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Post by emicardiff on Mar 18, 2019 11:34:46 GMT
hahaha I did lol at that @happysooz not least because I refer to most everyone as 'yer man from...' but yeah there's a sense of when 'I might just be glad I stayed to say I did' and 'I know when I'm beaten'
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Post by Someone in a tree on Mar 18, 2019 12:06:22 GMT
Stephen Sondheim also left London Road at the interval the night I was there, too. That's really reassuring to hear as I love Sondheim but disliked London Road. I didn't understand all the praise LR got so much so that I thought I misunderstood something I read on here that Sondheim also walked out of wonder.land I guess the guy doesn't like Rufus Norris then?
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Post by alicechallice on Mar 18, 2019 12:25:41 GMT
Stephen Sondheim also left London Road at the interval the night I was there, too. That's really reassuring to hear as I love Sondheim but disliked London Road. I didn't understand all the praise LR got so much so that I thought I misunderstood something I read on here that Sondheim also walked out of wonder.land I guess the guy doesn't like Rufus Norris then? Or maybe he's so busy that he's only got time to watch the first half of shows? I'm assuming he gets dinner party invites every night of the week. When I saw him leave, he got in a cab with two other people and I imagine they were probably hotfooting it round to Julia McKenzie's for a late-night fondue and bridge session.
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Post by MrsCondomine on Mar 18, 2019 12:28:50 GMT
I WISH I could have left Shakespeare in Love, Once and Rylance-directed Much Ado.
I left Edward II at the NT at the interval, was on my own and couldn't get out quick enough.
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Post by Baemax on Mar 18, 2019 12:56:02 GMT
The combination of one of our finest actors and Shakespeare made me give it the benefit of the doubt. Yer man from the Wire and a rarely revived Arthur Miller? I know when to cut my losses. I'm not saying there's a theme to the theatres on the Cut this year, but if you hadn't specified "rarely revived", I would have had to think really hard for a minute to work out if you were talking about The American Clock or Death Of A Salesman.
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Post by missthelma on Mar 18, 2019 13:11:40 GMT
You know for 30 years I sat through everything. To the bitter end. Clinging sometimes to a vain hope that the bit post interval would reinvent the form, suddenly improve beyond recognition, or make me realise why all the reviews were stellar. And I sat through some interminable drivel. I cannot stress this enough.
Then one day in 2011, I threw off the shackles. I recall a beautiful sunny afternoon but it may have been raining or foggy as memory plays rose coloured tricks, and this is the day I gave myself my freedom.
Outside the Theatre Royal Haymarket at the interval of The Tempest with Ralph Fiennnes, I realised that a Smurf version of the play would be better than what I was watching. And I knew what was going to happen at the end. Why suffer? I strolled away , nobody stopped me, there were no cries of 'traitor' or 'unclean philistine'. I had paid my money and taken my choice. Nobody cared and nobody was effected but me. Bliss.
I use the gift sparingly and probably most for things I know the plot/story of and am just not feeling the production. Martin Freeman's Richard III was another, although the seating at Traflgar Studios probably helped that decision too. I will never again darken the foyer of a Martin McDonagh play having left at the interval of both The Cripple of Inishmaan and The Lieutenant of Inishmore, both dreadful faux Father Ted sketches in my eyes, yet I like his films. I think that about covers my shameful leavings but for the sake of completeness:
Things I Wish I'd Left at Interval:
The recent Tony & Cleo That thing with Ben Whishaw at the Almeida, Against?? IHO - not writing it all out, the Kushner play.
Things that had there been an interval, I would have left burn marks on the carpet in my haste to leave:
Fun Home The Red Barn
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Post by MrsCondomine on Mar 18, 2019 13:12:57 GMT
Things that had there been an interval, I would have left burn marks on the carpet in my haste to leave Fun HomeThe Red Barn OH MY GOD I forgot how much I hated Fun Home. That's another one I would have left, had I the choice.
