Young Marx at the new Bridge theatre

They are free ?!

How on earth did I miss that ? I’m a bad Yorkshire man ...

Just on a couple of pre advertised sundays I think.

Well the theatre is a very doable ten minutes plod from London bridge, has noted has amazing views across the river and should work very well in the warmer months with lots of food places, places to wander nearby. In the colder months you've got to pre-plan a bit more and get there early enough to bag a seat. Big open entrance, free water, lots of toilets, double plus, comfy seats, nowhere looked like it would seem that far away from the stage and like those angled side seats. 

Play a bit mixed, I do like a bit of revolve action and it was nicely acted with some loud blasts of interconnecting music. The play didn't seem 100% sure what it was after, so mainly comedy, some of it unnecessarily broad but with added serious tones layered on top that sometimes sat better than others. i'd have preferred less laughs (especially from the ecstatic couple behind me) and more serious but that would have been a whole different playwright. 

No if London bridge could just get finished so there were some trains for me could be great.

How empty was it? I've been wondering if the lack of a really big name would hurt this. Rory Kinnear, Nancy Carroll and Oliver Chris are big names to me, as I'm sure they are to many people on this board, but I couldn't help wondering how great their general appeal is. A lot of reference has been made to the Bridge Theatre having to offer populist shows, but that will surely only cut through if there is also populist casting.

I liked this theatre a lot, and found all the staff to be both totally competent and very friendly, alas I thought this play was a mess - it got to the end and I just thought : why bother? It had its moments (not many though)but it just didn't have enough of a plot to carry it through to the end - I can sort of imagine why this was chosen to open a new theatre in London (a new work by a British writer who wrote one of the NTs biggest hits of the last 10 years) but unfortunately thats about it, there just didn't seem to be a point to this, it trundles along for 2 hours and then the lights dim and thats your lot. I'd definitely go to the Bridge again, hopefully next time it'll be something a bit better than this.

Well, horses for courses, as I had a really nice time seeing this yesterday afternoon – it was just the right weather and the right play for a lovely cosy matinee. I really enjoyed the play, which I thought was perfectly interesting and entertaining. I agree that it’s not doing anything new or ground-breaking but not everything has to. I think I’ve seen a couple of comments about it failing as a farce but I don’t think it’s trying to be that – it’s a comedy with a bit of substance, and as such it worked well for me. My family wanted to see it so I’m taking them over Christmas and I’m quite happy to see it again with them. There was an unexpected talk afterwards with N Hytner and Tristram Hunt, who has written a book about Engels, which was interesting as well.

Front row £25 ticks are a bargain – stage is quite high but you don’t miss anything. Am slightly worried that the front row far side seats that I’ve booked for the family are going to be fairly restricted though – anyone got any experience with those?

The theatre is lovely, though I think it will be nicer in a year’s time when it’s got a few stains and has been bashed about a bit; it’s a bit too shiny at the moment to be able to relax properly! Staff were great and very welcoming, and you can tell a lot of thought has gone into the experience. I actually didn’t find it hard to get out of the stalls at the interval/end as others have mentioned – no worse than getting out of the Olivier from the front stalls (the theatre was mostly full).

Main quibble – the bar is pretty expensive and only serves wine in 175ml (for which the prices START at £6.50 and go up to a massive £11 per glass); however there are a couple of decent-looking beers on tap, so I think that will be my drink of choice here! Even worse (and there are some people who will appreciate my pain more than others) is that the bar couldn’t cope with the number of people wanting an interval drink; I queued through the interval and then finally gave up when they started herding people back into the auditorium. It’s probably good for both my liver and my wallet, but I do like a Sunday afternoon alcohol hit so that was very disappointing…

I also can’t imagine ever eating there – it’s very expensive and there are loads of cheaper places if all you want is a sandwich/snack. But there are people who won’t blink at paying £7 for a glorified egg sandwich and if they want to subsidise the theatre for the rest of us, I’m fine with that.

The location is excellent – it’s a striking bit of river and will be gorgeous in summer to sit outside in the interval with a beer (assuming they’ve sorted the bar out by then).

Overall I really wish this place well – it’s a high quality experience for pretty good value ticket prices, and really deserves to succeed. Will definitely be back for future productions.

Bridge Theatre allows you to change your tickets for £2/ticket as long as it's 48 hours beforehand - given it's the same performance, they might do it for free but as a worst case you should be able to pay £2/ticket to change.

Really enjoyed this yesterday. Such a talented cast and much funnier than I’d expected after reading comments on here.
The theatre is charming and we thought the staff were outstanding! Nothing was too much trouble. Didn’t eat (other than the free Madeleines) but the wines were reasonably priced and great quality.

How did you get the madeleines for free? (Just curious LOL) They were certainly to be bought when I went a few Fridays ago- can't remember the price: £4.50 or something like that? Not that free food would have salvaged an irredeemable evening. The staff are lovely, though -- they should forget about the play and just turn each performance into an impromptu meet 'n' greet.

Any recommendations?!

Last night's performance ended at the interval due to technical difficulties, according to their twitter.

They were free on the Sunday I went. You got two for production of a ticket. They tasted like a melt-in-your-mouth sweet sponge cake, with accompanied slightly oily pleasant sugary lingering on your taste buds after each bite, and were substantial and small enough that you could indulgently dip them in your tea or coffee, like a biscuit, if you weren't embarrassed about it. They came in batches of six for £4 or £4.50, if you had to buy them. I thought they were super tasty and could eat a ton of them!

As for the play, it was mid-ranking Richard Bean, a sitcom about young Marx, where we were given three episodes: a shaky pilot, which I call "Who stole the silver?" a stonking episode, firing on all comic cylinders, which I call "Who's Your Father?" (free pun included), and the weird episode where everybody acts seriously (which usually comes much later than episode 3 in a real sitcom, as it's designed to deepen our affection for the characters, which I call "Sad Days").

I enjoyed episode 2 very much, but episodes 1 and 3 were middling.

More than anything, this expanded my appreciation for Rory Kinnear. I had him down as a "character actor", as his Hamlet, while well-spoken, lacked charisma. By the same token, his Iago was riveting because of his non-descriptness, his oh-so-average London-boy-out-on-the-town type utterly sinister through his recognisability and ordinariness. His Creature in the tv show "Penny Dreadful" showed him to be this character actor extraordinaire, as he bled pathos through his monster make-up, and stole all his scenes.

But he really carries this so so sitcom. In comedy, he has, in himself, not as a character, all the charisma needed to carry a show. In the second episode (see above), very funny!

3 and a half stars for the show
4 stars for the Madeleines
4 and a half stars for the theatre