“Hold the front page! Journalist discovers that theatre from the cheap seats is crap,” the West End Whingers tweeted this morning about a feature in today’s Independent about how poor the sightlines and even hearing can be from the cheaper seats in West End theatres.
In fact, the Independent was holding its front page for the news flash: immediately below the paper’s own masthead was stretched a banner headline declaring, “God Save Me From The gods”, and was subtitled, “Cheap seats? They’re a waste of money, says Alice Jones”.
It’s the most dominant feature on the page, easily usurping the page’s other headline feature: “The worst hospital scandal for 10 years,” reporting an enquiry into failings at the Mid-Staffordshire Foundation Trust which concluded that it “routinely neglected” patients. Turn to page four, and we discover just how neglectful it had been.
One 20-year-old cyclist sustained an injury when he fell off his bike cycling down a steep hill, and was diagnosed as suffering from bruised ribs and told he would be fine. He was discharged, but when he got home, he collapsed and died. His spleen had ruptured, and it had gone undiagnosed at the hospital. The inquest into his death concluded that it was “avoidable situation” and that “there is a high probability that the level of care delivered was negligent.”
So one is a matter of life and death - whereas the other is a matter of (in)convenience, having exercised what turned out to be a bad choice to buy cheap(er) tickets. But even if it’s a peculiar expression of priorities in news terms - as the West End Whingers subsequently tweeted me, “And they wonder why newspapers are dying” - we may yet start to wonder why the theatre habit starts to die if people have the kind of experiences that Alice Jones encounters up there.
She saw Waiting for Godot from the Haymarket balcony, and reports that, after booking four seats at £16 each, plus a £2 booking fee per ticket, and paying for the “extortionate interval drinks (£4.10 for a plastic thimble of warm white wine, served with added crush at the pathetically staffed bar) and programmes at £4 each”, the evening cost nearly £100.
And what did she and her companions get in return? Not just a view that was compromised - they couldn’t even see the full set - but they couldn’t hear it either: “McKellen’s opening lines were swallowed up by the void, murmured - with consummate timing and world-weariness, but murmured nonetheless - into his grizzly beard. No doubt from the stalls it was a beautifully modulated piece of acting. Even from our crow’s nest, we could tell it must be good - but we couldn’t actually hear it. Leaning forward and cupping our ears, we strained to tune in.”
She further reports that there “was no-one to help us find our poorly marked seats, no-one to sell us a programme” (I wonder how she bought her £4 one in that case?), “or an ice-cream in the interval and no-one, crucially, to give the family behind us slurping on a fragrant Chinese takeaway throughout the second half (yes, really) a discreet tap on the shoulder.” (I wonder where they managed to secure this from so fast during the interval; they clearly should be given marks for initiative, if not good manners).
These are, sadly, the realities of going to the theatre nowadays; not just that bad behaviour has increased, but also that theatres have apparently entirely stopped policing it, too, especially in the cheaper seats where they apparently can’t be bothered to even station staff. But then, as the West End Whingers again recently reported when they found themselves in the gallery of the Comedy Theatre for The Misanthrope, no one from the theatre seems to go up there much: “We’ve never been up there before and frankly it looks as though the theatre managers don’t get up there much either as the ledges at either side of the auditorium were very dusty indeed.”
As a correspondent on this blog replied when I previously wrote about some of the gains, but plenty of the pains, of cheaper seating, “I have every reason to believe that the producers and managers of West End shows have never been in the upper gallerys of the theatres that they rent. If they did go up there then they would not charge the prices that they do. However, since they don’t they simply look at those seats and figure out how much they need to charge to make more money - they don’t think about what is fair or what that common theatregoer must endure.”
As a critic, of course, I am lucky: I may, from time to time, complain about the seats I have been allocated (I definitely saw a different Ghosts from the extreme side stalls of the Duchess Theatre the other night than my colleagues did seated in the middle - actors vanished from view even though they were still onstage), but at least I didn’t pay for it, that warm thimble of interval wine (or sour orange juice in my case) came free, and so did the programme.
As Jones points out, “That the critics never see a production from the gods is a given - though wouldn’t it be nice to send them up among their people one day - they are, naturally, to see the production at its best. For the rest, though, directors have a duty to make sure that their productions are visible and audible to all paying ticket-holders.” (Since Iain Glen was actually in Ghosts as well as directing it, he obviously didn’t creep around observing the show from the side stalls or he wouldn’t have sanctioned having non-paying ticket holders in those seats to pass judgment on his efforts).
Sometimes, though, the cheaper seats are not a bargain in any sense: a (now former) partner found himself buying tickets for Judi Dench’s appearance in Hay Fever in the self-same Haymarket a few years ago. As I wrote here at the time, “Only balcony were available, so he bought two — at £22 each including booking fee. They had a perfectly miserable experience: the view was appalling, the seats uncomfortable. Of course, you could say that you get what you pay for; but £22 is not exactly cheap. He says they would have been better off going to a movie. And in future, he would do exactly that. Another paying customer has been lost to the theatre. How often does this happen? Someone goes to the theatre, has a bad experience, and is put off for life. The Haymarket, with under 900 seats in all to sell, probably has to capitalise on every seat it has; but in this day and age, remote galleries should be a thing of the past, and consigned to theatrical oblivion or at any rate the bargain basement: tickets up there shouldn’t cost more than a fiver.”
The value offered by the “cheap” seats varies enormously of course, sometimes in fact they are fantastic, such as the front few rows of the National Lyttleton stalls, usually sold for £10 before going up to around £40 a couple of rows back. I was very pleasantly surprised by the view of the stage from Row H of the Upper Circle at the Adelphi Theatre at “Love Never Dies” the other night, I didn’t feel too far away and could see and hear everything, it was about half the price of the top price seating not really so far away in the Dress Circle. The upper Circle at the Playhouse Theatre similarly offers good views and you certainly never feel out of the action.
