Kiss of the Spider Woman - Menier

I saw it yesterday afternoon and loved it. I thought Samuel Barnett was captivating, vivid and vulnerable, the other actor a bit flatter - I'd have liked more of a sense of brooding political passion, though in both the performance and storyline he opens up as the play progresses. It's my first time at the Menier, and I had an excellent seat - central row B and (as there was a non-arrival in front) no-one in front of me. The staging was excellent - both in that and the setting/characters it reminded me of the Printroom's Deathwatch a couple of years ago, though this was tender where that was sharp and cruel. Btw, the production stills by Nobby Clark don't really do it justice.

Hmmm... "thrust" is probably closest, I reckon, though usually a thrust stage has audience on three sides. And the space is pretty flexible; Barnum was done in the round, Assassins was traverse, Into the Woods was end-on. Love in Idleness and Travesties were the same sort of set-up as Spider Woman appears to be, so maybe they reserve the flexibility for the musicals and the plays are all done the same way.

Well. I thought it was smashing. Not 'The York Realist' smashing but smashing all the same. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I forgot to sing the songs where the songs should have been.

The movie projections were very well done and really worked beautifully, especially as there were no set changes, Samuel Barnett is a very charismatic lead and there's a bit of a racy scene later on which was a pleasant surprise. I did quite fancy some dulce de leche and a crumpet afterwards though for some reason. I wasn't so convinced about the prison guard, she seemed a bit too nice. I had in my mind that she would have been more like she'd stepped off the set of 'Prisoner Cell Block H' really.

Barnett and Bennett (Bennett and Barnett) were marvellous though, Barnett a bit better than Bennett but Bennett was brilliant too.

Try saying that after a few technical difficulties.

It’s about 1 hour 40 mins, with no interval.

Just got a £10 ticket for this for Thursday using the Menier's 'Spider Web Special', on Mondays at midday they release 4 tickets at £10, 8 tickets at £20 and 16 tickets at £30 for each performance that week.  I thought the tickets would be gone instantly, but there's still even the £10 tickets for a lot of days available now (8 minutes past).  Looks like they will be doing this every week, so a good chance to get a cheap ticket!

Not selling well at all by the looks of it! And there’s still £10 tickets available now almost a day later - I think they were expecting a very high volume of people trying to get these cheap tickets based on their Facebook post.

Am looking forward to seeing it though, based on the good feedback I’ve read on here

Oh dear first Barnum and then this.

I don’t know how the economics of theatre producing work but I can’t help thinking this venue has become a bit greedy with ticket prices

Come on now... it's all part of programming a theatre. Often the limited costs of the one-room two-hander helps subsidise the twenty actor sprawling epic that comes after.

Looking at each production individually - and trying to price tickets according to the show's respective costs - is not the policy at any in-house producing theatre (that I can think of anyway).

A very true and fair point, indeed.  And I can totally see the point of planning a season rather than show by show because at the end of the day (well, the financial year...) you need to break even.  

Still, at the NT a portion of the tickets are at £ 15.  Plus they have Friday rush, returns and day seats, which means that many audience members get to see both large-scale productions (like Follies) and more intimate plays (like Beginnings) for the same, very low price. 

At the Menier Chocolate Factory there's hardly a range of ticket prices to choose from, the cheapest ones being regularly around the £ 35 mark.  Of course it pays off when the show sells out, and I'd be extremely happy to see them fully succeed all the time... but I'm not quite sure it's the most effective choice, when you end up having to rely on papering, TodayTix and alternative discount schemes to bring people in  

I think it’s very possible we may have been sat next to each other! I was originally in row G last night with the other £10 ticket that was in that row, then got moved forward

Enjoyed the play a lot too! Was my first time at the Menier and I loved the clever use of the space.

I was! My first theatre board meetup and I didn’t even realise it was happening