703 posts
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Post by theatremiss on Oct 25, 2016 14:46:56 GMT
Just spoken to NT Box Office regarding some vouchers I have and I asked them about bookings for AIA and Follies. They told me AIA is early Jan (not before Christmas) and mid 2017 for Follies
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2016 15:11:29 GMT
Just spoken to NT Box Office regarding some vouchers I have and I asked them about bookings for AIA and Follies. They told me AIA is early Jan (not before Christmas) and mid 2017 for Follies They must be sick and tired of having to repeat this information day after day after day. I suppose it gives them something to do. |
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2,047 posts
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Post by Marwood on Oct 25, 2016 17:29:36 GMT
Just as we're sick and tired of you endlessly spouting 'witty' comebacks to all and sundry - get a life.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2016 19:01:23 GMT
Be nice, please. As my grandmother used to say, "If you can't say something nice, I'll rip your —ing throat out".
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Post by Jan on Oct 26, 2016 8:48:15 GMT
Just reading Rufus Norris' interview about the new season and in particular the improvised play with old actors. He starts "We're all obsessed with getting a younger audience. but .,.." This highlights quite a common view: If you want an old audience put on a play with old people in it. If you want a teenage audience put on a play with teenagers in it. If you want a British film to succeed in America put an American character in it. This strikes me as if it might be cargo cult thinking.
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5,688 posts
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Post by lynette on Oct 26, 2016 14:51:05 GMT
Just reading Rufus Norris' interview about the new season and in particular the improvised play with old actors. He starts "We're all obsessed with getting a younger audience. but .,.." This highlights quite a common view: If you want an old audience put on a play with old people in it. If you want a teenage audience put on a play with teenagers in it. If you want a British film to succeed in America put an American character in it. This strikes me as if it might be cargo cult thinking. I know, annoys me. |
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Post by Snciole on Oct 26, 2016 16:03:35 GMT
The problem is they don't really want young audiences, the majority of young people have no money, but as people live longer these young people MIGHT become rich old retirees who hold the theatre dear. I think theatre is doing a lot to make it financially accessible but until the young are rich they won't really commit to them.
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Post by Jan on Oct 26, 2016 17:35:55 GMT
I disagree Snciole. The NT does want young audiences and does far more than it did even in my time as a youngster to get them in. The problem is more the old one that a majority of young people won't ever set foot in a theatre and won't know if it is for them or not. Now, that's sad, and it would be wonderful if someone could figure out how to tackle that better. The quest for a younger general audience (I mean for mainstream "adult" drama) is misguided in my view. As I have said before, the average age of the Orange Tree audience looks about 55 and has done for the past 30 years. |
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Post by martin1965 on Oct 26, 2016 18:07:14 GMT
Agree with Jan. It was ever thus. I am over 50 now and yet when i go to the RSC or the NT now i look around smd feel the youngest one there! I bought both my children to the theatre at an early age and they still go, indeed my son is now at Drama School.
However i am extremely conscious that we are the exception,
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2016 16:15:52 GMT
National Theatre now releasing tickets for sold out shows "exclusively on instagram" presumably in an attempt to be Down With The Kids
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5,688 posts
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Post by lynette on Dec 6, 2016 17:30:38 GMT
I hope they get some younger peeps in but it is a bit like the Irish joke: I wouldn't start from here.
The building is forbidding and hard to navigate which is off putting. Open it up. Go on, I dare you. Kids need to go from school and not just once but as a matter of course. Some liaison between exam boards and the programme choosers so that for example a studio prod of say Arcadia will be popping along and full blown productions of other perennials will pop up too. Teachers brought in and adored and nurtured with all kinds of programmes. Price reductions for kids even for serious stuff for example a St Joan or someat that Grandma can take young teenage grandkids to without selling her home or her body. Ok, Cumberbatch at least once every couple of years until the next 'one' comes along. Cheap but ok food. Open the foyers to music again. Put on productions of kids! Def get an audience of devoted parents but as well will demystify and also intrigue children. Bring ' em in from the provinces.
Just tinkering really and all very doable.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2016 18:19:28 GMT
Yes, it's odd that despite the aim of the last refurb being to open the place up, it actually feels less welcoming and more intimidating now. I think it's down to the low lighting levels maybe. And agree on the foyer music - wasn't generally a fan of what they had on but it gave the place a bit of a buzz in the early evening that it sorely lacks now.
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Post by Jan on Dec 6, 2016 18:32:48 GMT
With vast swathes of the stalls and circle priced over £50 they will never reduce their average age much, or have a more diverse audience.
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1,119 posts
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Post by martin1965 on Dec 6, 2016 20:17:37 GMT
Defo Jan!
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Post by rumbledoll on Dec 6, 2016 21:06:02 GMT
I guess I am a minority voice here but NT always feels so welcoming to me..
It's like a beacon on the Southbank (I always peep around the corner/across the riiver just to see which colour would turn on the evening - green might be my favourite). Even if I'm not there for a show, I just like going to Kitchen for a meal on the quiet afternoon (cheap and delicious), browse through the changing pop-ups in the book shop, or relaxing on the super comfy sofas on the second floor where it always seems to be an exhibition or two to explore. I love going up to one of the balconies for a view with a drink in my hand and think of all the happy moments I experiences if 4 (now 5!) of their theatres over these years.
It might look like a fortress from the outside but once you get in it's ever warm and basically is a home from home to me.
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5,688 posts
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Post by lynette on Dec 6, 2016 22:13:25 GMT
So rumbledoll, how do we get more young people inside the building to enjoy it as you do?
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Post by callum on Dec 7, 2016 1:06:53 GMT
I'm 19, and find NT no more unwelcoming than any other theatre - which I suppose might be the problem. I see that NT does half price for under 16s, perhaps extending this to under 25s would be a good shout.
