Press nights usually give you a skewed view of a show’s wider appeal, since they’re invariably packed to the rafters with friends, family and assorted guests. But go on a regular performance, and a different picture often emerges. I’ve seen the last two plays at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs on Saturday matinees where the audience numbers didn’t reach 25; the first time it was to see Rainbow Kiss on Easter weekend, when the excuse could have been Easter; but then Christopher Shinn’s excellent new play Dying City last Saturday had no such excuse, and was empty again. So was Motortown when I saw it, just a few days after it opened to mostly excellent reviews, on a Friday night. Clearly something’s up; has the Court lost its audience? You can’t blame high ticket prices – I’ve blogged before how, if booking online through the Court’s excellent website, you can get a mainhouse ticket for just £15. And the Theatre Upstairs only has around 100 tickets to sell. Yet even good reviews, that once might have been expected to sell out such a small auditorium, are no guarantee anymore.
Ditto reputation. Cheek by Jowl have, over the last twenty five years, built a sufficient following, you’d have thought, to mean that a short Barbican run, in a completely reconfigured, far smaller main house that puts the audience as well a the actors on the stage, should sell out. But on Saturday evening there were rows of empty seats for The Changeling that inaugurates Cheek by Jowl’s new relationship with the Barbican as their London home; admittedly towards the back and the sides, but vacant nonetheless.
Three experiences like this do not a trend make. But it’s a worrying sign that things aren’t quite as healthy on the serious theatre front as we’d like to hope.
the national doesn't appear to have this problem. cheek by jowl doesn't usually appear at the barbican. with the royal court, the issue is i think the recent plays - they are well reviewed, but in general, short, terse, allusive and (mostly) naturalistic - and i think audiences are now looking for plays that are direct, confrontational, narrative-led and have maybe more heart, and more depth. look at the success of the crucible, or virginia woolf...
"the national doesn’t appear to have this problem"
Many of the plays that the National mounts can be bought at a heavy discount now, even some plays in The Cottesloe which I would imagine would be doubly alarming to them because it is such a small space. Discounts up to half price would have seemed unthinkable to me a couple of seasons ago when they were riding on a high.
Perhaps the problem with the Cheek by Jowl season at the Barbican is that all the seats are £25, even during previews.
This is much higher than their usual average ticket pricing, and must alienate a lot of their regular audience, who can normally buy a seat in the theatre for £10.
The pricing policy is even more puzzling when you take into account the £900,000 grant which the Arts Council have made specifically for this 3-year residency, in addition to the regular Arts Council and other funding which both the Barbican and Cheek by Jowl receive. Was all this funding intended to enable a residency to take place which is LESS accessible to audiences than the Barbican's usual programme? I guess not, but that is what has been achieved.
Personally, I find it strange that you read about Theatre's being half empty ie The Old Vic for Ressurrection Blues, when you cannot get reasonably priced seats online.
If you are over 25 you can only get tickets that cost you over £40, by the time you get to London that's approaching £150 for two people to see a show, which many people cannot afford.
Moon for the Misbegotten, The Taming of The Shrew, and The Twelfth Night also seem to have already sold all the lower priced seats. I love the Old Vic and hope this means all three shows are a great success.
I will however be very disappointed if I again read that the theatre was half empty, surely there should be a system where you can book tickets online for a lower price if they are not sold a few days before a performance regardless of how old you are.
For shows less certain to sell out perhaps they should take the model used to sell Airplane and Train tickets. If you book a long time in advance there are a certain number of tickets available cheaper than those bought nearer the time of performance.
People that are not bothered which performance they go to could book for any show that fell in their price bracket a few months ahead, people that wanted to attend a certain week or day would pay full price if they missed out on discounts and any tickets left could go through the half price booths on the day of the show.
"Many of the plays that the National mounts can be bought at a heavy discount now"
as far as i know the national has not changed its pricing policy. the discounts that there are, have always been there..
"the discounts that there are, have always been there.."
"No you can find internet discounts for their plays at sites like www.theatremonkey.com. At the moment the site mentioned has discounts on Two Thousand Years and The Voysey Inheritance and a half price discount on The Overwhelming.
There are other internet discounts out there as well as the first two plays mentioned appearing on TKTS half price booth regularly.