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Post by jek on May 12, 2018 9:21:36 GMT
I joined the queue at 9 am and got in at around about number 2650 in the queue. Had booked and was out by 10.00 am. I got everything I wanted (six concerts) but will probably now spend the next few days wondering if I should have booked for anything else. For info I didn't check West Side Story as I didn't want to see that but I did get 3 tickets for the John Wilson 'On The Town'. Thought the booking system was well designed especially if, like me, one of your tickets was for a sixteen year old - very clear signposting of the discounts (unlike the National Theatre, for example).
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Post by jek on May 11, 2018 14:51:49 GMT
Quite surprised when my tickets for this (booked in July 2017) arrived today. Daughter will be thrilled when she gets home from school.
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Post by jek on May 6, 2018 15:09:54 GMT
I must admit that I tweet a lot about things that I have seen (more concerts and exhibitions than plays in my case) but in a case like this where I haven't enjoyed something I just don't tweet about it at all.
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Post by jek on May 6, 2018 14:45:28 GMT
I'm afraid that we fall in to the category of people who left at the interval during last night's performance. When I originally booked I really thought this would be up our street. My partner and I met over 25 years ago when we were both doing doctorates concerned with aspects of Labour Party history - in fact his was about how people had been politicised or not by the Army Bureau of Current Affairs during the war (credited as having played a role in the 1945 Labour victory). So it was properly in line with our interests. While we didn't feel it was terrible it was boring and it was repetitive. And I felt that the themes had been dealt with so much better in the recently seen ballet based on Leonard Bernstein/W.H.Auden's Age of Anxiety.
To be honest if we had been sitting in more comfortable seats and been at a matinee we probably would have stayed the course just because the performances were good. But crippled in Row C by the lack of legroom (something that hasn't mattered to us in other long plays such as Oslo because the play was enough of a distraction), the unsurprisingly very hot environment (no doubt magnified by those narrow seats) and facing a late Saturday night tube journey we cut our losses and went home. Judging by the number of people leaving the National with us this was not an uncommon reaction. I did feel a bit guilty about the actors possibly looking out on empty seats but not enough to stay the course.
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Post by jek on May 4, 2018 15:38:01 GMT
As detailed earlier I had a dreaded 503 error and I was using Chrome.
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Post by jek on May 3, 2018 17:20:58 GMT
I got tickets for Pericles (alongside Hadestown and Home, I'm Darling) and at the time I was booking - about 9.30 am this morning - there were only a few seats left for the last performance - the only one I looked at. I wonder if a large number of tickets are being reserved for the community organisations taking part in the production.
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Post by jek on May 3, 2018 12:57:38 GMT
I got a couple of £15 ones (back row circle) for mid November. Found it harder (though did succeed) to get tickets for Pericles - but then that is only on for three nights and presumably a lot of tickets are held back for community groups involved in the production. Quite relieved to get anything as the usual gremlins seemed to have turned up for National booking. Lots of freezing and initially refusing to let me book anything. Had pretty much given up when I got an Error 503 page but somehow got back in.
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Post by jek on May 1, 2018 13:34:37 GMT
Really excited about Noyes Fludde at Stratford East, my very local theatre. My own kids have loved this piece since Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom and the eldest got to perform in a production of it at Trinity Buoy Wharf, also in Newham some years ago. Tickets very cheap too. www.eno.org/whats-on/noyes-fludde/
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Post by jek on Apr 25, 2018 16:19:17 GMT
I have the proms brochure in front of me. It says that the matinee runs from 3.30pm - c5.40pm and the evening 8.00pm - c10.10pm. There will be one interval.
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Post by jek on Apr 25, 2018 8:48:40 GMT
I saw Aristorats at the National in 2005. I remember it well as it was a rare night out when our three kids were small. Also, it was a couple of nights after the London tube attacks so there was a sort of nervous but uncharacteristically friendly atmosphere on the Jubilee Line that night. But had no idea until I read the post by barrowside that Andrew Scott was in it - though I remember a lovely performance by Gina McKee (later so good in Friel's Faith Healer at the Donmar). I will certainly be attempting to get tickets for the Donmar production - being second generation Irish and keen on Brian Friel I already have them for Translations at the National.
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Post by jek on Apr 23, 2018 8:35:21 GMT
Katherine Parkinson was one of the very few good things in the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I thought. Though my daughter really enjoyed the film and so would disagree with me on this one.
