NT 2022

[cartoonman]

You were lucky. I have just spent 45 hair pulling out mins to get £20 tickets fot Jack Absolute and Much Ado. I have printed off the receipt. I couldn't see where to get the tickets sent to me. Do I take the receipt to the theatre?

[cartoonman]

I spoke too soon. They have e-mailed me the tickets.

[bordeaux]

Mar 3, 2022 12:33:30 GMT justinj said:

Fairly smooth booking process today. Got tickets to all three shows in the £20 category

Which I suppose shows the lack of buzz round these shows and the National Theatre.... 

[teamyali]

NT sucks at marketing their shows…sksksksk

[mrbarnaby]

Does anyone still… go to the National Theatre?

[oxfordsimon]

Mar 3, 2022 19:18:11 GMT mrbarnaby said:

Does anyone still… go to the National Theatre?

No. But I do still wear a hat...

[mrbarnaby]

Mar 3, 2022 19:38:56 GMT oxfordsimon said:

Mar 3, 2022 19:18:11 GMT mrbarnaby said:

Does anyone still… go to the National Theatre?

No. But I do still wear a hat...

Same!

[Being Alive]

Mar 3, 2022 19:18:11 GMT mrbarnaby said:

Does anyone still… go to the National Theatre?

Yes, not as frequently as before but I still do see 1 or 2 shows a season.

Just booked a £20 front row for Much Ado (with some credit I had was only £5!) and will be looking at both Jack Absolute and The Corn Is Green on Friday Rush.

[Jan]

Mar 3, 2022 12:33:30 GMT justinj said:

Fairly smooth booking process today. Got tickets to all three shows in the £20 category

Yes, I had no problem at all, loads of availability which is not a surprise given their pricing, other than those £20 tickets the pricing is insane. £46 for the very back row of the Lyttleton stalls. Really ?  

[Dave B]

Mar 10, 2022 13:05:43 GMT Being Alive said:

Just booked a £20 front row for Much Ado (with some credit I had was only £5!) and will be looking at both Jack Absolute and The Corn Is Green on Friday Rush.

Exactly the same for us. Those £20 front row seats are great value and we'll do also Rush during the runs.

[peggs]

Joined the queue today out of curiosity, haven't got through it so fast in absolutely years and then yes as you say lots of availability and the prices are so high.

[Someone in a tree]

Does Noris know the high prices keeps many of his target audience out?

[Jan]

Mar 11, 2022 8:36:48 GMT Someone in a tree said:

Does Noris know the high prices keeps many of his target audience out?

It is the Laffer Curve in action. If tickets were free the place would be full but he'd get zero revenue. If tickets were £500 each the place would be empty and he'd also get zero revenue. So it follows that there is some ticket price in the middle that will maximise his revenue. If Much Ado and the others sell out at those prices then I suppose he's around the right prices but so far they are not near that.


The RSC always have similarly high prices at the Barbican and it hasn't been close to full there for more than a decade but they persist with the same pricing and then have to try to offload a few more at £10 at the last minute. I wonder if the NT's dynamic pricing has ever reduced prices ? You only ever hear of it in the context of increases. 

[mkb]

This is the current MO of the NT from personal experience:

- Let people book 2022 shows last year at 2021 prices
- If the show is cancelled, automatically give a credit note, do not offer an actual refund, and do not allow ticket-holders to transfer the booking to a later date
- Apply an inflationary increase to prices at the start of 2022
- Apply increases due to dynamic pricing
- If ticket-holders for cancelled shows want to re-book, insist they must do so separately at the increased prices
- If ticket-holders complain, do not respond

For the first time ever, when my Priority membership comes up for renewal, I will be asking to do so without the charitable donation element. And without an ounce of guilt. There are far more deserving causes I will pick instead.

[stevemar]

I don’t think the situation the NT is in as as terminal as certain other theatres (eg RSC).

Clearly, the “golden” era (and it probably was that in overall terms) of Hytner is over, and his preferred actors and writers have moved with him to the Bridge. Norris hasn’t built the same base of directors, having earlier acted more as a host for one/two offs (Van Hove, Icke), Marianne Elliott and regional productions.

Having said that:
- the £20 front row seats remain a bargain even having risen from £10/12.50;
- the top prices are too high but some of that can be explained by subsidising the lower priced seats. The loss of Travelex has been felt here particularly.
- credit notes with no questions asked have been good, and often they don’t charge the £2 fee, even when I choose to return tickets.
- I’ve personally found the box office friendly, efficient and helpful.
- for every 2 duds which we can name there is probably a hit - it’s a while since Angels of America, but the Shakespeares directed by Simon Godwin, The Lehman Trilogy, A Normal Heart/ Follies directed by Dominic Cooke, Beginning and Small Island (a rare hit by Norris) have been IMO good, or at least popular.
- whilst NT at Home wasn’t that innovative, they got on with Romeo and Juliet on screen, and adapting the Olivier in the round, which is more than some in terms of working through Covid.

For me 7/10 for effort, and 6/10 for achievement! Hex and the Norris debacle there would bring it down more, but I’m trying to look at my whole experience.

