"The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide...

I got clobbered by the cancellation yesterday, too; know they can't help it, or the short notice, but it was so frustrating as I had set aside a big chunk of my day - given that the performance was due to last 3 hours 30 - and had no contingency plan in place. Though oddly, as I was emerging from the tube to collect my ticket, I suddenly thought "I hope it's not cancelled", which isn't something that normally occurs to me, so maybe I had unconsciously recalled that some previous performances had been.

Of course as the sold-out run ends on Saturday there was no chance of re-booking, nor any help from the theatre re giving priority for returns to those who lost out yesterday, but realistically they had enough to do with 2 cancelled performances (as it was a matinee day) and there would have been an overwhelming demand to re-book.

Had a brainwave and asked if there were any seats for the matinee downstairs (Kiss Me, which I was due to see at Saturday's matinee), and first they said it was sold out, then found me a ticket after all. However, that was both short and disappointing and left me 3 and a half hours to fill before the evening play I'd booked, whereas had I seen iHo, I'd have had a more reasonable gap of 2 hours. So I will probably never see this play now, but I do hope that for other forthcoming main house productions, Hampstead Theatre has some understudies!

Oooh I so nearly booked this when a spare ticket came up for tonight. Glad I didn't now. Although I'd still love to see this show. Hopefully it gets out on somewhere else in the next few years.

They cannot afford to employ understudies.

Tamsin Greig is straight off to the NT.

So how much would an understudy have cost vis a vis the refunds they have had to issue for the last three, possibly four sold out shows? Sorry can't buy poverty pleading for the Hampstead theatre which is otherwise so professional- at the box office they hardly cared that people have made considerable effort (and cost beond the tickets) to see a rarely performed play

Granted. But a major theatre might guess that staging a five hander with no understudies in lurgy season might be risky

I mean, there's the possibility of having an Acting Stage Manager, who is a stage manager but by virtue of having been at all the rehearsals and following along on book and also being skilled in acting would be the best placed to step in with a book in such an emergency. It would be a fairly clumsy arrangement though, as you'd presumably only have one so would have to decide the age and sex in advance, running the risk that you'd be sending on a 20-something lady to read in a grandfather or similar. Also acting stage managers are a bit of a bygone thing, people tend to be an actor *or* a stage manager these days as they are two very different disciplines. Also also I don't know how forgiving a typical Hampstead audience would be of such an arrangement.

Is IHO a five hander? I thought there were eleven in the cast?

It can absolutely kill some plays to have such lowgrade cover. A prime example was the infamous Lyttelton John Gabriel Borkman, discussed at great length on the old board, which was one of the most harrowing theatrical evenings of my lifetime, for all the wrong reasons, and where later performances were cancelled following the diabolical shows with Vanessa Redgrave's official understudy.

I am seeing it tomorrow matinee and will be travelling from Manchester. Let's hope the show goes on.

Yup my contingency plan involves The Dresser, Buried Child or a good stalls returned ticket for Amadeus

There is nothing on the HT twitter feed to indicate that it isn't happening.

I have a long-standing booking for tomorrow night - so really hoping I don't have to cancel. I will be leaving it as late as possible to head into Oxford just in case...

I also managed to re-book after much checking the website, and it has meant re-jigging my entire day, but in advance this time, so I sure hope today's final two performances go ahead... Shame about the films I had booked but at least I will have those to see instead should today's performances be cancelled, and I can see the films another time but who knows if/when this play would come round again,