Hair - Hope Mill MCR / National Tour

First the bad news. The venue is quite difficult to find - I walked passed it and ended up trying to get into The Vaults which is some sort of club!? But re-routed in the right direction by a friendly bouncer on the door.

The booking and seating system is shambolic! You book online for various areas blue, green, yellow and red but the seating is unreserved in those sections (unless you are Mark Shenton of course who had a reserved seat for him and his husband even though I don't think it was press night - no scramble for a seat for him!) You print your ticket off online which has a bar code but this does not gain you entry to the show - you have to queue while one young girl finds your name on a list - crosses it off and then issues you with a piece of paper with the relevant colour highlighted on. The colours are then called in turn from the bar seating from the back to the front but of course no-one takes any notice and corridor is blocked with people just trying to get in with the wrong colour - chaos.

The "souvenir" programmes are £6! I passed! This isn't exactly the West End!!!

The best seats are by far in the red zone which are on either side of the traverse stage - they are close (and if you sit on the front row a bit of minor interaction with the cast) but at least you get a good view. I was sat in the main green section and the rake is poor and I could not see a thing as I had a large guy sat in front of me. The house was busy though and I can only assume everyone got deals or free seats - no-one should pay £55 to sit here!!!!! Plus of course the theatre was stiflingly hot!

But to the show itself! A great bar area which had been turned into a hippy commune with wigwams and lights and mattresses! You could make out in a tent if you wanted to....I thought they could have done the show promenade style in the bar!

The theatre was decked out with hundreds of ribbons hung from the ceiling and gave it a very hippy vibe. The show is well staged and lit, a great band and the young cast commit themselves fully to the show which has huge energy. It is very well sung with some great voices. However, at this early preview, I just thought it reminded me of an end of term college production or a drama school showcase at times though. The cast "performing" a little too much rather then just being part of the tribe! Hopefully they will relax a little more as the run progresses and loosen up a little.

I love the show though, and of course it contains language that is not PC at all now, and I loved the gasps from the audience who presumably were not familiar with the material!

For those interested (and I know there are - mentioning no names Ryan) the nudity is brief, backlit with the cast huddled in a tight group at the far end of the stage. Again the best seats have to be in the red zone which are either side of the stage. Blink and you will miss it!!

According to the programme, Hair is a show that "demands to be performed on a stage that is affordably and accessibly priced" unlike the "eye watering" cost of seeing a show in the West End.

Did no one tell The Vaults?

I went on Monday the 9th and enjoyed the experience. The best part was being immersed in the hippie sub-culture and experiencing its ideologies embodied with emotion and thrill. The show is excessive - too many songs and lots of visual stimuli, but I think it's supposed to be part of the concept of the show showing all the inspiration that made possible this community. However, overpriced tickets - not because of the production itself, which is very attentive to details and full of talents, but because the venue has lots of bad seats and was too warm inside...

Does anyone know of any valid discounts for this?

It doesn't look like there's any discounts around at the moment - in fact tickets have been removed from sale completely from a lot of places that were advertising them previously (TodayTix for example)

One thing that is annoying me about this production is that they've posted competitions to win tickets on their Facebook and Twitter pages on numerous occasions, and every time they don't post any terms and conditions, no closing date, and they never announce a winner (this is dating back as far as August). I messaged them on Facebook, DMd and tweeted them - I can see they're reading the messages (and responding to other people) but just ignoring me when I'm calling them out on it - at one point they tweeted saying they would announce a winner the following day, but they never did then deleted the tweet saying they were going to do an announcement.

Well the two cheapest tiers are almost sold out but the top two have plenty of spaces. Bizarrely the yellow row (one above the cheapest) are actually the best seats IMO.

Anyone going to the "clothing optional" performance tonight? 😂😂

I saw the Saturday matinee. The yellow seats are definitely the best ones, close to the action but slightly less audience interaction than the red seats.

I haven't seen this since Manchester. Much tighter, with the whole hall really decorated to set the scene. Think the ensemble was bigger as well.

Fairly full, but there were empty seats in the expensive section. Had a nice chat with the lady next to me (who goes regularly and I suspect posts/lurks here), who said they often take the cheaper seats off sale to fill out the expensive version. Also discovered they are very short of covers, so cut the show as needed based on who is available.

There is also much more nudity than at Manchester. At Manchester, I remember the cast reluctantly stripping, then being in a huddle behind the fence where the band were. Here, they seemed much more into it, the posed in front of the fence with the lights on and everything on show for a few seconds (with enough time to tell that the male cast are unlikely to be American). Best seats for nudity are at the fence end of the red section, although not the best view for the main show.

When you arrive, you give your name and get given a ticket with your section colour. The hall entrance is near the ticket desk. Then, people get called in by group colours. I notice some people ignored the colour and just walked in anyway. It is frustrating waiting at the front of the queue and seeing several seats in the section already taken up (the person who did this is quite well known, will almost certainly read this and probably believes "if you can't beat them, join them" - he also had a great time, as opposed to the group on the other side of me who seemed to hate every second). A little pet peeve. Unallocated seating is always problematic to me.

A great show and works really well in the space.

I know a few people were asking about offers for this, and they’ve just posted an offer on Facebook:

Save 40% off of Band A (Green) & B (Red) for performances Tue – Thu (including Thu matinee) from 28 Nov – 7 Dec. Just quote BLACKFRIDAY when booking and book by Monday 27 Nov.

This means the top price tickets (including the booking fee) are now £35 and £31.50. Just booked for Tuesday - can’t wait!

(You put the offer code in on the page AFTER you enter your credit card details)

Went back again for the Thursday matinee. A bit over half full.

I got a Red seat this time (from the Black Friday sale). The Yellow seats are the best for first viewing, but this was good for a second viewing to pick out different bits of the staging.

No problem with choosing a good seat or rushing in for the matinee either.

Not much to add to the previous review. All of the main cast were on.

For the Saturday show, the case were already sat meditating when the audience came in. For the Thursday matinee, they entered from the back once everyone was seated.

There was some extended kissing going on during the trip scene. Not going to mention which two people, but one was clearly keen to come up for air.

Quite funny watching one of the single guys go through a choice of seats on arrival, slowly moving himself round until he got the prime end seat with the best view of the nudity (if you're reading this - hope you enjoyed it!).

On for another month and I'm told it's busy at the weekends (like most shows), but the Thursday matinee is good too if the schedule works and you want more of a choice of seats.