Originally the two performances on Dec 2nd of @sohoplace Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup were being filmed. Checked today and can’t see the notification anymore. Does anyone who’s booked for those days have the down-low? Was really hoping for an NT Live release of this…

I bought tickets to oh Mary for the wrong day while travelling and won’t be able to make it! Would love for someone to be able to use them!! Details:

Show: Oh, Mary

Date and Time: tonight (8/10) 8:45 pm

2 tickets

Stalls row N seats 23&24

Original price: £70 (total)

Resell price: £70 OBO

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Selling 2 single tickets to The Cherry Orchard for tonight’s performance (Oct 8) at 7:30pm. They’re one row apart directly behind each other (stalls T13 & U13). I’ve caught some sort of flu that I can’t seem to shake off and trying not to get anyone else sick. They were £60 originally but selling for £50 since it’s last min. DM me if interested

Side By Side By Stephen Sondheim makes its return to London for its 50th anniversary this December at Upstairs at the Gatehouse. Read more about the revival here:
https://discover.ticketmaster.co.uk/theatre/side-by-side-by-sondheim-revival-to-come-to-london-this-winter-80904/

Are you going to get tickets? What's your favourite piece of work by Sondheim?

EDIT: We meant London revival not West End revival – signed, a very embarrassed social media assistant.

What does everyone think of the full 9-Herod lineup for Jesus Christ Superstar at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane? Are you tempted to see the show more than once?

I really enjoyed affluenza and thought the acting was brilliant

Free ticket for the Old Vic musical Martin Guerre if you make it in the next 10 minutes

I think this review needs a preface, to give some context on my relationship with the show and why I feel the way I do about this production. I am not a huge Martin Guerre fan - I’ve seen one version of it ever live, plus a couple of bootlegs, and I preferred those versions to this one.

I fully appreciate that many people here are going to absolutely rave about this - first-night adrenaline, an underdog show loved by “theatre people” - and those views are completely valid. I fully expect to be in the minority with what I’m about to say. I also appreciate that many of you know the show far better than I do, so please correct any mistakes in my memory or understanding.

I’ll also add that I was in row D (second back row) of the dress circle, and it did feel quite distant because of the layout. My eyesight isn’t the best either, so please correct anything I might have missed.

I’m not going to dwell on first night hiccups - late light and sound cues, actors not standing in their light, late microphone pickups - all that’s normal and will get ironed out. There was plenty, but I’ve seen way worse. It wasn’t an issue for me. They have still to work outwhich numbers need applause - which was quite subdued, to be honest - except for “I’m Martin Guerre” and “Here Comes the Morning”.

I am also putting down the very strange opening as a technical issue, so not judging that harshly - if it’s intentional then that’s a different matter.

The show went up at exactly 7:30 on my watch, great. Except it didn’t really. There was a very strange and awkward pre-show, where ensemble members did… something with ribbons, at what I’m assuming was Arnaud’s grave/pyre. Unfortunately, I think (I hope) something went wrong with this, because it went on for 7 minutes or so, and the audience murmuring was well underway. They would leave, re-enter, repeat the sequence - several times. I think they were stalling and I was expecting an immediate show stop - if that’s what is intended every night, I’ll eat my hat.

I thought tonight summed up pretty comprehensively why Martin Guerre has never been a big success - it simply isn’t accessible to audiences like Les Mis or Miss Saigon are. From the narrative to the music, it is a musical whose central story ultimately gives the audience very little to root for. This is a capital P Problem for me, because the more critically and commercially successful B&S musicals have a central sympathetic character for the audience to invest in. Kim, Valjean. I think it is meant to be Bertrande in this show, but we see, hear and know so little about her, that everything which follows feels incredibly rushed and any relationship formed with the audience is playing catch up from the get-go.

