London theatre
 

With any luck, I will not have to cancel a trip to London for the fourth time in five years and will arrive for a week October 29. Has anybody seen any good plays or musicals recently that they would recommend? I am interested in all kinds of theater and will check out all suggestions.

Once I have a schedule more or less in mind, I will also post a thread to see if any London posters are interested in a get-together while I am there.

How about a GTG in Paris? Hear you might be coming that way......

Nikki,

I saw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime at the Gielgud Theatre in May, and it was terrific -- just an outstanding play.

I usually head to the Tickets Booth in Leister Sq and see what they have on offer

http://www.tkts.co.uk/whats-on-sale/

Nikki, my husband and I will be in London in October and have some theatre tickets booked, and then a list of other shows we're interested in. Obviously I can't tell you about them until we see them, but I can tell you what we've booked.

At the National: Three Days in the Country and Jane Eyre
At the Globe: nothing booked yet but I'm interested in Measure for Measure, Richard II, Nell Gwynn, and the Oresteia
At the Wanamaker: Thomas Tallis and Omeros
At the Barbican: Hamlet
and Farinelli and the King, at the...Duke of York's theatre, I think? (unsure about which theatre, I mean; we have tickets!)

I'm very excited about the Wanamaker as I've not been to a production there before. We were lucky enough to get tickets to Hamlet and of course that's a big deal production.

The Young Vic is also doing Measure for Measure, I think through the first week of November. I was interested in O'Neill's Hairy Ape, at the Old Vic, because it's not often produced in the States, but I'm not sure we can fit it in. I wanted to see The Winter's Tale at the Garrick, because I'd love to see Judi Dench on stage, but I didn't look for tickets early enough and our possible dates are sold out (although you might try calling the box office; I will do this again before our trip and once we get there). The Almeida has also got a production of the Oresteia, which I considered, and a production of Medea, ditto, but I don't know anything about them.

My husband is not a huge musical theatre fan, so we may or may not plan any. I think it might provide a nice contrast from the plays we have booked but we'll see. It's possible to see Broadway theatre touring productions where we live, or go to New York, but NOT possible to see the quality of theatre London has to offer (or any at all, usually), so we tend to concentrate on that. If I were going to a musical I'd try to pick something that's not likely to tour through my city in the next several years. Bend it Like Beckham, maybe? I would have gone to Made in Dagenham but it closed.

We might also do some live music as a contrast; I think we've left it far too late for the opera but I haven't looked at classical listings much. And we have tickets to a U2 concert as well (a different kind of theatre).

Thank you for your thread as I'm interested to hear what others have seen, and what shows you're interested in. I think Janis is in London now and am sure she has some theatre planned (besides Hamlet). I will also be checking with a theatre-savvy friend before our trip, and will pass along any suggestions he might have, but that might not be for a couple of weeks.

I hope that's somehow helpful, and I sincerely hope you won't have to cancel your trip.

The Almeida is doing another of those not-for-profit sector landgrabs of London theatres: there's going to be a day when the whole West End consists of nothing but crap, potboiler musicals getting groomed for a moneymaking world run and spillovers from the RST, NT, Royal Court, Globe and Almeida.

Oh, and commercial productions of major plays with pop actors as stars.

The Almeida's Oresteia (not the real one, but a 3.5 hr stripped down compendium of the three last Aeschylus plays) is at the Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall: its Medea is on at its Almeida St, N1 base.

There's currently a Greek boom in London, as the luvvies fall over themselves to find (highly strained) parallels between the preoccupations of Athenian playwrights in the 5th century BC and today's Marxist loonies of Syriza. The Almeida's just finshed the play that's always been called Bacchae (for some posturing reason, rebranded Bakkhai to look more Syrizoid), which got plaudits for "reinventing Greek drama" but did rather underwhelm on most other important criteria.

In spite of that, they're great plays, by great companies featuring great actors, and easily good enough to withstand the trite spin some idiot director's chucked onto them. Well worth going to.

Thanks for all the great suggestions, I have reviewed them and am submitting them to the committee for consideration. The committee has vetoed the Greek tragedies, while I would willingly sit for three hours if I could simultaneously listen to Flanner's commentary on the translation from the classical Greek and the idiocy of the direction.

Right now I'm leaning toward the Incident of the Curious Dog or Farinelli and the King (which has very limited availability for our dates, so we have to decide quickly).