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Post by alece10 on Mar 18, 2019 13:43:41 GMT
I noticed ALW not coming back after the interval of Spend Spend Spend with Babs Dickson back in late 1999. Someone in the trade told me that ALW never stays till the end of anything.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 13:48:22 GMT
I noticed ALW not coming back after the interval of Spend Spend Spend with Babs Dickson back in late 1999. Someone in the trade told me that ALW never stays till the end of anything. Sarah Brightman and I were talking about that over cocktails once. Funnily enough, he'd never been to any shows we were in though . . .
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Post by Someone in a tree on Mar 18, 2019 14:01:52 GMT
I noticed ALW not coming back after the interval of Spend Spend Spend with Babs Dickson back in late 1999. Someone in the trade told me that ALW never stays till the end of anything. He certainly didn't stay to the end of composition classes
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Post by lynette on Mar 18, 2019 18:47:37 GMT
I leave if I start to feel like I ache and can’t sit still. It really is a physical thing with me. Not happened too many times,, most recent was Emilia at the Globe and don’t say that was the seating! 😂
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2019 19:19:31 GMT
As an epileptic, I often worry that I will have to quit when the strobes start to flash.Theatres nearly always post warnings to such effect.Usually I close my eyes and look down when they start and then my daughter gives me a nudge when they are done if she is with me.
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 18, 2019 20:39:59 GMT
Never walked out, will never walk out (other than through illness). It's rude to the performers and rude to the audience. If you do your research about what you're watching you shouldn't need to walk out. If I want to waste money I can think of many other ways of doing it which don't involve paying for tickets which I then don't use. I feel that the performers & the rest of the audience would probably prefer that I left in an interval than stayed watching a production that was making me feel like being sick and/or having a panic attack. I purposely avoid early previews where humanly possible unless it’s transferring from somewhere. That way you get a heads up. The only time you have to take a gamble is if something looks as though it’s selling out before it opens. Maybe once every ccouple of years I end up just binning something because of that. With opera, the small number of performances I imagine makes a big difference. Yes, you can't really wait to book till later in the run if the run is only half a dozen to a dozen performances. I've twice returned tickets after first night reviews when it's become clear that there were things in a production that I wouldn't be able to cope with, but of course there's no guarantee that the seat will re-sell & you'll get your money back.
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Post by joem on Mar 18, 2019 20:54:49 GMT
Never walked out, will never walk out (other than through illness). It's rude to the performers and rude to the audience. If you do your research about what you're watching you shouldn't need to walk out. If I want to waste money I can think of many other ways of doing it which don't involve paying for tickets which I then don't use. It's not rude to anyone if you leave it at the interval as you aren't disturbing anyone, and I doubt any performer is counting the number of empty seats they can see before and after the interval. And "if you do your research" is a naive attitude - no-one knows exactly how they are going to react to a production, or how they are going to feel on any particular day. If you're lucky enough to never get a migraine, or psychic enough to predict months in advance when you will get one, then fair enough, but not everyone is. Life is too short, I'm not going to be apologetic about taking risks on theatre, but neither am I going to apologise for not wasting more time than absolutely necessary on something I'm not enjoying. Anyway, we've already had this debate several pages ago so I apologise for rehashing it, but judgmental posts like yours are entirely unnecessary. All posts are judgmental, we all use our judgement. I won't apologise for my opinions either. "Walking out" for me by the way means during the performance, not at the interval, and it is rude if you disturb other members of the audience. As it happens I normally sit in an aisle seat so if I am ever tempted to act against my own advice I won't disturb anyone.
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Post by christya on Mar 18, 2019 22:02:18 GMT
I haven't walked out on anything during the interval for years. But I wished I'd walked out of Sister Act with Alexandra Burke (couldn't understand a word she was saying, terrible acting and the actor/musician stuff did NOT work for that show) and the Flashdance tour.