Some theatres however are terrible in the higher circles, the previously mentioned gallery area of the Haymarket springs to mind, as does the Balcony of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where in both you might as well be in an aeroplane flying over the venue as seated in it. I guess it is just a case of either knowing the theatre and choosing based on previous knowledge or www.theatremonkey.com offers an invaluable service helping your choice if you can’t always get top price fantastic seats because of price or availability.
whilst I think it's unhelpful to assert something like "tickets up there shouldn’t cost more than a fiver" (because that's now how budgets work!), I think the problem is that we've been lumbered with Victorian buildings no longer fit for purpose. No air-conditioning, poor visibility. I think it's time to relax the rules and allow owners to take these places apart from the inside if they need to.
F*ck tradition - these buildings need the space to breathe and showcase the work done inside.
As a student I have this debate a lot with other theatre going friends who are on a tight budget - and I normally win by saying - "what would you rather do - see 4 big west end shows a month and sit in the Gods with all the other cool kids (skint arts students) or see one and have the best seats in the house?" With so many shows coming and going it sometimes becomes more important that you can say you have seen the show rather than that you heard every single word - it becomes exhausting.
But, there is only so much one can tolerate - the creaks and inaudibility of sitting in the lilian baylis circle at The Old Vic completely ruined Six Degrees of Separation for me as did sitting in the Gods at The Novello during Cat - the only voice I could hear was that of the booming James Earl Jones and a sqwarking teenager sat behind me.
On the plus side, as mentioned in the previous comment, the £10 tix at NT are incredible. Richard Griffiths actually spat on me - a particular theatre going highlight. Similarly I find the balcony tickets at the Wyndhams are fine.
It's a shame that A Night Less Ordinary can't stretch to a few more West End Theatres and up the numbers a tad.
It's not just the cost of the seats you have to bear in mind though - for those of us who live outside London it's even more expensive. As well as the cost of the tickets (which we have to get at Saturday prices, usually more than if you get get there mid-week) there's the entire cost of getting to London and - unless we want to rush there and back in a day with just enough time to catch the matinee - the cost of accomodation and food too. We don't spend a lot on these - Travelodges are fine, and usually only when there's an offer - but even so, we can spend something like £250 just for the two of us to get to see a show, without even adding on the cost of the theatre tickets. So, we try to catch one for the matinee and another for the evening to get best value out of the trip - and even though we try to get cheap tickets at the TKTS office for one of the shows (highly recommended to get decent seats on a budget, though you can't always get to see what you want of course), we simply can't afford to pay top price. I agree, the seats are often appalling, a long way from the stage and with poor sightlines and visibility - but unless we only want to see a West End show once in a blue moon we're stuck with that.
Fortunately regional theatre is excellent and good value!
I've no doubt that critics such as yourself have some knowledge of what it's like up in the Gods - but it doesn't see you taking that into account in your ( and your colleagues) sometimes easily favorable reviews to some less than stellar shows that you see. The trickle down effect from die hard theatregoers is that when a show is bad but you guys give it a pass , the Woman in Mind revival comes to mind , a mildly curious theatregoer plunks down a significant sum of money for a seat up in the Gods and sees a bad show and thinks - why should I listen to critics? Why am I spending lots of money to sit up here in an uncomfortable seat , with a programme that gives only basic information and is filled with paid advertisements , to see a threadbare production that is barely stage worthy in the first place? If producers wish to charge a lot of money for crap seats they owe it to all theatregoers not just the ones in the front of the stalls or in the Circle to produce shows where an audience can feel they get their money's worth. And critics should call them on it, if they don't.
Dear Mark,
This isn't directly related to your topic but last week I sat in very good seats in Row D at The Duchess and appreciated GHOSTS more than some of the critics. However, the noise of the motorised lights was very distracting and another instance of the absence of the silence in which we used to listen to plays. Don't directors/producers/managements hear the intrusive hum? Oh yes - they're a wonderful advance because they change focus and colour so that fewer lights are needed. But if they ruin the performance I don't see their value.
I'd be most interested in your and other people's views.
Well you could also consider the size of the venue in the selection of seating. Pretty much everyone knows that the Royal Albert Hall is huge, seating nearly 5000 people, so if you book a seat in the gods, then you can pretty much be sure that you are going to be some distance away from the main show - unless it's Cirque and you might be lucky enough to get a fly by from a trapeze act!
Did anyone else see the King and I? It was only due to the significant number of actors on stage that you knew where to look - otherwise it would be like looking for ants in a field. I'm not sure I'd even pay a fiver to see that from the gods, perhaps a 'discretionary donation' to the building but nothing for the show.
As for taking critics views into account when booking your tickets (Laurence Krupp) - you should probably read past the star rating to the actual review. I agree as often with the critics views as I disagree with them, but continue to read them for more information about the play and actors and not just to see if it has a pass in their opinion.
May I recommend UpTheWestEnd.com a website that not only collates all the reviews of all the shows both from conventional and 'new media' critics - BUT also summarises the pitfalls and pleasures of the theatre buildings, rating everything from sitelines to programme pricing.
www.upthewestend.com
Surely there should be standards for the 'Restricted Viewing' seats? In the Hampstead Theatre 'restricted viewing' can mean you have a bar obscuring your lower vision - not really restricted viewing at all, even for someone at a dismal 5"1. At the Rose, however, 'restricted viewing' meant that I couldn't see half the stage, even leaning as far forward as my poor tiny body could manage.
Restricted viewing can mean you're behind a pillar, have a thin railing across the bottom of your vision, or can't see half the stage. Can theatre not come up with a more specific catagorisation instead lumping them under one term?