Encouraging The Crowd: Putting Them Bottoms On Seats (UPDATED)

Update: While the below is still all correct fact, I have just had a telephone conversation with the Flash marketing team and learnt that there are a few reasons for the increased prices this year which are out of their control. It is sad that the increased levels are quite so much, but as I originally said costs are there to be covered, so it looks like the prices are there to stay.

What I will make clear however is that none of the below should appear negative towards the event. Flash 2014 was wonderful, and I am certain having previously seen those that are to perform, 2015 will be more the same. My only gripe is with the price hike. If your wallet can stand it, there is nothing more that I would recommend higher. These may be student shows, but don't be snooty about it, these are up there with many a professional performance you will see, and you might just be at a performance of a superstar of the future. Open your wallet wide and go.

Two of the highlights last year for me in my new world of theatre going were the weeks of the National Theatre Connections and the University Of Northampton's Flash Festival. During these weeks there were multiple performances: twelve in Connections (some play repeats, but different performers) and fourteen different shows in Flash. If you attended all of them (I didn't quite make it, but was close), they would have set you back £123 for the privilege.

This year the price goal posts have changed quite a bit. There are again fourteen Flash shows, while the National Theatre Connections at Royal & Derngate have been increased to fourteen. Connections have increased in price just by a single pound coin to £6 a show, which in theory is nothing to worry about. Unless you might want to support all the shows that is. Flash however has undergone the most radical and painful to the pocket change. There was a crowd encouraging Festival Ticket in 2014 which allowed you five shows for £21. This lovely and friendly ticket dropped the individual prices from £8.00 a show to a gorgeous £4.20. This year the festival ticket has gone and been replaced by a rather cumbersome and generally pointless "General Public Route" ticket for Saturday (an option on Wednesday as well, I believe), £15 for three shows. While this will be great for what are described as "general theatre-goers of Northampton", it is inflexible and offers nothing for those that may be able to attend at other times. So without that option and the festival ticket gone, it is bang £8.00 a show, thank you very much.

Now, don't get me wrong. £6.00 and £8.00 for an hours entertainment it perfectly fine. However these are feature weeks and positively glow with the idea that you might attend all the shows. Therefore the money ratchets up a great deal. As I said above, last year the two full weeks would have cost you £123, this year however to fully support all of the shows and performers of these two weeks, you are looking at £196.

That quite frankly is too much, and is I am afraid very disappointing. During Flash last year, I sat in pretty empty venues on many occasions (other than students that were performing in other shows) and Connections was quite often similar. This year there might be another empty seat for a few shows as well. Costs have to be covered certainly, but increasing prices it not going to solve it. The only thing that will help the situation are bums on seats, and offering no incentives at all will sure not put them there.

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre

Richard O’Brien’s anarchic, surreal, and often incomprehensible musical, The Rocky Horror Show , has captivated audiences for over fifty years now. With this new tour, it feels as fresh and unpredictable as if it had just emerged from O’Brien's vivid imagination yesterday. While another review might seem unnecessary given the countless dressed-up fans who fill every theatre it visits, let’s go ahead and write one anyway. The Rocky Horror Show follows the adventures of Brad and Janet, a newly engaged couple. On a dark and stormy November evening, they run into car trouble and seek refuge at a mysterious castle reminiscent of Frankenstein’s. There, they encounter the eccentric handyman Riff-Raff, the outrageous scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter, and a host of other bizarre characters. What unfolds is a science fiction B-movie narrative that is at times coherent and at other times bewildering — yet somehow, that doesn’t seem to matter. I first saw The Rocky Horror Show in 2019 and exper...

Review of The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband at The Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

During the interval of The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband , last weeks production at The Playhouse Theatre Northampton, I got involved in a conversation between a couple sitting next to me. The lady was very much of the opinion that the play was a comedy, while the gentleman, had formed one that it was a tragedy. They were joking of course in the conversation, but it did highlight the differences that Debbie Isitt's dark comedy might have between the sexes. And also now perhaps the passing of time. When this was written in the nineties, Isitt's play was a forthright feminist play, heralding the championing over of the ladies over the man. One the ex-wife plotting to cook him, the other, the new lover, potentially already very tired of him after just three years. The husband, Kenneth (Jem Clack) elopes initially in pursuit of sex with Laura (Diane Wyman), after his nineteen years of marriage with Hilary (Corinna Leeder) has become tired and passionless. Then later, he elopes ...

Review of Dial M For Mayhem! at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Middle Ground Theatre has been creating unique and intrepid adventures for the stage since the late eighties, and with Dial M For Mayhem! , they take those experiences and bring to the stage a brand new play within a play now arriving for a week run at Royal & Derngate. Written by Margaret May Hobbs and directed by Michael Lunney, Dial M For Mayhem! has much to admire. Still, sadly, for every good joke, amusing set piece and chaotic moment, there are too many periods of flatness, stilted sequences and, especially during the first act, too many slow scenes which either tread the same old ground or bring nothing new to the proceedings and then fail to flow into the next leaving it often disjointed. The cast does their very best, though, and the characters they bring to the stage are entertaining and perfect for this farcical play, but they lack depth despite the script trying desperately at times to give them one. The attempt to create character also comes at the expense of the farc...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

Search This Blog