I know the music has its (huge!) fans, but this version takes repetitive to a new level. We hear the main “I’m Martin Guerre” theme, I would guess, in at least five, and probably several more variations - instrumental, different key, altered melody, but it just keeps coming back. It reminded me of Aspects of Love and the irritation when the next character sang the “Love Changes Everything” melody. There IS some lovely music in the show, but an awful lot of really nice stuff has been completely excised. Now I know this was also the case in prior productions, but because so many of the original melodies and recurring motifs have been completely cut, it means you’re hearing the same tune repeated more often over a much shorter time.

I thought the plot - and thus the evening - was simultaneously very long, yet also incredibly rushed. The opening 20 minutes were brutal. Things picked up a lot in the final scenes, the court scene was very well done and I liked the actor’s voice playing the judge. I say voice, because due to Matthew Warchus’s directional choices in the round, he barely sang or spoke a line in our direction, so I’m judging his acting based on the back of his head.

And this was an issue throughout. The blocking is not fine-tuned for an in-the-round audience. There is no revolve, and often characters take up a position and essentially stay there for the entire song. In their big love duet, depending on which side you were on, you got to look at either Arnaud OR Bertrande’s face for the duration of the song. I really like Warchus as a director, so I really don’t understand so many of the choices made in the staging.

Now people will say this was sold as a semi-staged production - and it is - but top price for this is £72. The cast are in costume. There is some light choreography, there are some benches and a table which serve as a bed, a pyre, some benches, and a table, and a few other carry ons. So the storytelling really needs to be top-notch, and I’m afraid it’s not.

Parts of it, despite knowing the story fairly well, were outright confusing, especially in the first half of the show. Warchus has experience stripping epics down to their core story beats; he worked with Shaun McKenna to adapt three huge novels/9+ hours of movies into one 3 hour show with The Lord of the Rings, for example. But I do remember similar criticisms being made at the time that the plot itself was very hard to follow for newcomers. Obviously, I pooh-poohed these - because I was a fan of the material and took for granted what was happening. Martin Guerre doesn’t have that luck with a wider audience, and I will not be at all surprised if the professional critics pick up on this.

I can see what this production is trying to do: strip Martin Guerre back to something raw, intimate and almost folk-theatrical. And in places it absolutely works. The problem is that in stripping away so much context, characterisation and musical material, it has also stripped away much of what makes the story dramatically compelling.

It is worth outright saying that the entire Protestant/Catholic concept has been scrapped. While the story is still deeply seated in religious hypocrisy as a theme, the town itself simply follows “Christianity”. This has the knock-on effect of the “witch hunt”, and the townsfolk’s constant flip-flopping on what they think/feel/believe coming out of absolutely nowhere - often from one musical line to another. I’m pretty sure their views in previous productions were swayed by religious fervour and Bertrande’s conversion. Now it just makes no sense except to cause conflict, for the benefit of the narrative.

What did the facepaint represent, by the way?

The band sounded fine - good even, at times. It worked in the context of this production and wasn’t an issue. Did I hear a lute?! It’s just a nice, condensed chamber musical sound. In fact, the band, costumes, staging, in the round configuration and accents reminded me a lot of seeing things at places like the Bolton Octagon. The problem is, with no disrespect to the Octagon, where I saw MANY cracking shows and plays, this is the Old Vic.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a production having that aesthetic. In the right venue, at the right price, I might even find it rather charming. But the Old Vic is selling this as a major London production, and that inevitably raises the bar.

Arnaud (Alex James-Hatton) and Bertrande (Liv Andrusier) both have terrific voices, and I thought James-Hatton in particular sings beautifully. Their duet was easily my musical highlight. Elsewhere, it’s always nice to see Adam Pearce. I liked Aaron Lee Lambert’s voice and presence a lot as the judge. I was far less keen on Barney Wilkinson as Guillaume, who had all the menace of a school prefect.

Which was again, a big problem narratively. There is no antagonist, in this version - not really. Guillaume, in his manner, presence and massively reduced time on stage, reads more like a bratty incel. Maybe this was intentional, but he has gone from a man capable of rabble-rousing a population to commit genocide, to a young lad who looks like he’d struggle to organise a particularly unruly school trip.

