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Post by The Matthew on Oct 17, 2019 16:36:06 GMT
Worst toilets ever in a theatre were in the Strand before it became the Novello, so narrow you couldnt manoeuvre round. I may have mentioned this years ago and I can't recall the location now, but the worst toilets I've encountered in that respect: You go through the door into a long triangular room. You're at the base of the triangle. It's already narrow: there's a basin to your right and if somebody's using it you'll need to turn sideways to get past them. There's a partition between the basin and the urinals, the urinals being a trough that runs the length of the room to the single cubicle door at the end. And it's just a door at the end, because by that point the room has narrowed so the door frame practically touches the side walls. If there's someone using the urinal at that end you're not getting past until they've finished. And in the cubicle it gets narrower, until there's just about enough room to fit a cistern at the far end.
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Post by foxa on Oct 17, 2019 16:54:47 GMT
Ive just realised that after 15 years living in Manc and my many trips to the theatre I have never set foot in a theatre toilet. I’ll suffer some considerable discomfort to avoid public lavs, preferring to maintain a monogamous relationship with my beloved cludgie at home. BurlyBeaR - How!!! I know every toilet, everywhere. My (RIP) Liverpool Mother-in-Law once told me 'I haven't used a public toilet since 1954.' And no, I don't know what happened in 1954. I believe there was a bit of hyperbole in this, as she didn't count hovering inches above the seat as 'using' the toilet.
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Post by Dawnstar on Oct 17, 2019 17:02:57 GMT
Cant bear to sit in an auditorium with even an inkling of a forthcoming tinkling. At The Night Watch last night I went before the performance and during the interval as I just need to know I'll be sitting there comfortably rather than thinking about "how long to go as I really need to go!" My bladder is definitely of this type rather than BurlyBeaR's type. I always go before a show & in every interval that occurs. Even if I don't particularly need to, I'd rather go & be on the safe side than be desparate to go mid-act. Although sometimes I go just beforehand & am still desparate mid-act!
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Post by lynette on Oct 17, 2019 21:49:16 GMT
Ok, my people, I can see what all the fuss is about at the Old Vic. Two diet cokes and a cup of tea - what I do for you - enabled an inspection of the downstairs loos before the play. There is one gender neutral cubicle where the old loos were and round the corner there are two loos, one with cubicles, gender neutral and opposite, more cubicles but with urinals. So in effect, ladies just have the cubicles as most wouldn’t go for the urinal area. This is I believe an increase in the number of actual toilets available for ladies but they have to share with the men. And both are in a cramped area by the bar. I can imagine long queues in an interval. What has always amazed me is that the loos are designed in a line and women tend to queue from the point at which the line of cubicles start, hence the line extends out of the main door. But if you go down the line to queue you risk someone popping into a cubicle out of turn. I wonder whether men do this or understand the subtlety. The cubicles are spacious and doors down to the floor. Two men came in while I was there. It wasn’t a problem but this was before the show and not in an interval so no waiting needed.
At the Bridge they have avoided this by making the loos go round a courtyard shape, so no lines, just flow. So to speak. 😂
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 17, 2019 23:18:18 GMT
Ive just realised that after 15 years living in Manc and my many trips to the theatre I have never set foot in a theatre toilet. I’ll suffer some considerable discomfort to avoid public lavs, preferring to maintain a monogamous relationship with my beloved cludgie at home. BurlyBeaR - How!!! I know every toilet, everywhere. Ive always found that once you’ve been to the loo you’ll then be going every 30minutes. If you can power through it and hold on then it’s good training for whatever muscle controls that. I went out at 5.30 this evening, had drinks dinner, a play with a drink at the interval and only needed to go when I got home at 10.15. However far from feeling smug about it I can assure you that I’ll be up a couple of times in the night. I think your subconscious body knows this stuff 😯
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 18, 2019 0:53:01 GMT
I was at the Old Vic tonight.
