Sarah Middleton at Southwark Playhouse Borough - Lou's holding a protest outside of her school as she wants to be the next Greta Thunberg, while Priya is doing anything and everything to avoid her home life, and so while they previously weren't friends they start hanging out together. This starts off pretty badly with lots of dodgy jokes about Thunberg and the teenagers' lives, and there was the occasional word or line which felt slightly dated, but it gets better as it goes along, the teenagers growing friendship was effectively portrayed, and though the ending is message heavy they just about pull it off. So yeah, it's not bad by any means, and after a shaky opening ten minutes I found it interesting and fairly amusing, but at the same time I'm glad I saw it during previews where tickets were only £7.50. 3.5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

Jali by Oliver Twist at the Soho Theatre - I'm really confused about this because it has glowing reviews across the board and Twist has been performing it for a couple of years now, but despite being packed with incident it was one of the most boring storytelling shows I've ever seen. It lurches all over the place as well, there's a brief bit about fleeing the Rwandan genocide when four years old and then it's followed by a story about living in Australia years later and his father having a kiosk attached to the house that he worked from, before it jumps ahead to Oliver living in Sydney in an overcrowded apartment, then back to when he was eleven years old and held at gunpoint in Malawi as his father had to find the documents that showed they were legally allowed to live there. A dull story about being turned down by Canada's Asylum Program goes nowhere, while he speaks about his father beating him with a belt or an extension cord, it's never mentioned again though there's the implication that this was far from the only time. There's the odd joke but most of it isn't meant to be funny, critics talk about him being charismatic, wise and a natural storyteller, but I didn't see it personally, he seemed like an amiable enough guy but one who somehow managed to make an amazing story quite dull. 1.5/5

[Small Man Big Horse]

The Life Sporadic of Jess Wildgoose at The Pleasance, Islington - Part of the write up for this latest effort from the Voloz Collective described it as "Tarantino meets Pixar", so I presumed it would either be a thing of sublime wonder or bowel shatteringly awful, and unfortunately it was the latter. I don't get the Pixar reference in the slightest and the only thing in common it has with Tarantino is that it's not even close to being as smart or as funny as it thinks it is (oh yeah, I went there!). The main character is so poorly written that she doesn't appear to have a personality of her own, and while the rest of the cast take on a number of other roles, and also use their bodies to create sets, the dialogue is so terrible that it's hard to care about a single thing that's taking place. For the first two thirds I found it watchable, but only in the car crash sense as this piles on cliché after cliché, before it decides to make the final twenty minutes weirdly tedious as Jess Wildgoose travels across America but has absolutely nothing to say about it. A generous 1.5/5

[neveragain]

Are you going to see The Pillowman, SMBH?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Are you going to see The Pillowman, SMBH?

I'd like to but I've spent a lot of money on a number of different shows in July and August already, and as the cheapest seats are £50 (as due to my shit knee here's no way I can stand for a whole play) I'm just going to try and get lucky on the Wednesday Pay What You Can Thing they do each week. Are you planning on going to see it?

[neveragain]

Are you planning on going to see it?

Yes, me and the other half are seeing it in August (on the same day as the Spongebob musical, a scintillating double bill!) So I'll drop in a review.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Yes, me and the other half are seeing it in August (on the same day as the Spongebob musical, a scintillating double bill!) So I'll drop in a review.

I somehow wasn't aware of the Spongebob musical but could be tempted by that depending on how long it runs for! I'm still hoping I might get to see The Pillowman as well, but hope you enjoy it and look forward to reading your review.

[neveragain]

Cheers. I love the play so hope they do it justice, which I feel the cast will if nothing else.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I think it's sold out but a performance this week is being videoed and it'll get a West End transfer.

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/the-motive-and-the-cue/

Just saw an email about this now and managed to get a £20 ticket, it's far back in the stalls but I don't mind at that price, if anyone else is interested tickets are here: https://www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk/whats-on/the-motive-and-the-cue - and appear to be selling quite quickly.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I saw Charlie And The Chocolate Factory The Musical at the New Wimbledon Theatre last night and wasn't that impressed, here's a far too long review that I posted on my site:

This is a really odd one, as the first half is all build up as we meet the Buckets and learn about Willy Wonka's competition where five golden tickets are going to be hidden in Wonka's chocolate bars, and the winners get to see the inside of the factory. The set design is impressive and Charlie's dilapidated home looks great, but it's 65 minutes of narrative which offers very little of interest, and bar the actor playing Charlie some of the acting would be considered broad if seen in a pantomime. The four grandparents are the only source of humour and yet even then more than few jokes didn't receive any reaction from the audience, and they cut out nearly all of the best songs in the first part (like "Cheer Up Charlie" and "I've Got A Golden Ticket") and replaced them with blander, far less enjoyable efforts, with only "The Candyman Can" surviving.

I also became aware of the fact that the audience weren't laughing very often at all during the opening hour, and when songs came to an end a fair few people didn't clap, and by the time the curtain finally fell I did briefly consider leaving. I'm glad I didn't though as thankfully the second half was much better, and it was immediately apparent that the audience were enjoying it more as they were finally regularly laughing, but then this part of the show mostly draws from the film and moves at a much quicker pace, if anything it's too fast and the production would have benefitted from having more of the Chocolate Factory scenes in the first act.

