Theatre Programmes - is it time to stop?

I agree. I always buy programmes, and frankly, with everything I acquire, I am a suitable candidate for one of the C4/5 hoarders tv episodes.

I'd love it if I could just get a pdf copy. It would be more readily accessible too.

I love programmes, I love flyers, I love physical tickets. I try to get something for everything I see from fringe through West End. I keep 'em in chronological order and look back every now and again.

Putting the flyers in chronological order was a great idea Dave B, it'll really capture your history of theatre going, and changing trends. As well as Programmes and brochures I also scanned flyers (around 600 of them! clearly the freelance work wasn't coming in over the summer lol) but in alphabetical order.

I agree with most of this but I can’t see pdfs vanishing anytime soon. Museums and libraries are digitising their collections like mad. And I’m sure they preserve their digital collections as diligently as their physical collection.

Digitising improves accessibility. I’m interested in fashion magazines and there are amazing French and Spanish collections available at the click of a button.

This also helps preserve the physical collection because, once digitised, they don’t need to be handled as often.

I decluttered during the first lockdown and have since veered away from purchasing programmes. Takes up too much space and I only flick through them once in a blue moon. I've still got a stack of maybe 40-50 programmes left I'm thinking of donating. I keep a spreadsheet of the shows I've seen instead, including information on the cast members I liked.

I do wish we didn't do away with physical tickets at most venues, and I find flyers more difficult to hunt down. I have now turned my attention to collecting magnets, but wish they'd get more creative instead of the standard rectangular magnets.

Boxes under beds? "Clutter"? Mine are on a bookshelf in my living room, with absolute favourites in frames on my living room wall (behind my sofa because otherwise my eye is drawn to them and I get distracted) - the artwork on some programmes are just to good to be shoved under a box.

And these represent some of the happiest times for me, shows I've seen and loved, shows my best friend and I saw together (she died in 2021). I have some posters too - my Guys & Dolls from The National in 1996. A Les Mis signed by Killian Donnelly and John Owen Jones. The Love Never Dies death mask signed by Ramin on the last matinee performance. The Lend Me A Tenor CD Cover signed by the cast. I've got The Play That Goes Wrong poster signed by the cast. My Sunset Boulevard signed by Glenn Close! And my most recent acquisition - Groundhog Day programmes (both 2016 and 2023) signed by Andy Karl - and unsigned ones that I will arrange next to each other, eventually, for the whimsy of it.

My Pirates of Penzance at Wimbledon in 2002 which shows "Policeman" as Ramin Karimloo.
My Pirates of Penzance at Drury Lane in 1982 with Tim Curry.
My Spamalot playbill signed by Hank Azaria and David Hyde Pierce in New York on my birthday in 2005.

These bring me such joy. I don't buy many now, only if the show really rocks my world, but - objects of joy.

I have programmes going back 40 years and have no intention of getting rid of them. Each one has a flyer(if available), ticket, who I went with and small review. Autographed programmes are in a separate box which I often look at for their special memories.

I really like show programs, but my one gripe is I wish they would standardise them with consistent big and small size options. Certain like Back To The Future have programs/brochures that are way bigger than others and it makes them so difficult to file away alongside other ones!

Basically any bigger than A4 shouldn’t be allowed, except in special circumstances

I saw a tweet a few years ago by an artistic director about how they don’t like programmes but audiences moan if there isn't one. Several replies from other theatre types generally agreeing that they’re a waste of time. I was surprised how dismissive they were of them, if only for the money they bring in. They can keep their drinks and sweets, but I’ll always buy a programme if there is one.

The good ones that have had a bit of effort put into them can be invaluable for providing background and context. Like when I went to the last day of Angels in America and got the very last one from the programme stand. Without that I wouldn’t have known that not only was Roy Cohn a real person but he was also a mentor to then President Trump, which definitely impacted how I viewed that character.

Problem now is that a lot of them aren't that good. Recent biggish tours to ATG venues have been really basic: adverts, a list of credits, artist bios, a double page spread of the credits again, creative bios, more adverts. 5 or 6 quid for nothing much, which is just a cash grab.

I don’t trust digital stuff. The idea that things are always available online is just not true. I used to have a digital magazine subscription, then they changed their system and all the back issues I’d paid for were no longer available. I bought digital copies of Angelo Badalamenti’s score to Twin Peaks. Gone. BBC Shop/Store or whatever closed so the archive programmes I’d bought are no longer available (but they did at least issue refunds.)

Local theatres have done free online programmes recently. Nice in theory, but once that show’s over so is the programme, so no referring back. If I was going to pay for a digital programme it would have to be downloadable to keep.

When my dad died about eight years ago, one of the pleasures was going through his past programmes, dating back to school productions in the 1940s and university productions in the early 50s, the casts containing names like Robert Robinson and Shirley Williams who would go on to fame in later life. I felt I was brought closer to his life before we children came along. In those days programmes were just often just a folded sheet of A4 paper with lots of adverts, but it was fascinating too seeing programmes for the touring Donald Wolfit's productions in the 50s (he saw them in Newcastle), the odd Edinburgh festival show from that era and later on the touring shows that went to Cambridge where we lived in the 60s and 70s.

I hope that my daughters enjoy looking through my programmes when I die - in 25 or so years of course - and they will get the thrill of seeing famous names like Ralph Fiennes and Mark Rylance when they were in their 20s, the programmes of the original productions of, say, Arcadia and Dancing at Lughnasa, McKellen as Iago and Richard III, Fiona Shaw as Richard II, Maggie Smith in Albee, Gambon and SRB as Vanya. But, yes, they do take up a lot of room!

Yes, it is.  I loved Ask the Family as a child - we watched it as a family in the 70s.  I believe they tried to revive it a few years ago but it didn't work - and I seem to remember Mark Lawson in the Guardian admitting that whilst he normally defended modern culture against its older versions even he was aghast at how much the revival had been dumbed down.