I thought the new toilets are a disgrace and came across as less than a service provided and more of a political correctness exercise. Glad the theatre restoration fee is being well spent.
Lynette gives a very good description above. With the main toilets the Old Vic has gone the ultra pc way, as other theatres have; such as the Young Vic and having non-gender toilets and this means that ladies come in the male toilets or should that be the gender neutral toilets with urinals. I feel uncomfortable using the urinals with knowledge that having ladies in my space. Love to see the reaction if a man went into gender neutral toilets with cubicles!
They now have a disabled toilet which would be commendable if it was a disabled toilet, which it isn’t, because it,isn’t protected by a radar key, so in reality acts as an overspill for the other toilets, which defeats the objects, as people with hidden disabilities might need the toilet urgently. They also has a separate gender neutral toilet.
For the life of me I cannot understand why a theatre needs a baby changing facility a you need a nappy then the theatre isn’t a place for you.
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Post by edi on Oct 18, 2019 7:07:27 GMT
[/quote]My goodness! If only I had a bladder like that. Over the last 20 years or so I must have been in 90% of the West End theatre cludgies. I'm not saying I was going for a tinkle but I've definitely been in them.
Cant bear to sit in an auditorium with even an inkling of a forthcoming tinkling. At The Night Watch last night I went before the performance and during the interval as I just need to know I'll be sitting there comfortably rather than thinking about "how long to go as I really need to go!"
I salute your bladder of steel! [/quote]
this. I visit the loos at least twice each time. I need a new strategy for the old vic now. Maybe I won't drink anything the day I visit.
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Post by crowblack on Oct 18, 2019 8:28:02 GMT
I cannot understand why a theatre needs a baby changing facility a you need a nappy then the theatre isn’t a place for you. I have seen families at the Old Vic so there's the possibility that a family group could come to something like a Christmas show and one member sits it out in the bar with the baby while the others go in. Several Northern theatres do 'relaxed' performances - I don't know if they can include babies but maybe.
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Post by MrBraithwaite on Oct 18, 2019 8:43:01 GMT
I usually avoid the toilets in theatres because they are usually small and crowded (no queues for the Mens normally though). Sometimes I use them when I am quite early and the auditorium isn't open yet. I definately remember The Bridge and National as being quite good, otherwise only seem to remember the Victoria Palace when Billy Elliot was playing...probably refurbished by now,
Also a friend of mine was so confused by the 'multi-sex' signs at the Bridge Theatre that she ended up not going at all.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 18, 2019 8:48:04 GMT
For the life of me I cannot understand why a theatre needs a baby changing facility a you need a nappy then the theatre isn’t a place for you. They want people to use the cafe between shows, even if they’re not going to the theatre, and some of them might have babies. Like the Young Vic. And they are now doing an annual Christmas show for families.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 18, 2019 9:00:46 GMT
We are moving back to our refurbed office next week and at the behest of the new diversity and inclusion group they announced a gender neutral loo.
Without any consultation.
We’ve now been invited to attend an ‘open forum’ led by the D&I group to discuss it.
Our company is 65% women and 33% men, by the way.
At least the loos are all proper cubicles. Sink area will be shared. The main problem is that the loos will be in the stairwell area outside the office proper in a shared building - so we don’t know who else in the building might be wandering in and out.
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 18, 2019 10:54:21 GMT
I cannot understand why a theatre needs a baby changing facility a you need a nappy then the theatre isn’t a place for you. I have seen families at the Old Vic so there's the possibility that a family group could come to something like a Christmas show and one member sits it out in the bar with the baby while the others go in. Several Northern theatres do 'relaxed' performances - I don't know if they can include babies but maybe. For the life of me I cannot understand why a theatre needs a baby changing facility a you need a nappy then the theatre isn’t a place for you. They want people to use the cafe between shows, even if they’re not going to the theatre, and some of them might have babies. Like the Young Vic. And they are now doing an annual Christmas show for families. I am all for getting people into the theatre, but someone that wear a nappy even the Christmas show is toy young. Cafe is a good point, but the cafe is downstairs and I would assume nappy wearer would generally be in a pram.