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Post by jek on Apr 22, 2018 21:29:32 GMT
I live less than ten minutes walk from Stratford East and grew up in the East End. I would say that if you live locally it is hard to miss what is on at the theatre. Every household gets a glossy magazine called the Newham Mag delivered once a fortnight (Eric Pickles tried to stop it but failed) and this has large ads and sometimes editorial about the theatre. The shopping centre (the old one, not Westfield) frequently has banner adverts for the plays. And pretty much every Newham school child - including my three when they were at primary school - gets taken by their school to see the pantomime (part of the council's 'Every Child A Theatregoer' commitment) and so would be aware of the theatre via that. Certainly in my case it isn't that I don't know what is on at the theatre but rather that there is very little on there that I want to see. I often look at the stuff that is on and think that that isn't aimed at me, but I do wonder who some of it is aimed at. It would be so nice to see it buzzing with life.
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Post by jek on Apr 19, 2018 17:55:56 GMT
Just a reminder to anyone booking LSO tickets for Candide (or anything else) that if you have an under 18 in your life they qualify for tickets for £5. It's a wonderful scheme which, with a daughter doing A Level music, we take advantage of a lot. So, for example for Candide her dad and my tickets are £41 while hers in the adjacent seat is a fiver.
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Post by jek on Apr 19, 2018 17:13:31 GMT
Just regained my status as my teenage daughter's temporary best friend (last achieved when she wanted Hamilton and Fun Home tickets). I had never heard of Hadestown but she tells me that it is wonderful and I simply must get tickets. Sometime on May 3rd (I have priority membership) normal service will be resumed and I will once more just be this rather sad middle aged woman who does her washing!
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Post by jek on Apr 19, 2018 14:59:47 GMT
I don't know if anyone has noted this but it isn't the John Wilson orchestra playing this rather it is the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Wilson. Having seen the LSO semi staged Wonderful Town at the end of last year I'm certainly up for seeing their take on On The Town.
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Post by jek on Apr 18, 2018 7:08:50 GMT
I recently booked to see the Watermill Theatre production of Twelfth Night (which I understand has a heavy focus on jazz music) when it lands at Witon's Music Hall in September. (I'm a Wilton's member, general booking opens next week.) So I think I will probably also book for the Young Vic version as a compare/contrast. Really pleased to see Jesus Hopped the A train coming. I'm hoping my non theatre going sons (aged 20 and 18) will agree to come to this as they absolutely loved the Motherf***er with the Hat when it was on at the National. I saw a student (Rose Bruford) production of Stephen Adly Guirgis' Our Lady of 121st Street at Stratford Circus and will welcome seeing more of his work.
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Post by jek on Apr 14, 2018 22:05:59 GMT
Went to see her at Wilton's tonight. A very packed house for a 90 minute straight through set. She certainly has charisma by the bucketload. As my dad was from Cork I am always keen to hear a Cork accent. She mentioned that she is playing the Union Chapel in November.
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Post by jek on Apr 13, 2018 7:11:33 GMT
Well this was fun. I'm sure that other people on this board can give a more learned reflection on the piece but from a purely enjoyment point of view this has so much to recommend it. Big voices, big design (I'm guessing 1970's since I swear we had wallpaper like that in the wedding scene in the council tower block flat I grew up in) and lots of big brass. It is long (3 hrs 20 minutes) and we did lose much of our circulation in the Row R of the ampitheatre seats we were in but it really didn't feel that long. It was my 16 year old daughter's first visit to the opera at the ROH and as someone studying both music and Russian history at A Level it was a bit of a gift (much like Death of Stalin). I only knew the story from the film that came out a couple of years ago but the programme notes were excellent - as was the programme more generally which, given its price, was welcome.
My daughter was thrilled to overhear a very elderly lady saying with great feeling 'I can never hear enough Shostakovich' - a proper lesson there for her that some interests are well worth cultivating as they can stay with you - and give you pleasure - for a long lifetime.
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Post by jek on Apr 6, 2018 22:00:41 GMT
Have just come back from a fantastic evening seeing a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass which was commissioned for the opening of the Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts in 1971. Nobody seems to be able to decide what genre the piece belongs to - Bernstein called it a 'Theatre Piece for singers, players and dancers' - but as he collaborated on it with Stephen Schwarz and it seems likely to be of interest to people who like Godspell, I'm putting it in the musicals thread. It is on again tomorrow night and there are still tickets available.
