The sudden heatwave may not be helping the theatre much - and neither, of course, are the forecasts of economic doom and gloom screaming from every newspaper front page. Why spend money you’ve not got (or soon won’t have anymore, if the stories are to be believed), on entertainment that may not be entertaining enough for the money - and is often to be found in venues that add physical suffering to the financial one to be there in the first place?
I sometimes think that those West End theatres that refuse to move forward and install proper working air-conditioning (and not just euphemistic air-cooling, which is no such thing) should simply be forced to go on hiatus at this time of year and shut up shop until they do.
No wonder the goods are being marked down significantly wherever you look: the Ambassador Theatre Group recently sent out an e-mail marketing mailer that offered seats to nearly every theatre in their West End stable for “just” £25. (I say “just”, since that’s still roughly three times the cost of a local cinema ticket, though of course I am the first to acknowledge that live entertainment has to come at a higher cost; but is it worth three times the cost?)
Still, there’s something wonderfully resilient and undaunted about theatrical managements; though one prominent independent theatre producer I met on Friday evening said he would never open a play in the summer anymore, we were nevertheless attending a late season (and unusually late in the week) opener for a new West End production of a play, Under the Blue Sky, previously seen at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs eight years ago, but now finding a berth at the Duke of York’s thanks to some smart populist casting that includes Catherine Tate. And thanks to that, some of the Saturday papers — which don’t typically “overnight” Friday openings — cleared space to review it, though in the case of The Independent, in fact sent in Deborah Orr (one of their columnists rather than critics) in to the final preview in order to make the deadline.
Both The Independent’s choice of reviewer and her early viewing may have been dictated by practical considerations in this case, but is another erosion of critical authority creeping in under the radar as a result? It seems particularly odd that, after Independent lead critic Paul Taylor’s thoughtful preview interview and appreciation of playwright David Eldridge’s work, the paper should then reply with a review that entirely contradicts it: while Taylor judged the play “one of the best and most beautifully constructed plays to have emerged since the millennium”, Orr concludes her review by dismissing it as, “an awesomely middlebrow, schematic and undemanding piece of work.”
But while one of the joys and privileges of theatre is the uniqueness of what happens in that one room on each particular night, the big event of the weekend was an endlessly reproduced one that even I succumbed to: a visit to the latest in the Batman movie franchise The Dark Knight became an obligatory requirement to keep up with the cultural zeitgeist. The film set box office records during its US opening weekend the week before, taking some $158.3m in the first three days, and going on to notch up total sales of $314.2m in domestic sales in its first ten days of release; and records are no doubt going to be set over here, too, if my own direct experience of a sell-out screening at the Odeon Surrey Quays last night is anything to go by.
However, I was reminded, at least, that West End theatres don’t have the prerogative on awful conditions, and while the entirely unventilated auditorium was like a sauna, the experience was even grimmer for the waves of noxious smells of junk food assaulting me from every side, a sickly sweet combination of popcorn and chocolate. The film had more grit (and wit) than the conditions really allowed one to enjoy; but I’m glad to have seen it.
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