It's visually stunning thanks to digital screens on the floor and back wall, and many of the giant props are inspired as well, and who wouldn't enjoy seeing an enormous squirrel checking his nuts? We finally were given more of the songs from the original film too, with "Pure Imagination", a reprise of "The Candyman Can", and a variation on the Oompa Loompa song, though these are very different Oompa Loompas, a group of silver cyborgs and not anything like those found in the film. I can't complain though as they looked so weird they amused, and the songs they are involved in are far better than the original numbers from the first act, though it's very obvious that the 1971 songs are the only truly great ones.

When it comes to playing Wonka the director's made an odd choice, as he's nothing like either Gene Wilder's portrayal or Johnny Depp's take (and thank the lord for the latter). But Wonka's performed in a really weird way here, and he seems genuinely unhinged and borderline psychotic in some scenes. I was trying to think of a way to describe him and the closest I've come up with is if Tim Curry and James Mason were to step in to the Telepod from 1986's The Fly and were merged together, given a quite high pitched voice, and then took whatever the amount of cocaine which would nearly kill someone but not quite is. It's not a good thing either, it's hard to understand why Charlie and co didn't flee the moment he finished his first song, and though at least he seems to be calming down by the end of the play, if in a sequel Wonka was revealed to be a traumatising sex offender I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest.

Throughout I wondered if I was being too harsh about it, and if it was just me who was struggling with it, but when it ended the couple next to me refused to clap, and I noticed a fair few glum faces and only a very short, polite smattering of applause from others, while some got up the moment it finished and fled the building. That's not to say it was a disaster and all of the audience hated it, while leaving the venue I heard many excited voices discussing their favourite parts, but I can't remember seeing a large scale production like this receiving such an extremely mixed reaction before.

I love musicals and so never enjoy writing a negative review of one, and I wanted to enjoy this far more than I actually did. I was impressed with certain aspects of the second half too, but it seems very clear to me how this could be improved, and that's by adding much more from the 1971 film and scrapping half of the play's songs as pretty much everything new that was added made it shittier. Perhaps very young audience members might like it more, but for me it's a production that I'll file under "Eh, I paid £20 for the cheapest seats and I'm not furious about spending that amount, but I wouldn't recommend anyone do the same." ★★1/2

[lauraxsynthesis]

Bit of a high ticket price I know, but if anyone saw this I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

https://www.theburntcity.com/

Probably too late to reply but I thought Burnt City only ok. Kinda slow and confusing and it turned out I missed half the experience. There are 2 cities to explore and it's easy to miss one completely. Good sound design and movement/modern dance but that's not really my bag. I've not heard of folks being amazed by the experience like they were for Masque of the Red Death.

[lauraxsynthesis]

I'd like to but I've spent a lot of money on a number of different shows in July and August already, and as the cheapest seats are £50 (as due to my shit knee here's no way I can stand for a whole play) I'm just going to try and get lucky on the Wednesday Pay What You Can Thing they do each week. Are you planning on going to see it?

I saw The Pillowman tonight! A friend told me about this site https://www.todaytix.com/ and I got a perfect seat in the stalls for £44. Bought last minute so I guess that's the deal.

The play is grim. Plenty of black comedy but also a real downer. Pemby and Paul Kaye were fun and the story was interesting and no complaints except to me it dragged at times. Just be prepared for 2.5 hours of stories about child torture and murder oof.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I saw The Pillowman tonight! A friend told me about this site https://www.todaytix.com/ and I got a perfect seat in the stalls for £44. Bought last minute so I guess that's the deal.

The play is grim. Plenty of black comedy but also a real downer. Pemby and Paul Kaye were fun and the story was interesting and no complaints except to me it dragged at times. Just be prepared for 2.5 hours of stories about child torture and murder oof.

I found out about Today Tix myself only a couple of weeks ago, and it's why I'm off to see Oklanhoma for £25 before it ends, I'm in the Grand Circle in the front row and thanks to seatplanner I was able to check the view (and that there was sufficient leg room!), I only recently discovered seatplanner but for someone who is quite large like me it's been a godsend.

I'm really pleased you enjoyed The Pillowman as well, I do want to see it but need to do the Wednesday morning ticket thing, and the past two weeks I've had a lesson start at that time and been unable to do it.

[KennyMonster]

Are you going to see The Pillowman, SMBH?

We've had Pillowman tickets booked for some time, I think we're seeing it in August sometime, looking forward to it.

Has anyone else seen the news that CaB favourite Stewart Lee has re-written a famously unfunny 'comedy' scene from Macbeth that's being done in Straford Upon Avon in Sept?
Going to see it on the 9th Sept.
The blurb was very 'recent Stew', him banging on about all of those "where's my washboard?" types he's into finding the graves of these days.

I don't know my Shakespeare very well (and I much prefer modern/contemporary theatre) but it'll be good if I can spot his influence.