The Comedy Theatre, Panton Street, London, SW1.
1. INT. THEATRE. NIGHT.
La Bête is playing to an appreciative audience. They hear an acrobatic tumbling of words; a series of soliloquies in verse, including twenty minute monologues from the extraordinarily gifted Mark Rylance, who has the enviable talent of making stagecraft appear effortless.
VOICE OVER (V.O.): The writer is going to lurch into a diatribe and tell us just what theproblem is with London theatres. He appreciates that there is a world beyond the capital and will consider that later in the article. He is not reviewing the play, which he enjoyed as much as any theatrical event he has ever witnessed. The following does not reflect at all, any shortcomings on behalf of the staff at the Comedy Theatre, who, upon the writer’s recent visit, proved to be helpful, friendly, and professional. The writer also stresses that he is not ‘picking’ on the Comedy Theatre. Similar issues may be encountered at other London theatres.
2. EXT. A LONDON STREET SCENE. NIGHT.
The Comedy Theatre, a Grade II listed building, is a rather small playhouse with a tiny lobby, thus some sense of organisation is required to ensure that when the 796 members of the audience arrive, each one of them can expect a stress-free and enjoyable visit.
The reality is that the pavements of Panton Street (twenty minutes before ‘overtures and beginners’) contains a turbulent mix of those queuing to buy tickets; passing tourists looking at the billboard and pointing at the pictures of David Hyde Pierce; people perambulating en-route betwixt Piccadilly and Leicester Square; and, helplessly focused on the tiny door openings, those like me who have their tickets in hand, and simply wish to enter, possibly purchase a drink, and locate the seats (£20.00 each, but with an outrageous surcharge of a £3.00 handling fee; which, as I booked online, led to a cheery gentleman in the box office taking less than five seconds to hand them to me, a couple of hours earlier. For £3.00, I expected them to be embossed in the richest gold, but in fact they were plain old card).
Now, I am fully aware that I am a poncey London media type, who is usually either invited, or buys tickets, to sit in the stalls, and I give full disclosure that I am not used to sitting in the balcony area. We booked late, and due to the popularity of La Bête, the balcony was all that remained.
Once we finally managed to ‘excuse me, sorry, excuse me, can I just...’ our way into the lobby, it turned out that as we had tickets for the Balcony (the same rule applies for the Royal Circle), we were re-directed out of the theatre, back on to the pavement, round the corner, then back in through a side door that leads (wait for this) back into that tiny lobby, we left twenty seconds previously. And we weren’t even going to see a play by Kafka.
3. INT. A STAIRWELL. NIGHT.
Next, we were shown to some narrow stairs where a smiling lady sells programmes in the most inappropriate location other than if they had strapped her to the top of Nelson’s Column. This pleasant and calm woman stands on a teeny landing between the Royal Circle and the Balcony. Any patron who purchases a programme causes a staircase tailback, as there is simply no room to pass by in this dolls house environment.
Balcony ticket holders, who, after a climb that would have tested Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing, emerge into a space that closely resembles a vortex, and find to their dismay, that there is nobody there to indicate where they may find their allocated seats. Clearly some people gave up looking, and just sat where they wished, as there was much of the, “Excuse me, but I believe you may be sitting in my seat” business. We located our rather tired looking seats, and looked at each other in a combination of horror and amusement.
The Pixie, who accompanied me, just about reaches five feet & three inches, and would definitely weigh in at the featherweight category if she ever took up boxing as a career (unlikely, I hope). She could barely squeeze into the seat and the legroom in front of it. There was a metal barrier digging into her knee. ‘Luckily’ I had an aisle seat, and spent the entire (one hour and forty five minutes, no interval) time sitting sideways in the seat, with my legs dangling, rather gracefully I thought, out into the aisle. I’m just over five feet, ten inches tall. I believe anyone over six feet would have given up, or been carried out on a stretcher.
The Pixie said the Balcony area was like a scene from Alice In Wonderland. “Like looking down a well, or a tunnel”, she said.
I have never seen such a steep rake in a theatre. It took several minutes before the feeling, of an imminent fall forward, ameliorated. The stage seemed a mile away, and we could see about two thirds of it. When the man in front of me leaned forward, that view of the stage was reduced to about one third.
