London shines brightest when the theater lights go up
To the American visitor, London offers an embarrassment of riches. In a city full of history and life, seven days of a typical vacation seem too short to explore all the historical and cultural abundance of the city. But seven days come with seven nights, and it is at night that London shines brightest, with perhaps the best theatrical environment in the world.
It’s quite easy for an avid theater-lover to plan a theatrical tour of the city. All you need is a little ingenuity and a little cash — little, that is, compared with American theater prices. The top price for tickets to ”Chess,” one of London’s hottest shows, is 20 pounds, which is about $30 at today’s exchange rates. When “Chess” comes to Broadway, look for a seat to sport a price tag of at least $50.
The ingenuity comes when obtaining your tickets. There are several ways to do this. One of the easiest is available if you fly British Airways to London. For an additional $197 to $491 (depending on your choice of hotels) over their $468 Apex fare, you can book their Showtime package. This gives you six nights’ lodging, a seven-day pass for the buses and the tube (subway), and three theater tickets. You can choose from a list of 12 to 15 shows, but the top musicals won’t be among them.
Some independent groups offer similar arrangements. The Middlesex Community College Drama Club offers a nine-day visit to London with hotel and air fare on British Airways for $629. Although the price doesn’t include any tickets, tourists on this package can take advantage of another British Airways service. They may book shows through the Edwards & Edwards ticket agency on Shaftesbury Avenue without having to pay a booking fee.
If you’re making your own travel arrangements and you’re able to book your vacation far enough in advance, you can write directly to the theaters and ask for tickets. This way, you’ll be assured of good seats on the nights that you want. Names and addresses of theaters can be found in periodicals such as London magazine, which is available in some local libraries. Most London newspapers also carry listings. You can find some of these in the Boston Public Library and at Out-of-Town in Harvard Square.
Most of us, however, are not that good at planning ahead. If you wait until you arrive in London, you still have several options. If you’re on a budget, the half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square can be helpful. Begin to queue up early for best selection. The booth opens at noon for matinee sales and at 2:30 for evening performance tickets. But be aware that, just as in Times Square, tickets to the most popular shows never reach the discount booth.
You can book all shows in advance at the theater box office. You may want to set a schedule on your first day and spend that day visiting the various theaters and collecting tickets for the next week. The earlier you book, the better your selection of seats will be.
It helps to have a complete list of shows available when shopping for tickets. A couple of weekly magazines, Time Out and City Limits, provide information about plays and other cultural events in the city. Such information includes the name of the theater, the nearest tube stop, the curtain time and an approximate running time for each show. The half-price ticket booth at Leicester Square also has a free leaflet with most of the same information.
For the hottest shows, such as “Chess,” “Les Miserables” and the newly opened “Phantom of the Opera,” seats are already booked for from five to six months in advance. The best way to get a ticket to these shows is to visit a ticket agency. You’ll pay a stiff service charge, but it still may not wound your wallet as much as would be the case at home, because the original price of the ticket is lower than you’re used to. A top seat for “Chess” will cost you 20 pounds from the box office. Tack on an additional five pounds if you buy it from an agency.
Tried all of the above and still found no tickets available for the show you wanted to see on the one night you have left? There’s still a chance. Every theater has a queue for returns. You’ll have to queue up well in advance of curtain time, though. At Her Majesty’s Theatre in Haymarket, returns for “Phantom of the Opera” average 35 to 50 tickets a night. You’ll want to arrive at least two hours in advance to be sure you’re at the front of the queue.
Seating in London theaters is the same as seating in the United States — it just has other names, like so many other things in England. The orchestra seats are the stalls; the mezzanine is the dress circle; and the balcony is the upper circle. For most productions, even upper circle seats and those to the far right and left of center are of good quality, because of the intimate nature of many London theaters.
One charming custom of British theater-going is the refreshments available at intermission, or the interval, as it’s called. Even in the plushest theaters, ushers with trays of ice cream and orange juice stand at the front of each section of seats. You can have a cup of chocolate and mint ice cream with a wooden spoon while chatting with a newly-met friend from Stockholm or Rome about such quaint British customs. Most theaters also have bars to which you can retire for something stronger.
The American custom of handing out programs to every member of the audience when they enter the theater is not observed in London. If you want a program, you have to buy one from the usher, at prices between 40 and 70 pence. At some theaters, the script for the play is also on sale in the lobby. For many of the musicals, a larger format souvenir program with pictures is available at a higher price. Albums, T-shirts, buttons (called badges here) and even video cassettes of the play are also available.
A little cash, a little ingenuity and a little bit of planning are all it takes to have a great theatrical holiday in London. And who knows — you may even have time to see some sights during the day. But only if you want to skip the matinees!
Section: TRAVEL Page: B19
Articles | Administrator | 
Sunday, November 30, 1986 12:00 pm
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