It was Nick Hornby with his book High Fidelity, of course, who started off the current mania for making endless grocery lists of life’s ups and downs – from top five films to top five break-ups (the book has now become a Broadway musical that opened just last Friday, and prompted New York Times critic Ben Brantley to declare, “High Fidelity definitely deserves a place in my own catalog of Top 5 lists. That would be on the roster of All-Time Most Forgettable Musicals. Now if only I could remember the names of the others.”)
But this is the time of year when critics are inevitably cast into a reflective mood, and it’s time to start drawing up our own lists of the year’s hits, misses and more. I’m busy thinking of at least three features along these lines (one for the paper attached to this website!), and getting ready for an audio version of the same that we’re recording this Friday for theatrevoice.com.
Someone has to go first, though, and it’s fun to see the Daily Telegraph’s arts editor Sarah Crompton (who is also the paper’s dance critic) already using her regular arts column today to enumerate her 15 favourite things in the arts this year, plus five she’s hated. Since Sarah covers the waterfront as arts editor, she includes a bit of everything – a book, a few films, some dance, tv, art and music – but it’s interesting that a full third of her list of favourites are theatrical. (She cites Harold Pinter’s performance in Krapp’s Last Tape, the RSC’s Complete Works season, Kevin Spacey’s tenure at the Old Vic and in particular his performance in A Moon for the Misbegotten, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Edinburgh hit Black Watch, and the Royal Court’s play readings to celebrate its 50th anniversary).
And two of the things that have made her cross are also theatrical. The threatened closure of the Theatre Museum is one (“surely it wasn’t beyond the wit of a man to come up with a solution. And decamping to Blackpool isn’t it”), while the other is state of the ladies’ loos at Brighton’s Theatre Royal (“They were a disgrace when I went at the start of the year and they still are. Theatre going shouldn’t be this arduous”).
I’ve been noticing the state of theatrical loos myself lately: from the desperate pongy state of the gents in the stalls bar of the Shaftesbury Avenue’s Apollo to the decrepit state of those in the stalls of the Palace Theatre (a theatre Andrew Lloyd Webber recently told me personally was now fully refurbished), the loos of some West End sometimes make you feel like you’re at a public urinal, not somewhere you’ve paid up to £60 to enter. The theatregoing experience is something to be taken in its entirety – and being able to go to the loo without having to hold your nose in disgust is one of the essential requirements, surely.
I’ll start posting my own lists here over the next few days of the year’s peaks and troughs, but let’s kick off literally at the trough – London theatre’s worst five gents loos (not a definitive list, but a good place to start):
Apollo Theatre stalls
Palace Theatre stalls
King’s Head, Islington – this pub theatre may be most famous for its leaky roof – but the leaky basement loos are even more gut-wrenchingly wet.
Old Vic – the now long-ago refurb (that integrated all the levels of the theatre onto one stairwell) positioned mens’ loos only at the very top and very bottom of it – in a very cramped arrangement. But if its bad for the men, spare a thought for the ladies you have to push past as they endlessly queue out of the door that leads into both.
Sadlers’ Wells – for a new build, the loo facilities are surprisingly inadequate, buried in the basement though fine when you finally get there.
And, for good measure, here are the best:
National Theatre Lyttelton loos – but beware, they’ve swapped them over! What used to be the men’s loo (on the auditorium left-side entrance) is now the ladies, and the ladies’ loo (on the other side) is now the men’s!
Delfont Mackintosh Theatres – have upgraded the loos in the Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Novello and Coward Theatres (I’m not sure about Wyndham’s), which are now all fit for a prince, or even a Coward!
Barbican Centre – after a £12million refurb, the foyers are still unlovely – but the loos (and London’s longest urinal beneath the stalls level) are spick and span!
Royal Court – the loos may be buried in the basement bar and a bit of an effort to get to when the theatre’s crowded, but the wood panelled environment is a pleasure! There’s also another gents hidden up the stairs, en route to the Theatre Upstairs.
Lyric Hammersmith – there are loos are every level – the restaurant, and then each of the three levels of the auditorium
That swap over at the Lyttleton has caught me out more than once with me wandering without thinking into the Ladies then suddenly realising my mistake. A very strange decsion to exchange them after so many years. My last Lyttleton visit was to "Caroline, or Change" and frankly on that occasion I wish I had not bothered emerging (hides).
As for strange toilets having to walk across the stage area at the Jermyn Street Theatre takes some beating (but not been for so long that perhaps this has changed ?)
Even we don't whinge about the toilets! As a "gent" you only have to cast your eyes over to the queue for the ladies in any theatre to realise how lucky we chaps have it.