We were looking down on the actors’ heads. If anyone on stage moved to stage right, they were lost to us all together. Amazingly, the theatre has placed a small mirror opposite the seats, which (theoretically only) reflects the action that is being missed by the quirkiness of the layout. A mediaeval solution, at best.
DISSOLVE TO
4. INT. A BALCONY. NIGHT.
BANG! That’s the sound I will always link to La Bête; nothing to do with the action on stage, which had very little, if any, banging. Each time, someone (always they seemed to be located in the middle of a row) needed to go to the bathroom (why didn’t they ‘go’ before they came out?) the rest of the row had to stand to let them pass in this tiny world of miniature; BANG! Every seat crashed against its back. As people stood up a domino effect of sound was created, BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
You think that’s the end of the assault on our ears? It was only the beginning. How the cast manage to block all this out, I cannot say.
The bathrooms are at the back of the Balcony, along a minute walkway.
CREEEEEAAAAK! The doors opened with a sound that reminded me of when the scary bloke (usually called ‘Igor’ I seem to recall) opened the huge oak door of the castle, in a Vincent Price movie. I believe a tin of that WD40 stuff can be bought for a pound. The Comedy Theatre does not believe that to be a worthy investment.
CREEEEEAAAAK! BANG! That same door slammed shut after the creak with a velocity that would please the grumpiest teenager stomping off to their room.
5. ZOOM IN.
La Bête was wonderful. The cast, and in particular the three leads, were astonishing. Mark Rylance, with all due apologies to Stephen Fry, is the greatest living Englishman, and should be knighted with haste.
The evening will be remembered however by:
BANG! (rpt accordingly) as a dozen seats clatter every five minutes.
CREEEEEAAAAK! BANG! as the bathroom door opens and shuts upon both entry and exit. A hundred+ people in the Balcony all leap at the deafening noise and swivel their heads.
Paying a quid to hire those plastic opera glasses so that we could see a close up of the top of the actors’ heads.
Sitting sideways on the seats to avoid losing circulation to the lower limbs, and feeling an intense sensation of falling.
6. FREEZE FRAME.
So what’s to be done? The Comedy Theatre was built in 1881, and is a listed building. We can’t expect the Ambassador Theatre Group, who owns it, to work miracles. Or can we?
Perhaps ten or so years ago, cinemas had to learn to upgrade their customer facilities, if they were ever going to turn around the dwindling movie going audiences, against the rise of DVDs, the internet, and of course, television.
Cinema groups grasped that they had to provide something unique in terms of product, and add in new degrees of customer service, with improved (beyond recognition) seating, facilities and refreshments.
After some real life horror events, football stadia were also upgraded, and at least some consideration has been given to the customer experience.
Festival organisers in the UK are now faced with such competition amongst themselves, and a demand for customer value, that they have been forced to rethink the whole concept of what is on offer to those who attend, with ever increasing levels of comfort, to the extent that the days of mud-gloopy tent sites and ‘take the money and run’ promoters now seem positively Dickensian.
The answer is, as ever, investment.
But I hear you, despite the banging and the creaking, I hear you. These are budget conscious times; don’t you know there’s a recession on?
Whether the funding comes from the Ambassador Group (who have been buying up theatres, since 1992, like you and I buy coffees, so they must figure the investment is worthwhile), Government grants (yeah right – he waves to Dame Liz Forgan), charitable fundraising, a wealthy sponsor...
To quote a line from an earlier theatrical triumph*, “Something must be done.”
All around me, last Saturday, theatre-goers (many were tourists, judging by the accents) were saying that they would never return. If the Comedy Theatre can survive on such a dangerous tightrope, then good luck to all who sail in her; if they can’t, a very thorough review needs to take place (with urgency) to seek out the most appropriate way to bring comfortable seating, sensible sight lines, and an overall enjoyable experience to those who venture through the teeny doors in Panton Street; one that will match and enhance the effort and skills of the thesps.
Meanwhile, I’m donating a quid for a can of oil to fix that bloody creaking door.
Terence Dackombe, August 2010
