Manor - National Theatre

Surely it's not up to the cast when a show closes?

Company photo by Gillian Dean, understudy for Ruth:

http://instagram.com/p/CXqcVcnDA1a

So…that was it. They said goodbye.

I cancelled on this, not because of reviews, but because I chose to spend the day with a friend who has had some bad news.

I doubt the cast threw a tantrum and said no more. However, they were probably asked as part of the decision making; and actually we have no idea what their circumstances are this Christmas. Some may have had elderly relatives to see, travel plans for Christmas. Whatever. I am in a no judge mood with people this Christmas. People are doing what they have to. And the fact is it may be better to close now before Christmas. Why take the risk

I tried doing a trial booking and it directs that it’s cancelled. I wish the NT made an announcement asap instead of the cast just posting on social media.

(Shaniqua, who announced that Saturday was their last, is part of the principal cast)

Yes, it seems to have been handled badly by the NT media team, but also very unprofessional behaviour by the actor who posted on social media before an official announcement.

I suspect morale is so low at the NT that they can't face making a public annoucement about this, and will just be quietly letting the few remaining ticket-holders know.

So with no shows running until the new year, have they shut the whole building?

Its probably everything. I mean both those shows had really good actors who could be relied on...its obviously a writing issue missing the mark.

The explanation on the national website says "Owing to Covid disruption affecting our performers and staff, all remaining performances of Manor have been cancelled." So, not cast disinclination to perform then.

I think the issue is that enormous swathes of staff are either infected or living with someone who is infected, and every day that goes by it catches more and more. It becomes perilous to keep the building open if large portions of the security, maintenance and front of house staff are unavailable and become even more unavailable in an unpredictable way, so it can make business sense to cancel any shifts for casual workers and close up shop completely. There's also a staff morale element in feeling like your employer is looking after you by not making you come in for an understaffed shift whilst you see all your colleagues getting infected in a publicly facing role. So it's not necessarily futile.

Completely understand the necessity of closing the building but I think it shouldn't be underestimated just how important that National Theatre front of house space is in making the theatre, more generally, accessible. I remember as a young working class woman from East London feeling very intimidated by even the idea of going to the theatre. The fact that the National had this building that you were just allowed to wander around somehow made it easier. I can still recall the excitement of going alone to see early David Hare productions and feeling it was an OK place to be. Even now in late middle age, PhD obtained some thirty years ago there are still plenty of cultural spaces that I find too scary to enter. Somewhere is a voice in my head saying that this place is for posh people and they might not let me in. I do genuinely think that there must be people who wander into the NT for a coffee and decide to give going to a performance a go, particularly if there is a name they know from the telly - in the case of Manor, Shaun Evans. As the mother of three university students I'm also very aware of the necessity of the sort of jobs in retail and hospitality that can make or break the affordability of degree study, and how the National offers these. Just more casualties of the pandemic I suppose and just utterly depressing.

Thanks MrCrumbles and mkb for your reviews. I agree that the set was great and the 0/1 star reviews were overly harsh (see my review on page 4).

One thing - did anyone actually hear the last line which was spoken by Nancy Carroll. It was drowned out by the special effect!

I do think it is poor to cancel the show with little notice online (and no official notice). When I looked last week, I would have said about half of the stalls seats were sold (or at least off sale), so not exactly empty. However, it is probably a reasonable business decision to close and shut up shop to save money.

Unfortunately, the NT has been closed longer than many theatres, and finally seemed to have got going again during Nov/Dec (busy foyers, bars, bookshop as well as the theatres). But the costs/risk must be too high in proportion to the projected revenues over the current period.