Episode 137 - 1816: The Year Without a Summer

So let's crack on, shall we? And sitting all alone here in my tiny little makeshift studio, I ask a question that nobody cares to know the answer to: "Ray, what have you been up to in the world of theater lately?" Well, there was a couple of reviews last week for the mahoosive musical, Matilda, at Norwich Theatre Royal, and the rather smaller scale, Little Shop of Horrors at Sheringham Little Theatre.

The reviews, if you're interested, are available to read at eatpod.co.uk.

But actually, there was a couple of side issues that I wanted to talk about arising from these two productions.

The first was to do with the pricing of the tickets for Matilda.

Now, it's on at the Theatre Royal for two weeks over the summer holidays, which is seemingly a canny move from the venue.

But when I checked, the tickets weren't exactly flying off the shelves, with more than roughly 50% of the seats available across most performances.

You kind of get an idea that sales aren't going particularly well when you see adverts for it on regional telly, like I did with this one.

Anyhow, when I looked, the cheapest available tickets were priced at around £69 each.

So anyone with a small family of, let's say, four, is looking at upwards of £280 for tickets, which is frankly ludicrous.

Yes, it's no doubt an expensive show to book and stage at the theater, and yes, they will have likely offered a small handful of tickets at £10 each, as they often do, to those on lower incomes.

But I can imagine many people with their budgets stretched enough at present, and particularly during school holidays, they will have simply decided that it wasn't worth it.

There has to be some sort of compromise.

And when the government is seemingly doing all it can to try and ease stretched families' budgets during the summer holidays, I think the theater has to do better.

And this is an organization that proudly boasts, and rightly so, that it's a living wage employer.

So how about offering tickets a little bit more in line with people's budgets? And watching a show like Matilda with such incredibly talented children on stage, you don't want that to be the preserve of the privileged, you know, those who can afford to send their children to a stage school.

And by that same token, it feels like a missed opportunity to inspire more children to get involved on stage, other than those whose parents can afford those ticket prices.

I know when panto season comes around, for instance, the theater have, in recent years, put some systems in place to try and make the theater more affordable for families.

I mean, I don't know the ins and outs of what they're allowed to charge for Matilda, but I just think they perhaps could have considered something like this for a similar big family show.