AnneMarriott

Robin for me - but I thought the robin already was our national bird?

Actually I'd be interested in knowing what an evening performance is like, quite cool I imagine even in midsummer, 

 

Often, yes, like any other open air performance - and the seats are all under cover.  It can get pretty wet too sometimes for Groundlings but transparent hooded ponchos are on offer - as are collapsible paper sunhats for daytime performances. What I like about evening performances is the unusual quality of the lighting - very atmospheric.

I have to push this thread up to ask some more questions.

 

I have just bought tickets for the RB triple bill on 29 May, now I can plan my visit to the Globe. There are two plays to choose from:  As You Like It on Saturday 30th May evening or The Merchant of Venice at the 31th May Sunday matinee and evening.

 

As I know and love both plays and couldn't decide anyhow, the main question is whether to go in the evening or at 1.00 pm (depending on availability of groundling tickets of course).

 

So please all you seasoned theatregoers: can you help a clueless tourist?

I prefer the evening to enjoy the atmosphere as the sun goes down (no modern lighting at the Globe).  But whatever the time of day there will still be planes roaring overhead throughout the performance!

Quick and easy booking this morning at 8am.  Actually managed to get a couple of stalls circle standing for one of the Afternoon of a Faun mixed bills, after a brief tussle with someone else trying to book the same tickets as me.  Also got confirmation of order within minutes.  Very impressive!

No problems with the system this morning (apart from the usual dearth of the cheaper stalls circle tickets).  In and out within 20 minutes, complete with order confirmation email.  Let's hope this is a promise of smooth booking times to come.

Edited to add "a" before promise.

EDIT: I've pulled all the posts on booking experiences together to make a new thread. Alison

My nightmare isto see those ghastly Cygnets doing an encore. Please can all four of them be shot !? Please!!!

At last someone who shares my view!  I've always hated them - cute as they are they completely break the mood after that wonderful elegiac pas de deux.  Shooting is a bit drastic though;  couldn't we just clip their wings?

Another source of irritation is to arrive at the shop at the advertised opening time to find a notice on the door saying "This branch will be closed until xxxxxx o'clock for staff training".

Anne, I suppose that those girls thought that the ballet was something to do with Swan Lake.

 

I'm sure you're right! Ballet-starved areas of the country often book for an evening of ballet expecting wall-to-wall tutus and pointe shoes and are nonplussed to be presented with a programme of challenging small-scale contemporary works. The Royal Ballet Dance Bites tours are a case in point.

We saw the original cast and were blown away by this powerful piece. So when the ENB put it on as part of one of their small-scale provincial tours we drove to Swindon to see it. The audience had a large contingent of small girls in taffeta frocks and tiaras, all agog for an evening of ballet. Swansong proved too much for one such - she burst into floods of noisy tears and had to be taken out.

This morning I decided to go to M & S and Boots. I checked the opening times - 10.30 to 4.30 for both. My local Tesco opens at 10.00 on Sundays and gives free parking if you spend 5 pounds or more. So to avoid the town centre car park - all tight corners and narrow ramps - I went to Tesco for the Sunday papers and then walked to M & S. chose my much-needed slippers and went to the pay desk at 10.40 am only to be informed that I couldn't actually pay for them until 11 am.

The kind assistant offered to keep the slippers aside for me while I went to Boots. Luckily no weird opening/paying times in operation there. Returned to M & S at 10.55 to find a sizeable queue at the checkout. When it was my turn the slippers had vanished. Some tidy-minded soul had put them in the returns bin.

I did actually manage to buy the slippers but have made a mental note to avoid Sunday shopping in future.

That's true: she's shown wearing it on the cassette/CD of the recording of the score that the ROH did back in the 1990s, if I remember rightly.

I think she always wore her own swan headdress when dancing with the RB, just as she wore her own Giselle costume.

Nope - it really is Australia - it was on the news last night! They are entering as a one-off.

 

 

 

I know - I was joking! But then Israel enters and it's a bit of a stretch to consider Israel as part of Europe. And I'm always a bit doubtful about how European all those former Soviet "...stans" are now they're independent entities.

Perhaps the organisers have confused it with Austria.

I believe that a swan can break a human arm with its wing.

It's a myth! The only way that could happen is if the human fell over and landed awkwardly on the arm in question - consider the relative density of the bone (or cartilage) in a swan's wing and the density of the bones in a human arm.

I don't know whether it was the music or the choreography or the cast or a combination of two or all of these things, but the performance didn't really 'gel' for me. (snip). Some performances just seem to go with a swing or catch fire and others feel flat. I do wonder whether you feel too remote from the action if you sit in the amphitheatre. Despite the corps it feels like a chamber piece. The lighting is too dark in places, which doesn't help.

We were in the Stalls Circle (posh seats by our standards) on Wednesday evening so we were close to the action and it didn't gel for us either.  Some parts were excellent, like the curate's egg, but the overall impression was that it lacked lustre.  A bit disappointing as it will be our only Onegin this run and we had high expectations after the rave reviews for this cast.

Well I just went on line and booked for Northern Ballet at the Linbury with no problems.  Not so with the Illa Masqua sale however!

 

(Couldn't book earlier as was out for the day)[/quot

e]

 

Lucky you, Janet. It was Northern Ballet I wanted two tickets for and it took three quarters of an hour of struggle and blue language to achieve that modest goal. Perhaps I'll wait until the evening in future ...

Total nightmare - worst experience yet! Endless error messages and I finished up at one point with 18 tickets in my basket. I only wanted two! Even the phone went funny "the number you have dialled has not been recognised" x 10 or so. Then worked up a sweat when my shopping basket miraculously appeared, trying to remove all the unwanted tickets plus several unwanted donations in the 1 min left to complete the transaction. Got there eventually to place the order for the two tickets I originally tried to get three quarters of an hour earlier.

Sorry to all those whose tickets I must have been blocking all that time.

We should have been at Monday's performance but the national winter cough kept us at home.  Any comments from those who were there would be appreciated!

Well off topic I know, but if we're going to slate the American public for this sort of thing, let us not forget the British parents who targeted a paediatrician because they didn't know the difference between paediatrics and paedophilia.

19 seconds into the video there's a male dancer looking remarkably like Steven McRae.  Any idea who it is?

Whatever the provocation, this dog has shown aggressive behaviour.  I think it would be better to find him a place in a rescue and rehabilitation centre where he can be assessed and given further training before he is given to another family.

Sorry, Bruce - couldn't resist. Pronunciation-wise of course your original version sounds correct so blame it on your fluent spoken French!

_{He's a chap, not a girl, Bruce!  Francois surely?}

It doesn't usually, Jane.  I'm wondering if someone had advanced this as a more acceptable explanation of the behaviour than lack of social sensitivity aggravated by alcohol, in order to defuse the situation.. The behaviour would be perfectly normal at a rock concert (so I'm told) so isn't an example of the sort of involuntary tics and vocalisations associated with Tourette's

Follow-up to Post No 1 above. Just got back from walking the dog to find my parcel on the doorstep. John Lewis rang me this morning to say they were going to chase up Hermes tomorrow and give me an update, so I've rung them to say it's not necessary and to say they've regained a few customer service brownie points to make up for the ones they lost on delivery service.