King Lear (McKellen) Chichester / Duke Of York’s

[rockinrobin]

Got my ticket. Lost 2,5 hrs of my life to get a ticket to a play I don't even like that much.
I gave up on queueing in the browsers on my laptop and used my smartphone instead - no queues, it took me 1 minute to book. Technology, eh.

[sam22]

Queue seems to have died down, I logged on and said 628 people ahead of me, within about 5 minutes it took me through to booking and just booked 2 seats for a Saturday in August!

[crowblack]

Band A keeps giving me the option of A2 or K19 (I think) - is A2 good? Cricked neck maybe but I can put up with that.

[BurlyBeaR]

merged

[Kenneth_C]

I hate not being able to select my seat. So I just kept putting different single seats in my cart, until I could get one that I wanted.

Then I got an error message (to contact the box office) when I tried paying with my credit card. I'm not about to do that from the U.S., so switched over to PayPal and the transaction went straight through.

[crowblack]

Thanks, I did in the end - I looked at other dates and A2, A10, and some seats in row K are what seem to be on offer in the stalls at the (slightly!) lower price. I booked for what looks like the night before press night.

[Rory]

I was offered A2 also and took it. It was £75 so I hope it's decent. I still can't work out if this is being presented in the round or not. Presume it is if they're removing the last 10 rows in the stalls.

[Marwood]

It also A2 that I got earlier, looks like this is going to be the official Theatre Board stalls seat for this run...

[daniel]

I'm also in A2. Though for me it's the Upper Circle at £25 as opposed to the stalls at £75.

[Ade]

I see Select Your Own Seat is turned on on ATG now. Wow there really isn’t a lot left. I’m quite surprised unless they have held a lot back.

[loureviews]

I'm in the Royal Circle. Wouldn't miss this one for the world.

[Rory]

What is the purpose of removing the back rows?

[martin1965]

I see as well he is only doing six performances a week, which i guess is fair enough. Saw this in Chichester and thought it was v good but cant justify another trip down south with other stuff around.

[crowblack]

Will they be turning the front stalls seats sideways, then? (Looks a bit like OV's Christmas Carol)

[Rory]

Thanks @theatremonkey. Good call. Good to see the integrity of the production taking precedence over commercial returns. It looks as if they might have some sort of platform / performance area in the stalls if the centre aisle has been added and middle rows have been removed.

[wickedgrin]

So glad I saw this at the intimate Minerva Theatre at Chichester last year for only £48! The prices for this are unbelievable - £100 £125 even £145 for Premium super seats! Still it has to be the last major stage role for McKellen and he is absolutely riveting!

[couldileaveyou]

I'm glad I saw him for 5£ from the front row of the Minerva

[martin1965]

Feb 9, 2018 17:19:14 GMT wickedgrin said:

So glad I saw this at the intimate Minerva Theatre at Chichester last year for only £48! The prices for this are unbelievable - £100 £125 even £145 for Premium super seats! Still it has to be the last major stage role for McKellen and he is absolutely riveting!

Snaptastic!

[popcultureboy]

Feb 9, 2018 17:19:14 GMT wickedgrin said:

So glad I saw this at the intimate Minerva Theatre at Chichester last year for only £48! The prices for this are unbelievable - £100 £125 even £145 for Premium super seats! Still it has to be the last major stage role for McKellen and he is absolutely riveting!

There are some seats cheaper than £100 though I imagine they've mostly been snapped up. Still, if we're talking expensive, I would rather pay £100 for over 3 hours of Ian McKellen performing Lear than say £69.75 for 90 minutes of Jonathan Pryce sleepwalking through yet another Florian Zeller play.....

[loureviews]

You can have both ...

[kathryn]

Damn, I was travelling when tickets went on sale and completely missed it! There isn’t much left, and they look pricey.

Do we know if there will be day seats? I prefer day seats to a TodayTix lotto but a lot of shows seem to be doing the latter now.

[CG on the loose]

As far as I'm aware, the only day seats are for the under-25s (in line with Chichester's 16-25 scheme) ... but I stand to be corrected. Monkey?

I was also told (indirectly - from the Box Office via a friend) that they expect some additional seats to be released on the edges when the sightlines are known.

[Marwood]

Saw Ian McKellen at the Q&A for A Touch Of Love last night at the BFI, when King Lear was mentioned, he said '100 performances' to which someone shouted out 'theres not many tickets left!' and Ian replied 'no!' in a not exactly jolly fashion, I got the impression that maybe he wasn't that keen to do as many as 100 performances of this...

[kathryn]

Bit the bullet and bought an extortionately-priced seat in the front row of the upper circle. If day seats are a possibility I may end up returning or reselling it. I just don’t want to miss this one!

[popcultureboy]

Feb 15, 2018 0:34:59 GMT kathryn said:

Bit the bullet and bought an extortionately-priced seat in the front row of the upper circle. If day seats are a possibility I may end up returning or reselling it. I just don’t want to miss this one!

The front row of the upper is £57.50 for Lear. For Mary Stuart it's £55. It's hardly been jacked up in price like the other areas of the house. For the Branagh season at the Garrick the front of the upper was Band A, £65. And the view from the front of the upper in the Dukes is FAR superior to that.