This production, conducted by Marin Alsop, has a cast of hundreds - young people from the National Youth Orchestra, Chineke! Junior Orchestra, Trinity Laban (musical theatre students) and many more. They are led by Paulo Szot as the Celebrant - he is terrific. Having seen (on You Tube) a rather stilted version of the piece from the 2012 proms this was such an improvement. I have to admit I had no idea who Szot was (apart from the publicity material telling me he had won a Tony for South Pacific) but I'd certainly look out for him in other things. Fascinating Polish/Brazilian background which I suspect gave him extra insight into this role.
I have to say that the material counts as special interest for me. I was brought up Catholic in the 60s and 70s - a time of folk masses and nuns getting rid of their habits! It was all very exciting and the Bernstein mass reflects the culture that existed in the moment. It is very much a period piece but done with such energy and commitment by the young performers that you can forgive it some of its excesses.
There is a lot of movement on stage and projections of key events of the 60s.
One caveat. It is 2 hours long with no interval and certainly the seats we were in (on the balcony) were punishingly uncomfortable. But for only £18 it seems churlish to complain. As I'm not a regular at the Festival Hall I can't tell you whether the top price £30 seats offer more leg room - but I'd certainly investigate that before seeing anything else there.
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Post by jek on Apr 5, 2018 13:01:49 GMT
Sorry @theatremonkey. Worrying that I did not remember that there was already a thread, especially given that I had contributed to it!
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Post by jek on Apr 5, 2018 8:02:52 GMT
Went to see the new Mark-Anthony Turnage opera based on Neil Gaiman's Coraline last night. Liked the music and some terrific performances and some clever design but have some real reservations about the piece overall. It just seemed a bit too well mannered - as if it needed to let its hair down a bit. I had started to worry about seeing it when I realised that the libretto was written by Rory Mullarkey whose George and The Dragon was a lowpoint of my theatre going last year. One of the real problems with it is - as the Telegraph review pointed out - that it is pretty much all recitative. There is certainly nothing that you would come out humming. There were very few children in the audience (and my daughter at 16 hardly fits that category any more) and I can't imagine what they made of it. The production was suggesting it was suitable for ages 8+ but I can't see any of my three kids having taken to it at that age.
Interestingly one of the best performances was Kitty Whately playing the mother/other mother. But she wasn't actually singing the role last night. Due to laryngitis she walked the role while Harriet Williams sang it from the sidelines. That worked surprisingly well and the pair of them deserved the huge cheer they got at the curtain call.
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Post by jek on Apr 4, 2018 10:04:47 GMT
Lucky I saw this thread as I'd forgotten today was the day. Got in straight away and was able to get a good ticket for the matinee that I wanted. Makes up a bit for the fact that I couldn't get to the Muriel Spark exhibition in Edinburgh (though fortunately my partner had a trip there for work and so got me the poster). Now looking forward to June. Thanks to all here for the heads up.
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Post by jek on Mar 28, 2018 7:00:39 GMT
The London Symphony Orchestra has started programming what it calls a six thirty fix which are concerts of about an hour in length starting at 6.30 pm. They ran Bernstein's Wonderful Town as one of these and tonight they have a programme of Stravinsky and Debussy in the same format. The idea is that it is something you can pop in to on your way home from work. They are also slightly less formal than the LSO regular concerts with the conductor introducing the pieces and the audience encouraged to use the Encue app on their phones during the concert to follow what is going on. One thing I have noticed booking them though is that they are not noticeably cheaper than the regular concerts. But they do sell, as with all LSO concerts, the bargain £5 tickets anywhere in the hall for the under 18s (really helpful if, like me, you have a child doing A Level music).
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Post by jek on Mar 26, 2018 13:55:27 GMT
You can get a flavour of this by visiting the Isle of Dogs twitter feed (@isleofdogsmovie) which has a film of Murray and Vogler performing a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghettii. I suspect that the evening could be a lot of fun.
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Post by jek on Mar 23, 2018 22:52:44 GMT
tonyloco Oh that is a shame. Like the ravens leaving the tower. But at least the archives have been preserved. It's been good to see Wilton's Music Hall use of Heritage Lottery funding for their archives by providing so much of it online (https://www.wiltons.org.uk/heritage/archive and artsandculture.google.com/partner/wilton-s-music-hall) and it would be nice to see something similar for the TRSE. The research I did on Burton was done after my PhD on behalf of a professor at Leeds University. She, the sadly late Katrina Honeyman, published a book based on it - Well Suited: A History of the Leeds clothing industry 1850-1990. Love a bit of Finian's Rainbow. I suspect that I am not the only person of my age (mid 50s) who came to love Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg thanks to Sunday afternoon Benny Green radio programmes.
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