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Post by foxa on Oct 18, 2019 11:04:17 GMT
They may be planning some 'relaxed' performances where mothers with babies can attend (the show 'Emilia' did this.) And lots of prams are foldable so can be taken downstairs, etc.
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Post by TallPaul on Oct 18, 2019 11:24:21 GMT
I was at the New Theatre in Hull last night, which had a £16 million refurbishment in 2017. The toilets are lovely, and I didn't see any queues, even at the interval...but the sinks are almost unusable. They are made from that faux stone, and very shallow, so there is only a few centimetres gap between the bottom of the tap and sink. There's almost no point bothering if you can't have a good rub!
Close (literally), but no cigar.
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Post by Dawnstar on Oct 18, 2019 13:01:19 GMT
We are moving back to our refurbed office next week and at the behest of the new diversity and inclusion group they announced a gender neutral loo. Without any consultation. We’ve now been invited to attend an ‘open forum’ led by the D&I group to discuss it. Our company is 65% women and 33% men, by the way. At least the loos are all proper cubicles. Sink area will be shared. The main problem is that the loos will be in the stairwell area outside the office proper in a shared building - so we don’t know who else in the building might be wandering in and out. That sounds far from ideal & having the consultation a week before moving in is clearly far too late to change the arrangements (which, cynically, might be why they're doing it!). I'm very glad that when the company I temp for moved into a new building last year it still had separate male & female loos, plus a disabled/gender neutral one that as far as I can see seems to be used primarily by cyclists for changing clothes.
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Post by queenie on Oct 18, 2019 16:39:18 GMT
I was wondering whether the theatres which host the Royal Variety Performance assign a member of the front of house team to guard the Royal lavatories.
Not so long ago a member of the Royal Family came into somewhere where I work and I was asked to be guardian of the designated bog, My task was to keep people away and say "You cant go in there, royalty only". The toilet was sweeped by the staff, then cleaned, inspected, found to not be clean enough, and so Vera the cleaner was brought back and she washed the walls and primped the toilet paper and sprayed all sorts to make it fragrant. And she hung around the corner for 40 minutes to see who was going to mess up her handywork, When he finally appeared he was in and out like a flash and said thanks awflly and went. All that fuss for such a quick visit.
Now we know what the royal we really is.
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Post by The Matthew on Oct 18, 2019 17:04:27 GMT
I assume there's some sort of protocol for royalty requesting to use the facilities. I have this image in my head of the Queen leaning over and saying "One wishes to curl one out".
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Xanderl
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Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Oct 18, 2019 18:47:06 GMT
Years ago someone told me an apocryphal story of a Navy ship which installed a new loo in preparation for a royal visit, but rigged it up to collect the monarchical stool rather than flush it away so they could encase it in something and display it above the bar. (spoilered for taste reasons!)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2019 19:39:15 GMT
We are moving back to our refurbed office next week and at the behest of the new diversity and inclusion group they announced a gender neutral loo. Without any consultation. We’ve now been invited to attend an ‘open forum’ led by the D&I group to discuss it. Our company is 65% women and 33% men, by the way. At least the loos are all proper cubicles. Sink area will be shared. The main problem is that the loos will be in the stairwell area outside the office proper in a shared building - so we don’t know who else in the building might be wandering in and out. And presumably we can safely assume ‘open forum’ means ‘re-education camp’?
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 19, 2019 21:32:08 GMT
This evening the women took over the mixed gender ‘Gents’ at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Walked in and 3 women were waiting for the 1 cubicle, decided to not use the urinals and used the upstairs toilet, not sure what would have happened if I had the inclination to use the urinals, could it be potentially considered indecent exposure. (legitimised flashing opportunity for those inclined?)