Years ago as a student I did leave a play at the interval - the trouble is, it was a VERY small theatre and our entire group (about 12 people) left. It had been sold to us as some sort of family drama, and when we got there the whole thing was lecturing everyone about political prisoners...somewhere. Never did work out where. We felt bad about leaving as our absence would have been obvious, but not bad enough to stay. It was terrible.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 18, 2019 22:21:18 GMT
I have left a lot of performances in the interval, especially back in the days when I was holding down a full-time office job in the daytime and then going to opera, ballet, concerts or shows in the evenings when I wasn't playing the piano for music hall or variety. The main reason was to conserve my energy for whatever I was doing the following day and night, and I could usually tell after ten or fifteen minutes whether I had become immersed in what was happening on the stage or whether my mind remained unengaged. If that happened, then I would try to work out what it was about the show that I didn't like or why I remained detached and if I still felt the same by the interval I would go home.
No doubt I missed the occasional good second act, and on the advice of the Theatremonkey I did go back to see the second act of Wicked a few days after I had left a preview in the interval and it did certainly improve after the interval but in general I don't regret those second acts that I missed. I have very occasionally experienced a great second act after I had resisted the temptation to go home early but those occasions are few and far between and I stick by my principles, as witness my leaving the current version of Rip It Up after making the effort of dragging my old bones to the Beck Theatre at Hayes to see those wonderful boys, who alas were not being presented to advantage in a very unsatisfactory production – but that's another story...!
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Mar 18, 2019 22:24:37 GMT
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Post by terrylondon79 on Mar 19, 2019 7:16:13 GMT
I left a musical at the Landor in the interval, a few years back. Trouble is audience was sparse to begin with, and everyone left the auditorium at the interval. Was sat in bar while they were calling out 2nd act was meant to start. No one went back up stairs.. We buggered off. It truly was a dire production, but afterwards did feel a bit bad for cast to find out there audience had completely disappeared!
Now what would have been worse us saying for the 2nd act being the only 3 people in a 70 odd seat theatre, or what did happen and they find out no audience left?
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Post by Tibidabo on Mar 20, 2019 15:56:48 GMT
True story from Michelle Obama's autobiography. She and Barack actually got together (as in, together ) due to their horror at being stuck in a brand new musical they were both finding insufferable, tedious and dismal. They were with others from their office (Barack was an intern and she was entrusted with looking after him) and, after some silent glances between, them managed to sneak away, giggling, at the interval. So. What was this dreadful musical that depressed them so much? Yep! The Glums!
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Post by Being Alive on Mar 20, 2019 16:13:32 GMT
First time I saw play that goes wrong - hated it, didn't find it funny - got dragged back by a friend and stuck it out second time, but still don't get it. And that dreadful Macbeth at the Nash with Rory Kinnear - someone give Rufus a slap
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Mar 20, 2019 16:34:48 GMT
I left Petula Clark’s last live tour in 2013 at half time. It had been quite some time since sh’d performed live and wow. It showed. She was all over the place and back again vocally. I should have been suspicious when the single from the album she was pushing was full of vocoder.
Apparently by the time she’d done a few dates she was killing it so good for all those people who saw that 😐.
Those people seeing Poppins in the first week... good luck! 😬
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Post by emicardiff on Mar 20, 2019 19:05:02 GMT
First time I saw play that goes wrong - hated it, didn't find it funny - got dragged back by a friend and stuck it out second time, but still don't get it. And that dreadful Macbeth at the Nash with Rory Kinnear - someone give Rufus a slap Oh I would like to give Rufus a slap fnargh fnargh. But having sat through that last night I didn't quite reach escape time ...but also I didn't have Kinnear soooo I'm the opposite, I loved Play That Goes Wrong first time, the second time LOATHED it and now you couldn't pay me to sit through any of their stuff.
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Post by timothyd on Mar 20, 2019 19:12:36 GMT
School of Rock. Wasn't our cup of tea. And we were seated next to the musicians, who were browsing Facebook and chatting to each other when they didn't have to play. The lights of their mobiles, their constant chatting and the show itself being quite dull made us decide to leave in the interval.
Almost left Harry Potter, but that was mostly due to being on the first row of the balcony with no leg room.
