Life of Pi - Crucible Sheffield /Wyndham’s / Tour

Was lucky enough to see Life of Pi last night (Stalls) and I cannot recommend it enough! Fabulous show, the puppetry and staging is insane and I was in floods of tears by the end. The cast is phenomenal - about halfway through the first act, during the marketplace scene, there were some technical issues. A stage manager came out and said they’d be pausing the show and would continue in a ‘few moments’. Without spoiling too much, one of the stage pieces is a bed, and from what I could see, they put it in the wrong place. They wheeled it out from the side and pushed it back to the (presumably correct place) at the back of the stage. The cast waited patiently on stage the whole time, and the show continued 5 minutes later without another hitch. The height of professionalism!

It's difficult to tell from a 11 second clip filmed in the circle, but the stage and stalls don't seem to be exactly like Baz described them.

The stage manager popped out today too as the lifeboat would not disappear.

What a great show! I welled up during the shipwreck, so embarrassing (not a spoiler I presume since it's the premise). The actors are amazing and the puppetry really came alive.

I saw some questions on the stalls seats, for what it's worth I had H27 which in the reconfigured plan is at the far left of the fifth row from the back. I found it to be a great seat. (I cannot share the picture on Seatplan as the seat plan shown on the site misses H27 and H28). Potentially row J would also be decent but I would start to worry about the overhang which will definitely be an issue for the last three rows (as I suppose was always the case). The raking is good.

Yep they do was all new to me and a surprise as had never seen it. Before

Came out around 9.45pm on sat night..

Do t forget to leave a rating in the new poll! ⬆️⬆️⬆️

Front-of-house staff warned me before last night's show that the advertised running time of 2:05 including interval was indeed completely wrong (as foreshadowed up thread), and not to expect to leave before 21:50. Turns out they were spot on with that. Just a shame they put useless info on their website, that is still there today. You'd think a degree of caution would be required and you would over-estimate rather than under. Cost us another £50 in replacement train tickets to get home and meant we arrived home 70 minutes late. It was very frustrating as we arrived back in Euston just in time to see our original train -- the last fast one-- depart. Two minutes earlier and we would have made it.

This did not, however, spoil a very enjoyable show, that I have rated as four stars. Hiran Abeysekera is superb as Pi; some of the supporting cast less so. The puppetry and stage effects are excellent, but I felt that the momentum of the narrative dropped in Act 2. As a vegetarian, I found it quite a tough watch, which indicates just how drawn in you become to this artificial reality: a real tribute to the puppeteers.

Only the first row of the reconfigured Stalls is below stage height (and only slightly). From the third row (C), I had a superb immersive view. I didn't get the full effect of the stage floor projections described in the previous post as it was quite an oblique view, but I prefer to be close to the action, so this was a good compromise for me. The fact that the whole of the Stalls floor has been raised means that rows in the rear Stalls have more of a restriction from the Dress Circle overhang than before.

Act 1: 19:38-20:31 (including two-minute stop/reset just before lifeboat appearance)
Act 2: 20:52-21:50

What time did it eventually finish?

From the interview that was given by one of the producers last week it would seem that it will extend and be on at the Wyndhams for quite a while

I was at this afternoon's matinee which went without a hitch. I thought it was so clever and had a lovely central performance.

Just curious did they say what happened? It seems to happen over and over (not for 30 minutes...), so peculiar that this has not been fixed yet. Also considering that many will need to factor in train timetables and the like, the time when it finishes should not be a lottery...