Chichester challenges….

Today’s originally scheduled press night was already quite late into the run as it is - it has been previewing since September 11 - so the director Nancy Meckler was already being given a generous comfort zone of some 14 previews before the opening. (In fact, so sensitive was she to maintain each of those preview opportunities that, when I asked if I could come to the final preview this afternoon instead of this evening’s opening, the request was turned down - I wonder just how much difference that final preview could have made? With a reported running time of 3 hours, the matinee would have come down at 5.15pm - and the press night was scheduled for 7pm. I can’t imagine any more changes could have been implemented between the performances. But the point is academic now, at least, since the press performance isn’t happening).

However, two more issues present themselves: since Chichester offers its previews at a price reduction of some £6 on the post-opening price, will there be refunds for audience members of the performances between now and the new opening? And more importantly, as with the RSC’s nearly two-month postponement of the press night for Trevor Nunn’s King Lear at Stratford-upon-Avon when Frances Barber sustained an accident, and The Seagull with which it ran in rep was always scheduled for 27 previews and only 13 post-opening performances, it once again raises the issue of the show that the buying public are getting: clearly theatre companies want to give their shows the best shot for critical approval, but meanwhile are the public buying something that is less than ready?

Obviously in the case of a sold-out run for a play like Aristo, the show must go on, and as quickly as possible, or theatregoers who have booked would have to be turned away. Chichester have obviously saved the day and have managed to carry on with the play; but it does so without critical attention until nearly another week away. Which raises the question just what the critics, when they finally arrive, are there for; are we there to merely stamp our approval on something that the public have already long ago parted with their money for?

Of course, it’s not just commercial approval or disapproval we register (though the star system encourages thinking along those lines), but we hopefully also participate in a wider discussion on the theatrical ecology (word-count permitting!), as I do try to do here. Audiences, of course, can’t be stopped from making their minds up to see something before we even get there, as witness the advance sale for Aristo or Chichester’s simultaneous sell-out main-house show Calendar Girls; but do producers? They often await our word to decide on a future life, and with its stellar credentials, I imagine that Aristo is merely testing the waters at Chichester for a possible future life. The critics will clearly play their part in that. Calendar Girls already has its own future life secured; it closes at Chichester on Saturday and re-opens on a national tour in Glasgow next Tuesday. But will the mixed reviews it received at Chichester delay or abort its West End prospects?

But this late season hiccup at Chichester mustn’t distract from the amazing achievement that Jonathan Church has once again wrought in turning around this West Sussex theatre’s previously ailing fortunes. It’s now one of the buzziest theatres in Britain; and seems to give the local audience exactly what it wants - as well as what it didn’t realise it wanted. And they’re buying both. When Nick Hytner - who recently confirmed that he’s at the National till at least 2013 - finally retires from his post as artistic director there, could Church be the man to take over?