BFI Southbank next door has an excellent scheme where under 25s can show up to a screening 45 mins before start time and get in for £3. Although NT doing something similar does ring a bell, seeing a play and seeing a film are very different experiences; rarely does one book to see a film months in advance.
Travelex £20 tickets are decent, but I've always found myself stumbling upon them by chance. Although I wouldn't go as far as the Donmar's FREE student tickets, NT definitely have to do more to encourage younger patrons. When I queued for day tickets for Red Barn (which you would suppose at £15 would be a magnet for any student theatregoers), I was the only one queuing under 40, and only with a handful of other people under 60! I've never felt uncomfortable sitting in a more 'mature' audience but not many of my friends have the desire for theatre that I have - a discounted easy-access student scheme would definitely convince them to join me some time for the right price.
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Post by rumbledoll on Dec 7, 2016 7:07:15 GMT
So rumbledoll, how do we get more young people inside the building to enjoy it as you do? Advertise that they have plenty of sockets to charge a smartphone? 
I can't say that it's the place when I see only middle-aged and elderly patrons (my last visit to Wigmore Hall was a shocker) - there are loads of students (Entry pass scheme, remember?) and kids (yes, they are toddling all over the spacious floor). All my friends and theatre-goer mates love The National and most of them are under 30-35. I really cannot see the problem - I only noticed the imrovement since they opened the theatre up by making a Southbank entrance. One of the things I like the best - you can always find a far away corner nobody knows about so you can stay there undisturbed and udiscovered for as long as you like. I remember spending a WHOLE day at NT once in the middle of cold winter. You have everything you need, why even go outside? (for the record - no, I didn't hide and spent the night though I do wish they made somekind of hostel inside the theatre - I know many potential takers  ).
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2016 7:12:27 GMT
Have to admit I have spent a couple of productive days working on my laptop in the National foyers. And I'm in my 40s  |
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781 posts
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Post by rumbledoll on Dec 7, 2016 8:23:13 GMT
Have to admit I have spent a couple of productive days working on my laptop in the National foyers. And I'm in my 40s
There you go, xanderl! Mee too
Can anyone say the same about any other London theatre? (Southbank centre doesn't count for obvious reasons)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2016 8:49:10 GMT
Iv been going to national since I was 11 and on my own since 13. I used to love the concrete monstrosity! I bought a collection of from the cotersloe bookstore when I was 14 coz of the two guys on the front snogging (pre internet days init) and used to love turning up and catching a tour and matinee
The problem with offering cheap tickets to under 18s is it's really only Londoners and people leaving within in an hour or so that can really take advantage.
I reckon the national should do tours of schools especially up north and in wales and Scotland. I remember the Royal exchange used to tour its shows (albeit not a schools) and that was some of my first experiences of theatre. Surely just get em bitten by the bug at a young age and if the mountain can't go to Madrid as the saying doesn't go
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2016 9:14:56 GMT
I remember the Royal exchange used to tour its shows (albeit not a schools) and that was some of my first experiences of theatre. Possibly before your time, but the Royal Exchange used to do an annual tour of one of its main house productions which played in their mobile theatre which was a reduced size version (with no galleries) of their home theatre and which toured to towns which didn't have their own professional theatres. One year I saw a Shakespeare directed by Phyllida Lloyd and another time it was Don Juan by Moliere with Ian McDiarmid and Bernard Bresslaw. The RSC also did a long annual mobile theatre tour, usuallt of two plays (one Shakespeare and one not), again to places with no professional theatre. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2016 9:16:39 GMT
I love the National and hang out there all the time, but there are moves they've made that make it less welcoming. More eateries means that more of the space is given over to the eateries - I used to love sitting in the corner by the Lyttelton cloakroom (now the bookshop), but all the tables and chairs there now are for the use of people who've bought food from the café in that corner. There used to be more comfy chairs; there's a whole long padded bench on the Olivier cloakroom level that's just not there now, along with the sofa(s?) on the Olivier circle level. And taking away the stage with the live music has not only reduced the variety of art available in the building, it's made the entire ground floor level feel like a canteen or an airport waiting room. Not to mention their new thing of approaching people with laptops after a certain time and chasing them away if they're not also there to see a show (mind you, has anyone witnessed this happening, or are they hoping the threat of it will reduce the problem so they don't have to actually do anything?). It doesn't feel like their goal was opening up the space, it feels like their goal was monetising the space. Just because I can still find a few discreet corners (no one will ever stop me getting a power nap in an undisclosed location after I've been dayseating) doesn't mean it's still as welcoming as it was.
The Dorfman toilets are INCREDIBLY superior to the Cottesloe toilets though, there is that at least.
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Post by lonlad on Dec 7, 2016 9:47:14 GMT
Ah, I love power naps !! There should be a shortlist somewhere of the best places to take them :-)
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Post by Flim Flam on Dec 7, 2016 9:49:58 GMT
Okay, so recently I had an hour to kill late afternoon, before I met a friend. Decided to grab a coffee and have a quiet read of a book, seated in the NT foyer near the bookshop. Fine, found a table to myself. Four people having a quiet business meeting opposite me. No problem.
Then a smartly dressed young guy set himself up on the table next to me, with his laptop and headphones. He then proceeded, for a solid 30 minutes, to have a loud skype call, during which he extolled (in great detail I might add) all the details of his company's overseas property investment portfolio to some unwitting prospective customer. Mild glances from me rapidly turned into bone-numbing glares, all of which he totally ignored, as he was deep in his selling spiel. I wouldn't have put up with it, except that I had no idea that the call could possibly go on for that long...
Not sure that this contributes to the discussion, but good to get it off my chest!
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