4,614 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on Jul 7, 2023 13:07:44 GMT
I've left two operas in the interval because I found the productions unbearable: WNO's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria and ENO's Peter Grimes (which won that year's Olivier so my opinion was evidently a minority). I found aspects of both productions repulsive and disturbing. Other than that, the only other time I've left in the interval was Titanic at Southwark Playhouse on a boiling hot day when their aircon wasn't working & by the end of Act I I thought I was either going to pass out or be sick if I didn't leave. I did seriously think about leaving the NT's The Light Princess in the interval after a scene in Act I that made me have a panic attack but decided to stay & fortunately there was nothing Act II that was as bad. I've never left anything out of mere boredom, I just think of something else if I'm bored. Was that La Finta Giardiniera in 2006? Yes. I found it tedious both the production and musically. I LOVE Cosi but the others leave me cold and bored. Mozart was not a good dramatist, in my book
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Post by robertb213 on Jul 7, 2023 13:46:39 GMT
Loads of times. Life is too short to sit through something you're not enjoying. And if it means getting an earlier train home then all the more reason!
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Post by FrontroverPaul on Jul 7, 2023 13:51:03 GMT
Trump The Musical at the Gatehouse. It was the evening Her Majesty passed and it was the most unfunny musical comedy I've ever experienced. Probably would have stayed any other night. I wasn't the only interval leaver.
Not the same but have had to leave before the end a few times to catch last train or the one I've booked an advance ticket on. Who would have expected My Fair Lady and Sweeney Todd to each have at least 20 minutes to go three hours in !
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1,459 posts
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Post by marob on Jul 7, 2023 13:56:04 GMT
I’ve never left a show before the end. Wish I’d left Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense when it toured locally. I’ve liked the few Wodehouse novels I’ve read, but found that play completely unfunny. Despite being a matinee it was a struggle to stay awake, and I suspect I didn’t.
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Post by capybara on Jul 7, 2023 14:41:21 GMT
Berlusconi at Southwark Playhouse Elephant. Utterly dreadful.
Also The Circle at the Orange Tree. It wasn’t awful but I just wasn’t feeling it and had to be up crazy early the next morning so cut my losses.
I would have left early during Pretty Woman but it was a double show day for me. Also, Aspects of Love press night but I felt compelled to stay as it was like watching a car crash unfold before my eyes!
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378 posts
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Post by Nelly on Jul 7, 2023 15:26:04 GMT
Love Never Dies at the Adelphi, loved Phantom, hated this.
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3,940 posts
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Post by Dawnstar on Jul 7, 2023 15:26:17 GMT
Yes. I found it tedious both the production and musically. I LOVE Cosi but the others leave me cold and bored. Mozart was not a good dramatist, in my book I seem to remember rather enjoying it, though I from what I recall there was only one really good aria in it. I like most of Mozart's major operas, if done in decent productions with casts who can act as well as sing, and Nozze is among my favourite half a dozen operas.
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2,206 posts
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Jul 7, 2023 15:30:30 GMT
Hobsons Choice with Martin Shaw. But this was more due to my mood as it was the day before my Dads funeral and I wasn't in the mood for theatre. Just shouldn't have gone.
And what was that play with Suranne Jones at Haymarket theatre. Really like Jason Watkins and Nina Sosanya but couldn't take to the subject matter and Suranne Jones wailing
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378 posts
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Post by Nelly on Jul 7, 2023 15:35:57 GMT
I was also very close to leaving at the interval of War of the Worlds at the Dominion, the majority of the cast especially Jimmy Nail were not good.
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Post by matty on Jul 7, 2023 18:11:39 GMT
Loads of times, especially if it is mid-week and I've been in work all day. Life's far too short to sit through something I'm not enjoying- unless it was an expensive ticket, in which case I will sit it out.
I remember once when watching Falsettos at TOP, I'd had an awful day in work, had a banging headache and I was sat on the front row and kept dropping off, so felt it was polite to leave at the interval so the cast didn't think it was them making me fall asleep.
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853 posts
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Post by longinthetooth on Jul 7, 2023 18:31:27 GMT
I've been tempted a few times, but always think, well, I've paid a lot of money for this, so I'm determined to stick it out.
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1,193 posts
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Post by theatrelover123 on Jul 7, 2023 19:16:02 GMT
The Third Man at the Menier. No brainer
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Post by Jan on Jul 7, 2023 19:19:06 GMT
I have only ever done this once in my life. It was a production of Uncle Vanya at The Criterion with Anna Friel and the young lady from Downton Abbey who plays Lady Edith. I had comp ticket and were sitting at the back, so could take in the whole stage. The whole thing looked really cramped and there seemed to be no real interaction between the characters- they were just actors on stage saying lines. It was bad. My sister and I left and took in the Christmas lights in Covent Garden. Much more enjoyable! That was the one where Peter Hall was in the audience and, suffering from dementia, thought he was directing a rehearsal and mid-performance started telling them what they were doing wrong. I don’t approve of leaving at the interval but I did it once for a Terry Hands RSC production of a Feydeau farce which had been “adapted” by Peter Barnes. It was not only bad but offensive too so I and dozens more left at the interval in solidarity with Feydeau.