Still open to other suggestions.

(Traviata, there is some truth to that rumor, we will be in Paris November 5-12.)

http://theatremonkey.com/ Lot of useful info and feedback. Note especially the advice on seats in various theatres. A note of caution about TKTS: Sometimes front-row seats are up for grabs. They're cheap for a reason -- the front row in some theatres may be too close to get a good view of anything except the actors' kneecaps.

I have been checking on the seating plans at the theatre monkey site today, and it seems that so have all the people buying the tickets, as the few seats available for some performances are in the specific rows theatre monkey says to avoid.

I actually like front row seats much of the time, but they do tend to be in the spit zone.

The Mouse Trap - longest running play continously since 1052 in London. Or don't get mousetrapped as some say buy it must have something going for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap

Nikki,

We'll be there at that time so let's think about a GTG!

Hi Nikki,

I was lucky enough to be in London with locals last month and, on my friend's advice, we had two very different but wonderful theatre experiences. We opted to skip the West End, only because the only one I was really interested in seeing - Book of Mormons - was quite expensive. Anyway, we saw George Orwell's 1984 at the Playhouse and on another night experienced immersive theatre with Alice's Adventures Underground, which quite literally took place in the tunnels below the tube. Both experiences were very different. 1984 was very intense, a definite drama and suspense and was quite confronting. But the acting was amazing and we enjoyed it.

The immersive theatre was so much fun and unlike anything I have done before. The actors quite literally make the audience part of the show and lead you from room to room as you become caught up in their script. It was great! We laughed a lot. It was brilliant and I would definitely do another next time.

RT

"The Mouse Trap - longest running play continously since 1052 in London."


I actually saw the Mouse Trap in 1972, when I visited London with my friend Ellen and her friend Larry. We all wrote down our guesses whodunnit during the intermission. Turns out we were all correct. Didn't realize the play predated Dickens, Shakespeare, and Chaucer though; I must have been fooled by the production in 20th century dress.

I just spent two weeks with Ellen on Cape Cod, she drove home yesterday. We've seen a lot of plays together.

I was just online looking at information for our upcoming trip, and somehow I had previously missed that the Oresteia (production that opened at the Almeida, not the one at the Globe) is transferring to the Trafalgar Studios theatre. (To be fair, Flanner noted this above; I didn't read his post until now.) I'm considering tickets to this production. Where I live, it's virtually impossible to see any stagings of Greek drama (outside of the occasional university production, which is always hit-or-miss) and so no matter what they've done to the texts of the plays, I'm very tempted. I'm curious to know if Flanner, or anyone else here, knows anything about the translation, please.

I also considered a new play at the Hampstead Theatre, Mr Foote's Other Leg, but was unable to get tickets. I believe this opens next week and will be interested to hear if anyone here is planning to attend.

Just relocated from NY to Chicago, so I'm behind in catching up on the Fodor's board. Glad to read that you will be traveling again Nikki, as your trip reports are a wonderful read!

I would not miss "The Curious Incident..." I saw it in NY last year and loved everything about it-the staging was most inventive.

Anyone looking at the National should know they now have online rush tickets released on Fridays. It's also worth knowing they offer early booking access and even free backstage tours if you book ahead if you have Amex.

http://www.somuchmoretosee.com/2015/...re-london.html

Good tip, welltraveled, and good post. I like the NT building, too, and the view from the 3rd floor bar balcony at intermission.

Kyra, I like your selection. I bought my daughter a cheap onstage ticket for Farinelli, since she's in town anyway; wish I could see it, too. I hope you'll share your impressions of the productions.

We'll be seeing Jane Eyre and Warhorse later this month. Ordered the tickets several weeks ago so we could be assured of getting the seats we wanted.

I have bought tickets for Farinelli and the King. Was waffling on whether to also get tickets to The Curious Incident of the Dog. My husband read the book, was not enthusiastic despite the great reviews from those on this thread who had seen it. I ended up procrastinating, then saw a review of a new improv show in the West End, Showstopper. Sounded like fun, rave reviews, so on impulse I bought tickets for that too.

Once again, thanks for all the ideas.

Curious Incident is staged somewhat unconventionally so be ready for that aspect of things. It is quite powerful in many ways and is certainly not "the usual" sort of show. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as we did.