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What's on in London?Dateline: 21st March, 1999
Dear Peter, Of all the email queries I receive, this is far and away the most common. The second most common is the one which says "I couldn't find your West End listings page. I'll be in London... etc." Of course there isn't a West End listings page. The reason for that is simple: it is information which is easily obtainable elsewhere. "Ah! but where can we find out about West End shows?" you ask. You need to go to the News and Guide Sites Library and there you'll find several sites which are well worth bookmarking. So let's look at a few of my favourites. London Theatre Online Darren Daglish's London Theatre Online site is a must for anyone planning a theatre holiday in London. No matter how basic your browser you can visit this site with ease, for he offers framed and unframed versions: simply make your selection from the first page. The great thing about the site is that it covers everything theatrical in the capital, including theatre walks. There are news pages and, of course, the all-important listings of both West End and London Fringe shows. There are also a couple of newsletters available, one weekly and one monthly, which not only provide up-to-date listings and advance notice of openings and closings, but also have reviews in which Darren (and others: you too could write a review for him) looks at the shows from the theatregoer's perspective rather from than that of the professional critic (for they can be totally out of touch with the feelings of real people!). There's a modest annual charge for these newsletters, but that's understandable: Darren is a working guy who devotes all his spare time to the site and he does need to recoup some of the large amount he spends, day in, day out, on the site! Society of London Theatre Then there's the site of the Society of London Theatre. SOLT is the organisation for theatre owners and producers in London and so their site is very authoritative. There's a database of shows which you can search by show title, genre, theatre and date, as well as an A-Z listing. It also covers all the services SOLT offers, including theatre gift tokens, and has seating plans of all the main theatres. Being an official site, of course, makes it less independently minded than London Theatre Online, but it is very comprehensive. The London Fringe The London Fringe is the UK equivalent of off- and off-off-Broadway. In other words, it's where much of the most exciting and experimental work is done. Most people remember the impact made by the Theatre Royal Stratford East in the sixties and seventies: now we have venues like the Tricycle in Kilburn, North London, which have taken up the experimental torch. To coin a quasi-quote: what does he know of London theatre who only the West End knows? London Theatre Online devotes a great deal of space to the Fringe, but there is a specialist Fringe site that is well worth a visit if you are going (as you should) to take in a couple of Fringe shows. It is London Fringe+. Although essentially an advert for a print publication, it has the listings and offers enough current news and reviews to make it a site worth visiting. Get your tickets here! There has been a big increase in the number of sites set up specifically to sell West End tickets online. All have something to recommend them but my own favourite is ticket agency Albemarle of London which devotes a page to every show, with details of the show itself, ticket prices, a seating plan and an email form to book. They make good use of the Net generally, contributing useful information (with attendant advertising, of course!) to the theatre newsgroups. There are other booking agencies online, of course, but Albemarle have it cracked as far as convenience and the amount of information available is concerned. If you are planning a London theatre visit, though, you should definitely look once at the Half-Price Ticket Booth site. You can't book online - you've got to queue in the rain and cold! - but it'll give you an idea of what tickets are available, and where and when to get them. Out of London It would be a sad mistake to believe that the West End represents British theatre. In many ways the product on offer there is the same as you'll get in any capital. So much of Broadway is almost indistinguishable from the West End: Cats, Phantom, Les Mis, Beauty etc. etc. etc. Even in the "straight" play area, there are plenty of West End shows which have transferred to Broadway and are still playing "up West". There haven't been as many moving in the opposite direction, however, as American Equity is currently bitterly complaining! There's the National, of course, and the RSC at and the Barbican, but there is so much that is really excellent being produced elsewhere. If you're on a theatre trip to the UK, it would be a real shame to miss the Almeida (just a tube ride away in Islington) or the Orange Tree (not that much further in Richmond, Surrey), and if you're willing to travel for a couple of hours (but do stay overnight!), there's lots of good work at, among others, the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, the Bristol Old Vic, the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and Birmingham Rep. And if you want to see really exciting new work, take a trip to Edinburgh and look in at the Traverse. While you're there, pop across to Glasgow (half an hour on the train) and take in something at the Tron or the Citizens (if it's not dark!). How can you find out what's on there? Go along to What's On Stage and do a search on the town you want, or for a particular author. I've just tested it out for the umpteenth time: a correpondent asked about plays by Alan Ayckbourn, so I went to WOS and discovered 26 productions from Bristol to Pitlochry in a three month period. And you can order tickets online, too. And that's why we don't have a What's On in London page on the British Theatre site. All the information you need, together with the facility to book tickets, is available elsewhere, just a couple of mouse clicks away! But nowhere else will you find such a comprehensive collection of British Theatre links as we have here! Articles Indices: |
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