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Post by stitcher on Jul 7, 2023 19:20:23 GMT
I've left a number of times - sometimes the shows have been really shockingly bad (Peer Gynt at the National and Paradise Found at Menier stand out), sometimes I've just not been feeling it (Amadeus at NT a few years ago- some admirable aspects about it, but I didn't care for some of the performances). The one I regret leaving the most was Rosenkavalier at ENO - it was a stunning production but I'd worked an all-nighter the night before and couldn't keep awake so left at the end of the 1st act. The older I get the less I worry about it - after all the production has your money and it's your evening!
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Post by kit66 on Jul 7, 2023 19:42:42 GMT
Years ago I remember seeing Reg Livermore - a Australian MT star - who had come over to do his solo show at the Phoenix and the performance wasn't going down particularly well to say the least.At one point an audience member shouted out "When are you going to say something funny?" and Reg shouted back "If you don't like it you can f*** off" and half the dress circle got up and left with a lot of seat banging.
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2,823 posts
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Post by ceebee on Jul 7, 2023 22:00:25 GMT
Wicked. God awful tedious show.
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Post by sfsusan on Jul 7, 2023 22:10:14 GMT
Cats. Absolutely hideous. I wish I'd left at the interval but I was with my parents and my mother loved it. Another time (in San Francisco), I was a hotel concierge and had been given comp tickets and seated in the front row in a theater that was so small the stage was about 12 inches off the floor and about the same distance from the front row. It was so awful that my husband wanted to walk out during the show, but we'd have had to cross in front of the stage to do so. I persuaded him to wait for the interval, when he went to a bar and I had to return for the second act. (Needless to say, I never recommended it to a guest...)
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1,115 posts
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Post by Stephen on Jul 7, 2023 22:26:04 GMT
Newsies at Wembley Park. The only time I've ever left a show at the interval. I know I'm in the minority for this one and I wasn't in the best place at the time either but the show really didn't tick any boxes for me. Much preferred the Disney Disney version on Broadway/Disney +!
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jul 7, 2023 22:34:27 GMT
I think the one I enjoyed the most by leaving at the interval was the tour of Tonight's the Night.
I could tell the cast were embarrassed to be performing such dross.
When a show gives you a sailor hat to wear, you know you are in for a bad night.
I wish I had walked out of many others but hard when you have to write about the whole show ...
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1,015 posts
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Post by David J on Jul 7, 2023 23:05:04 GMT
In recent years I have left a few shows where I just felt I could cut my losses and havdd we an early nights sleep than watch more of a mediocre show
The Adjoa Andoh Richard Ii at the Sam Wanamaker Last years paradise now at the bush theatre The suspicions of mr Whicher at the watermill theatre
Not that they weren’t awful but neither did they excel
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Post by alessia on Jul 8, 2023 13:19:04 GMT
I have never left but feel I should have for a few things - Marvellous at @soho place, and The boy with 2 hearts at the National. Terrible both of them, should have gone home. Also a few years ago a very strange play at the Almeida with Elliot Cowan turning up all painted in gold about half way through. forgotten what it was, but it was bad.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Jul 8, 2023 13:56:37 GMT
If Six had an interval I’d have been legging it home to take a headache tablet.
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Post by NorthernAlien on Jul 8, 2023 14:00:22 GMT
Happy Days, starring Maxine Peake, at the Royal Exchange, back in 2018.
The whole thing was utterly tedious - there was 5 minutes of plot, which then just got repeated ad infinitum for the rest of the first half. I suppose that's probably the point, but I couldn't stand any more of sitting there, watching the stage revolve slowly, as lights followed it around, meaning you got your retinas blasted into blindness about once every 90 seconds. Headache-inducing.
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4,978 posts
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Post by TallPaul on Jul 8, 2023 16:09:46 GMT
And what was that play with Suranne Jones at Haymarket theatre. Really like Jason Watkins and Nina Sosanya but couldn't take to the subject matter and Suranne Jones wailing Frozen, wasn't it, before the other one opened at Drury Lane?
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5,599 posts
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Post by lynette on Jul 8, 2023 16:38:11 GMT
Happy Days, starring Maxine Peake, at the Royal Exchange, back in 2018. The whole thing was utterly tedious - there was 5 minutes of plot, which then just got repeated ad infinitum for the rest of the first half. I suppose that's probably the point, but I couldn't stand any more of sitting there, watching the stage revolve slowly, as lights followed it around, meaning you got your retinas blasted into blindness about once every 90 seconds. Headache-inducing. Funnily, I’ve walked out of this play because although I had seen it more than once before, it was unbearable. Must have hit a nerve.
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