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Post by lynette on Oct 19, 2019 21:45:51 GMT
This evening the women took over the mixed gender ‘Gents’ at the Lyric Hammersmith. Walked in and 3 women were waiting for the 1 cubicle, decided to not use the urinals and used the upstairs toilet, not sure what would have happened if I had the inclination to use the urinals, could it be potentially considered indecent exposure. (legitimised flashing opportunity for those inclined?) WHOA. Dilemma eh?
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Post by foxa on Oct 20, 2019 8:43:32 GMT
This evening the women took over the mixed gender ‘Gents’ at the Lyric Hammersmith. Walked in and 3 women were waiting for the 1 cubicle, decided to not use the urinals and used the upstairs toilet, not sure what would have happened if I had the inclination to use the urinals, could it be potentially considered indecent exposure. (legitimised flashing opportunity for those inclined?) That's interesting - I think the assumption was that women would pretty much eschew anything that said 'urinals.' However I made a mistake once. I was someplace that had two small toilets each labelled 'gender-free.' Because they were small I had assumed each was a single enclosed toilet but when I entered one there was a sink and then a cubicle beyond. What I didn't notice, until I exited the cubicle ,was the single urinal next to the external door - now being used by a young man. Bad for both of us - worse for him, I suspect. I scurried out and looked again at the sign which in small letters had 'cubicle and urinal' - ooops. At the Young Vic the other night a couple of women bounced in confusion between the two gender-free options, saying 'I don't know where to go' before alighting on the disabled toilet - the one place they probably really should n't have gone. I worked at a school which would sometimes introduce some ideologically driven idea (no one can lock their doors, so students feel ownership of the school and all its rooms; only write comments in green ink - so much more positive than other colours; spend the first ten minutes of every lesson writing down aims and objectives; play peaceful music on the way to assembly so the students will willingly walk in silence, etc.) So we'd give it a go, some things worked out, some needed tweaking and some were thrown out.
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Xanderl
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Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Oct 20, 2019 9:14:42 GMT
This evening the women took over the mixed gender ‘Gents’ at the Lyric Hammersmith. Walked in and 3 women were waiting for the 1 cubicle, decided to not use the urinals and used the upstairs toilet, not sure what would have happened if I had the inclination to use the urinals, could it be potentially considered indecent exposure. (legitimised flashing opportunity for those inclined?) Lyric Hammersmith is another one (like the Old Vic) which had a massive building project (in fact I think they've had two massive building projects?) which would have allowed them to rethink the toilet layout to create a safe gender neutral layout, but instead just went for the approach of changing the signs on the doors and thinking "That'll do!"
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Post by crowblack on Oct 20, 2019 10:16:13 GMT
just went for the approach of changing the signs on the doors and thinking "That'll do!" Apparently the Old Vic 'new' toilets also have gaps above the doors. Surely the HSE can take action here?