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Post by Someone in a tree on Mar 21, 2019 8:07:11 GMT
First time I saw play that goes wrong - hated it, didn't find it funny - got dragged back by a friend and stuck it out second time, but still don't get it. And that dreadful Macbeth at the Nash with Rory Kinnear - someone give Rufus a slap Oh I would like to give Rufus a slap fnargh fnargh. But having sat through that last night I didn't quite reach escape time ...but also I didn't have Kinnear soooo I'm the opposite, I loved Play That Goes Wrong first time, the second time LOATHED it and now you couldn't pay me to sit through any of their stuff. Agreed I've seen one show and that was more than enough. I read they are taking over the world with a series of new plays, perhaps they could also tackle the Brexit neogtions while they are at it
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Post by emicardiff on Mar 21, 2019 9:23:10 GMT
Oh I would like to give Rufus a slap fnargh fnargh. But having sat through that last night I didn't quite reach escape time ...but also I didn't have Kinnear soooo I'm the opposite, I loved Play That Goes Wrong first time, the second time LOATHED it and now you couldn't pay me to sit through any of their stuff. Agreed I've seen one show and that was more than enough. I read they are taking over the world with a series of new plays, perhaps they could also tackle the Brexit neogtions while they are at it I mean in fairness they couldn't make more of a mess of it right? But yeah, I honestly don't see the need for quite so many versions of essentially the same show (or indeed what people find funny about it) but hey ho it's not hurting me as long as nobody forces me to go and see them again!
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Post by talkingheads on Mar 21, 2019 9:39:22 GMT
Only one show. My uncle insisted he take me to see the alleged comic Roy Chubby Brown. I wasn't offended by it, I was more bored than anything else. I've seen blue comedy done well and that was not it. Dull, derivative and obviously goes without saying extremely sexist and racist. Character comics like Al Murray carry that 'ironic' racism stuff well, but there was genuine nasty malice here.
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Post by duncan on Mar 21, 2019 14:34:25 GMT
First time I saw play that goes wrong - hated it, didn't find it funny - got dragged back by a friend and stuck it out second time, but still don't get it. And that dreadful Macbeth at the Nash with Rory Kinnear - someone give Rufus a slap Oh I would like to give Rufus a slap fnargh fnargh. But having sat through that last night I didn't quite reach escape time ...but also I didn't have Kinnear soooo I'm the opposite, I loved Play That Goes Wrong first time, the second time LOATHED it and now you couldn't pay me to sit through any of their stuff. Four of us all reached the same conclusion on Saturday, every time we see Rory Kinnear all we can think about is how better his dad was. Showing our age but Roy is a legend.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2019 15:36:16 GMT
Have only left the theatre at the interval 5 times:
1) Amen Corner at The National: could see where the play was going from around the half an hour mark and had had a crappy day so just wanted to get home.
2) a Read not Dead performance of All Men and Their Humours at The Sam Wannamaker. Hadn't been to a reading before but definitely not for me as I discovered about 10 minutes into it.
3) St George and the Dragon The National (surely I don't need to explain why?)
4) The awful Hamlet the Globe sent around the World. Embarrassing that we sent this around the World to showcase British theatre.
5) 5 Guys Called Mo at Marble Arch. Surrounded by idiots and hated the audience participation time. Took with me someone who saw the original production and they were embarrassed to have recommended it to me.
Beyond that and after thinking, I have also only left Concerts before the end 3 times too:
1) Roger Waters at Earl's Court because I was surrounded by idiots.
2) Springsteen at Wembley because the sound was so bad that I didn't even realise he was playing one of my favourite songs until halfway through.
3) Not sure if anyone will know him on here but a singer/songwriter who came to the 100 Club with a big reputation called Ben Poole but was like a Bryan Adams tribute act.
Not bad for 7 years of regular theatre attendance and 29 years of concerts!
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Post by MrsCondomine on Mar 26, 2019 15:38:06 GMT
^ 5 Guys Named Moe would have been unbearable, had I not been pretty drunk going into it. As it was I loved it (I promise I wasn't an idiot about it, though
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2019 15:49:35 GMT
^ 5 Guys Named Moe would have been unbearable, had I not been pretty drunk going into it. As it was I loved it (I promise I wasn't an idiot about it, though Ha ha, went and had a unexpected lovely meal with the wife as a result of leaving early so would have thanked you!
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