[Jan]

Top price tickets only subsidise lower price tickets if someone buys them. Do you know anyone who would buy an £89 ticket for Much Ado ? How many people who end up sitting in that section will actually have paid £89 ?

[stevemar]

Mar 11, 2022 16:58:59 GMT Jan said:

Top price tickets only subsidise lower price tickets if someone buys them. Do you know anyone who would buy an £89 ticket for Much Ado ? How many people who end up sitting in that section will actually have paid £89 ?

Yes, I know regular NT theatre goers who have paid that. But of course many people wouldn’t and dare I say, the conversations on TB tend to be towards the bargains and lower priced tickets (not many people would come on here admitting they’d paid top price as the Cabaret discussion would indicate).

The current pricing is probably more “aspirational”. IF the reviews are good then demand may well pick up. I don’t know, but perhaps the NT planning is on the basis that only a certain % of tickets need to sell at top price, with others reduced and Rush tickets. Sure, we’d all like tickets at a flatter and lower rate, which is where it’s a shame nothing has replicated Travelex

.

[umabala]

Mar 11, 2022 16:15:07 GMT stevemar said:

I don’t think the situation the NT is in as as terminal as certain other theatres (eg RSC).

Clearly, the “golden” era (and it probably was that in overall terms) of Hytner is over, and his preferred actors and writers have moved with him to the Bridge. Norris hasn’t built the same base of directors, having earlier acted more as a host for one/two offs (Van Hove, Icke), Marianne Elliott and regional productions.

Having said that:
- the £20 front row seats remain a bargain even having risen from £10/12.50;
- the top prices are too high but some of that can be explained by subsidising the lower priced seats. The loss of Travelex has been felt here particularly.
- credit notes with no questions asked have been good, and often they don’t charge the £2 fee, even when I choose to return tickets.
- I’ve personally found the box office friendly, efficient and helpful.
- for every 2 duds which we can name there is probably a hit - it’s a while since Angels of America, but the Shakespeares directed by Simon Godwin, The Lehman Trilogy, A Normal Heart/ Follies directed by Dominic Cooke, Beginning and Small Island (a rare hit by Norris) have been IMO good, or at least popular.
- whilst NT at Home wasn’t that innovative, they got on with Romeo and Juliet on screen, and adapting the Olivier in the round, which is more than some in terms of working through Covid.

For me 7/10 for effort, and 6/10 for achievement! Hex and the Norris debacle there would bring it down more, but I’m trying to look at my whole experience.

I agree that it's not as bad as it could be, though I think COVID has clouded quite how bad it is. I read somewhere that Hytner programmed Angels in America and I know RuNo has a bad reputation among other directors. Your description above is pretty bang on, two duds to each medium size hit and bang on where it comes to the ticket prices and the relationships with the directors. For certain, better directors would have meant more hits and bigger hits and more chance of a long runner. A History Boys or One Man Two Guvs or War Horse or Curious Incident would have meant money for the RNT, and some spare money would have allowed the top prices to come down. Surely the lack of hits is one of the reasons Travelex walked away.

[cartoonman]

I was told that to break even the NT needs to have a hit in either of the two big theatres. Over the years I have seen some great productions and some not so good ones. The book The National Theatre Story gives the attendances for shows up to 2014. Some plays I really liked didn't do well. 

All in all I'm proud of the NT and look forward to seeing a show there. The cheap tickets are great value and its a nice place. Its a pity that the proposed National Opera House wasn't built alongside, found that out from the NT story,  it but we were lucky to get the NT.   

[jek]

Rufus Norris has just been interviewed - in a rather bracing manner - by Samira Ahmed on Radio 4's Front Row. Not only did she ask him about redundancies at the National but also questioned him about employing his wife. Worth a listen on BBC Sounds.

[fossil]

New press release on NT web site today:
NATIONAL THEATRE ANNOUNCES TWO NEW PRODUCTIONS THE CRUCIBLE AND THE BOY WITH TWO HEARTS ON THE SOUTH BANK AND A MAJOR NATIONWIDE TOUR OF THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE • NT Associate Lyndsey Turner directs Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in the Olivier theatre with Brendan Cowell as John Proctor and Erin Doherty as Abigail Williams • Wales Millennium Centre’s widely acclaimed adaptation of Hamed and Hessam Amiri’s The Boy with Two Hearts transfers to the Dorfman theatre. Directed by Amit Sharma, and adapted for the stage by Phil Porter • Previously announced productions of Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky directed by Lynette Linton and the revival of Hex, the new musical based on Sleeping Beauty directed by Rufus Norris, also go on sale to the public on Wednesday 8 June • Opening at The Lowry, Salford, Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane will tour the UK and Ireland visiting 29 towns and cities for 40 weeks from December

[crowblack]

I'm amazed a revival of The Crucible hasn't been done sooner in the current climate, and with Erin Doherty - perfect!

[mkb]

Nothing in my inbox, but, heck, I'm only a paying member.

[oxfordsimon]

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/much-ado-about-nothing

Finally a full cast

[alnoor]

Lots of £20 side stalls tickets for Jack Absolute Flies Again now available for the whole run.