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Post by fossil on Oct 20, 2019 17:25:13 GMT
This evening the women took over the mixed gender ‘Gents’ at the Lyric Hammersmith. Walked in and 3 women were waiting for the 1 cubicle, decided to not use the urinals and used the upstairs toilet, not sure what would have happened if I had the inclination to use the urinals, could it be potentially considered indecent exposure. (legitimised flashing opportunity for those inclined?) A few months ago when I went to the upstairs (what used to be Gents) loo at the Royal Court there were two young women at the mirror fiddling with their makeup. The urinals are opposite the mirrors. I am getting on a bit and the old prostate means it can sometimes take several minutes to empty my bladder. Fortunately the cubicle was free and I used that. Had I had to use the urinal, and being unsure of the sightlines, I did wonder if the what may be considered to be over-long length of time I had my aged member pointing at the porcelain night indeed be considered as indecent behaviour, if not exposure. Perhaps such toilets need to have a trigger (todger?) warning.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2019 19:13:24 GMT
This evening the women took over the mixed gender ‘Gents’ at the Lyric Hammersmith. Walked in and 3 women were waiting for the 1 cubicle, decided to not use the urinals and used the upstairs toilet, not sure what would have happened if I had the inclination to use the urinals, could it be potentially considered indecent exposure. (legitimised flashing opportunity for those inclined?) A few months ago when I went to the upstairs (what used to be Gents) loo at the Royal Court there were two young women at the mirror fiddling with their makeup. The urinals are opposite the mirrors. I am getting on a bit and the old prostate means it can sometimes take several minutes to empty my bladder. Fortunately the cubicle was free and I used that. Had I had to use the urinal, and being unsure of the sightlines, I did wonder if the what may be considered to be over-long length of time I had my aged member pointing at the porcelain night indeed be considered as indecent behaviour, if not exposure. Perhaps such toilets need to have a trigger (todger?) warning. Your post (and others from the chaps on here) made me giggle, fossil. I wonder how many of the theatres have considered this, ahem, angle. It would be great if men felt able to share their concerns with the theatres involved, but I do understand that sending that letter/email could be awkward! It’s just another reason to add to the very long list of why these decisions shouldn’t be forced on us without proper consultation. As an aside, I see that not content with battling over access to single-sex toilets, hospital wards and changing rooms, as well as roles as women’s officers and in women’s sports, the latest trans battleground is feminine hygiene products. Presumably soon to be known simply as the utterly meaningless “hygiene products”. Sigh.
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Post by foxa on Oct 20, 2019 19:45:51 GMT
Fossil, I'm sure you are not alone in this. The men in my family are rather sensitive, reasonable and private types and they would find that situation stressful too.
I jokingly said to Mr Foxa that we should organise groups to hang around ADs whenever they were at the urinals so they could experience how off-putting it was. He took a sip of tea and said, 'I think that would be hard to organise.' (Did I mention we've been married for over 30 years?)
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 20, 2019 23:24:08 GMT
They may be planning some 'relaxed' performances where mothers with babies can attend (the show 'Emilia' did this.) And lots of prams are foldable so can be taken downstairs, etc. I have been to ‘relaxed’ performances that had a baby in arms, however ‘relaxed’ performance wasn’t intended for this purpose, it was intended for people who would otherwise find the conventional performances challenging and overwhelming, not entitled organic parent/s to bring their child and ruin other people night out under the guise of ‘relaxed’ performance. So no theatres don’t need nappy change station.
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 20, 2019 23:25:32 GMT
As I understand it, they do actually deliver a royal loo seat to be fitted before the event, in all uses of the word. It would get panned.
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Post by foxa on Oct 21, 2019 7:45:32 GMT
They may be planning some 'relaxed' performances where mothers with babies can attend (the show 'Emilia' did this.) And lots of prams are foldable so can be taken downstairs, etc. I have been to ‘relaxed’ performances that had a baby in arms, however ‘relaxed’ performance wasn’t intended for this purpose, it was intended for people who would otherwise find the conventional performances challenging and overwhelming, not entitled organic parent/s to bring their child and ruin other people night out under the guise of ‘relaxed’ performance. So no theatres don’t need nappy change station. The relaxed performance I referenced, the one for'Emilia,' was a matinee when the show was in the West End and was aimed specifically at mothers with babies. Mothers with babies/young children often feel isolated, especially from cultural events, and this was, from all accounts a big success. It was also one of the few performances of 'Emilia' to sell out in the West End, so other theatres might want to emulate it. I appreciate there are other types of 'relaxed' performances, but this is what I specifically mentioned. If someone who doesn't want to hear or see children went to an event billed as a mothers/babies matinee they have only themselves to blame. I'm not sure why you think mothers/parents going to a supportive and enriching event aimed at them means they are 'entitled' or 'organic' - but you obviously do not like that nappy change station!
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