The Ryanair of theatreland?

Tonight, Friday the 13th, was the night I should finally have seen Terry Johnson's Piano/Forte at the Royal Court. Third time lucky, perhaps?  Alas, I had what I can only describe as a Ryanair experience.  You know how angry you feel when your flight is cancelled at the last minute, after you've checked in, and there's no proper explanation or apology, just a few low-level checkin staff who have to bear the brunt?   Of course, this was Sloane Square, so good manners were observed all round without Sturm und Drang, but there was quite a bit of Brechtian alienation in the air.

It all started so well.  After last Friday's last-minute cancellation when Kelly Reilly was ill, today we were assured in mid-afternoon that the evening performance was going ahead.  The first sign of a problem came when the doors of the main theatre remained firmly closed at 7.30 when the show was about to start.   Crowds were packing the upstairs and downstairs foyers and the stairs up to the small Jerwood Theatre Upstairs where Harold Pinter was supposed to be performing Krapp's Last Tape.  Both shows were sold out.  Front of house staff were told there was 'a technical issue' but didn't know any more.  At 7.35 we were told the performances would begin at 8, so we spilled out into the street and waited.  At that point a van arrived towing a generator, which was brought into the alleyway behind the theatre.  We waited a bit more.  Around 8 a fire alarm sounded and the building was evacuated, stopping the traffic while we crossed into the centre of Sloane Square.  It was all very British except for one group of theatregoers who began singing Edith Piaf songs in French to pass the time.  At first I thought they were just showing off, but then I realised they WERE French. (Perhaps they were still showing off...)   After a few more minutes a harassed technician with a loud-hailer that didn't work mounted the statue in the square and announced that the performance had been cancelled because of a power problem.  We were offered a pre-printed letter of apology with instructions for getting a refund.  So that was that.  The run ends tomorrow. 

We'll probably all get the chance to see the scintillating Kelly Reilly again before long, but the same may not be true of Harold Pinter.  Not many theatres get the chance to cast a Nobel Prize winner and then have to cancel his performance for technical reasons.  On the way home I tried to imagine Pinter's response.  Betrayal, or just A Slight Ache?  Perhaps just one of his famous silences?

Okay, things can go wrong in the theatre.  Especially on Friday the 13th.  But the Royal Court seems to take the Ryanair/Easyjet approach to its audience.  Tell them as little as possible, wait until the very last moment, and leave it to the junior staff to deal with the public.  The French have a phrase for it - de haut en bas.   This is a theatre which doesn't even seem able to produce a working loud-hailer, which I would have thought was a health and safety requirement.  What happened tonight really wasn't good enough.

Comments

[Anne Hogben]

Yes, we had two precious tickets for Harold Pinter in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tapes for Friday 13th and, like John, we were herded out to Sloane Square to be told that the performance was cancelled and, as the show was sold out we would not be able to get tickets for another performance. Felt truly gutted with disappointment.

I suppose we have to believe the Royal Court's line about "lighting problems in the auditorium"? There didn't seem to be any lighting problems in the foyer or the stairs or the bar....

I suppose the whole experience had more than a touch of Beckett and Pinter about it. Waiting for Pinter's Last Krapp....

[Tom Green]

No disrespect to Terry Johnosn, Kelly Reilly et al. But just imagine if you had tickets for Pinter in Krapp's Last Tapes that night. One of the hottest tickets of the year. Of the decade. Aaargh!