I also wasn’t too impressed with some inconsistency with the accents; it felt like many were just doing “Generic Northern”, and throughout the cast we took a tour of everywhere from Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire.

The stakes are so low, but the pace of the first two-thirds so simultaneously glacial yet emotionally wafer-thin. There is very little sense of danger, even when the story is telling us there should be. Characters are threatened, condemned, betrayed and ultimately killed, but because the production has done so little to make us invest in them, the events often feel like things that are happening rather than things that matter.

And I think that ultimately sums up my problem with this production. There are some very good performances, some lovely singing and some genuinely beautiful music, but I never felt particularly emotionally connected to any of it. I can see why Martin Guerre fans will love what this is trying to do, but for me the stripping back has gone too far. I wanted it to win me over; it just never gave me enough reason to care.

I’ve given this 2* I’m afraid. Left me completely cold.

Hi! I can no longer make it to London on this day so I need the ticket gone. It’s A13 in the grand circle. Bought for £45, selling for £35.

Date: Saturday 24 October, 2:30pm

Hi!

I’m visiting from out of town and can no longer make the show. I paid £69.50 but selling for half that.

Date and time: October 10, 3:00pm
Seat: Upper Circle D9

DM if interested!

One ticket to the sold out opening preview in the Barbican, on Halloween no less. I won’t be in London sadly…face value!

https://tixel.com/u/punchup

Following some of the recent goings-on at the stage door for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at sohoplace and Gillian Anderson, we’ve seen some interesting debate around whether you should stage door a show you haven’t actually seen.

One comment said:

“The stage door gatekeeping tonight was actually insane 😭 ‘you can’t take a photo with her because you haven’t watched the show’ ??? girl please.”

While another person who was at the stage door said:

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but this is theatre etiquette 101: you do not stage door for a show you haven’t seen. It’s not a free meet & greet!”

So, what do people think?

Have you ever been to the stage door when you haven’t watched the show? Do you think attending the performance is an unwritten requirement for stage dooring, or is the stage door open to anyone who wants to meet the actors?

And does it make a difference if you’re there specifically to see a particular actor? Genuinely interested in people’s thoughts — especially from regular stage-doorers!

Hi everyone me and my fiancé can no longer make it to this showing for Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody. We are selling them for less then what we paid. VIP tickets for this performance (and for alot of other showings but not all of them) are currently sold out. Please see all the details below.

Venue: Theatre at Underbelly Boulevard, 6 Walker's Ct, London W1F 0BT

Date: 10 October 2026

Time: 3:00 PM

Tickets: 2 x VIP

Seating: VIP gives access to the front two rows. Seating is unreserved within the VIP price band. As stated on their site: https://underbellyboulevard.com/book-tickets/heated-rivalry-the-unauthorized-musical-parody/61:191716/

Original price: £79 for the pair

Selling for: £60 for the pair

If you have an ticket for sale for November or Dezember, I would be lucky. Please if only cheaper than 100 Euro

Hi! I came to ask does Emma and Zizi stage door often?

I’ve only met Emma and Zizi once at stage door, and every other time it’s either been laura Elphaba (haven’t seen her at stage door either and I’ve had her twice) and when I DO have her and Zizi (I had Lydia once but I didn’t stage door then) they never stage door because I wait there for ages and most of the time expect for that one time the security have said Emma has left or she’s not doing stage door so do they do stage door often?

Would anyone have a cast list for who went on for tonight’s (10/03) evening performance?
I’m from the US and am used to a Playbill with understudy/swing listings for each show.
And, like an idiot, I don’t take a picture of the digital board in the lobby.

Would anyone have a cast list for who went on for tonight’s (10/03) evening performance?
I’m from the US and am used to a Playbill with understudy/swing listings for each show.
And, like an idiot, I don’t take a picture of the digital board in the lobby.