The best things in life are free…

The Guardian did a story last week on trying to accomplish a week’s intensive arts-going armed with just £50 - which Stephen Moss, the journalist concerned, resourcefully increased to £57.50 thanks to winning £7.50 on a horse bet. He found it tough going, especially after he blew £24 on a rear amphitheatre seat for the Royal Opera House.

But he was too early. Naturally, he found some free entertainment, as you always can, on the South Bank - and not just the endless opportunities for people watching, the skaters below the Queen Elizabeth Hall or the kids getting drenched in the fountain beside it, but also a visit to the BFI’s Mediatheque where he watched an early episode of Monty Python and a wartime propaganda film called Christmas Under Fire for free - but on the weekend there was a lot of free live entertainment all over the place.

I started off at the Royal Festival Hall, where they’ve turned the Clore Ballroom at the rear of the first level into a hip contemporary music venue, complete with full stage and lighting, and are currently running a free early Friday/Saturday evening vocal series, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, to complement The Wizard of Oz now playing in the Hall itself, but is actually far better than the main show, at least if Saturday’s generous full hour-long concert by the superb British jazz pianist and singer Ian Shaw was anything to go by.

The idea is that the concerts somehow pay tribute to the music of The Wizard of Oz, and while Shaw sang a lot of other songs by its composer, Harold Arlen, including his wonderful “Down With Love” and “The Man that Got Away”, he also took a trip down a different yellow brick road - namely Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, as part of an eclectic and electrifying programme that also included Joni Mitchell and others. Next weekend its X-Factor finalist Brenda Edwards on August 8-9, then Barb Jungr the weekend after (August 15-16), Joe Stilgoe on August 22-23, and Laka D on August 29-30.

Then I headed next door to the National, where the annual Watch this Space season is in full flow on the fake green grass outside the theatre, and people were dancing to a Santo Domingo influenced band Merengada, before I went inside to catch up with Her Naked Skin, the final production in this year’s Travelex £10 season in the Olivier Theatre. (I missed the press night on Thursday since I had gone to Chichester for the day, so was seeing it with a “normal” crowd of theatregoers - and it was revealing just how packed it was. Given that this is a brand-new play, and the reviews had barely come out yet, audiences had obviously bought tickets in advance of knowing what it would be like - a combination, no doubt, of trust in the National’s track record, interest in the subject, and the low prices; even the top price of £30 for the central stalls is a bargain).

Coming out onto the Olivier stalls terrace in the interval, I discovered that the place had been laid out with deck chairs, ready for the weekly weekend screenings of BAFTA short films on the Olivier flytower, kicking off at 9.30pm (with a separate programme being shown next weekend, August 8-9, and the weekend after, August 15-16). Unfortunately I had to go back into the Olivier to see the rest of the play, which meant missing the screening of a short directed by Stephen Daldry, but I caught some of the final adult animation short when I came out again. Meanwhile, down below in the Watch this Space square, preparations were afoot for the 10.30pm performance of Besame Mucho Cabaret from Company FZ, which culminates in an erotic pas-de-deux between two men in a bath suspended high above the ground.

But even now the festivities were not over. Over the summer, the Terrace Bar above the Lyttelton is turned into a weekly late night chill-out room every Friday and Saturday evening, open till 1am, and Saturday was billed as a Hubnight, with DJs taking over the foyer, a comedy family stepping out of the pages of the Ladybird books wandering around, and a hula-hooping tribute to The Wizard of Oz again, courtesy of Craig Reid from Britain’s Got Talent. I also managed to sign up for one of the three late-night Secret National Theatre tour, in which the theatre’s safety officer Anna led groups of just eight people into parts of the theatre that the public usually doesn’t see. And even as someone who has been backstage at the National regularly, whether to interview actors and directors in rehearsal and dressing rooms and offices, or has hosted platform performances on each of its three stages so I’ve seen the view from the wings, many of these views were new to me, too, from the air conditioning plant room that led up to the stunning outdoor view from beside the Olivier flytower, to a literally birds-eye view of the Olivier itself and over its stage from inside the flytower. There was also an overview of the National’s most private space, the dressing rooms block that is built around an outdoor atrium, and a visit to Rehearsal Room One. These are places that are not usually on the itinerary for the public tours done of the building, so it was a real treat to be given access to them, and Anna was an ideal guide.

The best part, of course, is that it was all free. The National belongs to us all, and here was the National as it is seldom seen, both inside and out, so it’s thrilling to see it being used in such a different way. From the cheapest shows in town, I also saw one of the most expensive this weekend — the indefatigable Elaine Stritch is currently reprising her autobiographical show At Liberty at the Shaw Theatre, and tickets start at £60 - with so-called “platinum” tickets at £75 and “Platinum Plus” tickets at £99 including a buffet. (Those platinum tickets included the chance to meet the star afterwards). But even though she is only giving a 12-performance run this time, the show was previously seen at the Old Vic in 2002, and I suspect the audience who want to see her already has. No wonder the place was probably only a third full on Friday evening - and even then after a discreet “papering” exercise had been offered via Play by Play UK.

I am not a member myself but a friend is, and he told me he had received an offer of free tickets for all the weekend performances. Play by play is a private organisation, where - in return for an annual subscription fee, currently £75, members are given the opportunity to “discreetly fill unsold seats for previews, opening nights or any performance throughout the run of a show, bringing additional energy and enthusiasm to the theatrical experience for the performers and paying customers”, according to the service’s website. Just using the service for a pair of Stritch tickets would more than cover the annual subscription, so it’s clearly a bargain; and Stritch is worth, incidentally, seeing again at any price.

But if you can’t sell the tickets, it sometimes pays to give them away. The Edinburgh Fringe kicked off officially yesterday, and with more shows than ever and ticket prices higher than ever, too, it may be that audiences may be spread particularly thin. No wonder there’s a big drive towards what’s being billed the “free Fringe”. The Guardian reports today that in what is “one of the most marked changes in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s recent history… there are around 400 shows being put on in pubs, bars, clubs and small theatres across the city, where audiences are invited to pay as much as they like or nothing at all.” It is reportedly the fastest-growing sector of the festival: up in size by a sixth from last year, it is being described as a return to the Fringe’s roots, and a backlash against the domination of the fringe by the mega-venues. Alex Petty, organiser of one set of free events, is quoted as saying, “It’s about moving away from the mega-venues which the Fringe seems to have got further and further into every year. Our audiences can go back to the old days of the Fringe where people could see three shows on a night without it costing an arm and a leg.”