NY Times' Brantley Wants to Hear from YOU! (link working)

Is the New York Times a regional newspaper (like the London Evening Standard) or a national one (like The Times)?

NYTimes is national in reach. We get it delivered physically (and also digitally) in Central Illinois. It is sometimes referred to as the "newspaper of record". And as for 12 shows in a week - well, it is his job to see and review theatre. But, then, Brantley once wrote that Melanie Griffith was the best Roxie Hart he'd seen....ever!

I think someone has suggested that.  

Book of Mormon has a Friday matinee and I'd forgotten Finborough had Sunday evening shows.

In August, when Broadway opening a quiet, he normally spends a whole month here.

That's the ideal but if you're going down for the weekend, paying for travel and hotels etc you kinda want to extract the most out of it.

Yes that's the case. Often I do travel to London specifically just to see one show though (usually a matinee) and then come straight back. About three or four times a year i'll go for a weekend (or midweek) break though and obviously then take in more shows. As i said though usually I'll incorporate something I've already seen so I'm not seeing too many new things at once.  Occasionally as well I'll fill a slot with something else like a concert or sporting event and just see the two theatre shows instead of the three and I like doing it that way.  I could never be someone who goes and see's theatre nearly every day or see multiple things a week.

Last time I was in NY I did 5 shows in 4 nights. But that was my reason for being there!

Ben knows London very well and will have most of his seats booked courtesy of the shows' producers.

I got a feeling he will visit;

The Go Between
The Comedy About A Bank Robbery
Hobson's Choice
The Entertainer
How The Other Half Loves
The Truth
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Exposure The Musical
The spoils
Faith Healer
Showboat

The Young Chechovs
The Deep Blue Sea
The Star and the Plow
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succor
The Globe x3
Groundhog Day
Yerma
Allegro

Tricycle
Royal Court
Bush
Park
Almedia

RSC
Chichester
Maybe Bath Theatre Royal

Based on his article in the 2 August NYTimes, he's seen Richard III (Almeida), The Spoils (Trafalgar), The Faith Healer (Donmar), The Plough and Stars (National) and Romeo and Juliet (Branagh).  We know he already saw Harry Potter.  He also references "Now We Are Here" (Young Vic) and "Pigs and Dogs" for Southbank - but it is not clear if he actually saw either.  

Too much of a binge does take its toll. A couple of years ago I ended up at 45 shows in a month (while still going to work!). I'm not sure I want to do that again!

And he said he saw these five shows nearly back to back: "They are Terence Rattigan’s “The Deep Blue Sea” at the National Theater, in which the wondrous Helen McCrory adds yet another memorable portrait to her gallery of devastatingly devastated women; a three-play, single-day, engrossing marathon of early Chekhov works (also at the National); an especially bruising “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Shakespeare’s Globe; and Simon Stone’s merciless and mesmerizing updating of Federico García Lorca’s “Yerma,” starring a fabulous Billie Piper." www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/theater/on-the-london-stage-love-doesnt-just-hurt-it-kills.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftheater&action=click&contentCollection=theater®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

And now you know why US theatregoers sometimes scoff at Brantley!