Dawnstar

It's all very well the Guardian critic saying people can just eat popcorn quietly but that does nothing to reduce the smell of it, which is the thing I find most objectionable about popcorn. As for the reply @Balletbloke got from the Coliseum, I am speechless.

Does the Jester have a reasonably large role? When I stage dored after Woolf Works on Saturday one of the dancers (I guess I'd better not say who as the casting hasn't been publically announced) told me he'd been cast in that role but as I've never seen Ashton's Cinderella I have no idea what it actually involves. I'm pleased to find I'll be seeing both the male & female stepsister pairings. It's interesting that all the male stepsister pairings have quite a big age discrepency between the 2 dancers. Somehow I wasn't expecting that. I was hoping maybe Morera would do the Fairy Godmother, after seeing her coaching the role for the Insight livestream, but sadly not.

I would have thought Dias & Sasaki would be first in line for promotion among the Soloists, given they were the two who made Sugar Plum Fairy debuts this year. But maybe that's not how it works? Among the men perhaps Ella? Although he seems to have been stuck at Soloist level for a while despite dancing some major roles.

@Sophoife That sounds like a nightmare. I think if anything like that ever happened to me I'd never dare to set foot in a theatre again. Hence why I never dare say/do anything to annoying audience members beyond glaring at them, which probably isn't visible in the dark anyway.

I'm useless at that when interacting with strangers. I was near tears for the rest of Act 3 at the stress of having been told off for leaning forward myself. I couldn't take the additional stress of trying to get other people to stop leaning forward. It was row C of the far side of the stalls circle so there's no other rows behind to be inconvenienced.

I thought about it but didn't want to cause a disturbance mid-act. The problem was coming from the person at the end of the row leaning a long way forward so I would have had to ask the person next to me to not lean forward and then she would have had to ask the person on the end to not lean forward, and I can imagine the latter would have then protested that she was looking around the pillar that blocks the view from that seat & might have refused to stop leaning. So I couldn't face the stress of setting all that off. Better one person, me, not be able to see much than an entire audience section get disturbed.

I guess I should report myself for inadvertant bad behaviour at Woolf Works yesterday. I was sitting in the centre seat on one of the side of the stalls circle benches. The two people between me & the stage were leaning forward so their heads were partly blocking my view. I spent Acts 1 & 2 really trying not to lean forward myself but in Act 3 I must have leaned forward without realising because suddenly the woman on my other side tapped me on the arm & complained I was blocking her view. I was mortified & spent the rest of Act 3 leaning as far back as I could, so I could see very little of the performance. Not that I could concentrate on the rest of the performance anyway as I was really worried in case the woman was going to either have a go at me or report me to the FOH staff afterwards but fortunately she didn't say anything else.

Maybe they're so keen on getting in new audiences because those people won't realise how much the prices have gone up! Given the relatively lower-priced Woolf Works has sold out I suspect they'll now be planning a significant price hike for that the next time it is performed.

Yes, I looked it must have been a couple of weeks ago & there were still loads of tickets so I decided to leave deciding whether to go or not until I knew what I'd be doing with Woolf Works with the train stikes. Having just got a Friday rush ticket for tomorrow's Woolf Works matinee I went onto Sadler's Wells website to have a look at ticket availability for this only to find it's sold out tomorrow night. Oh well, fortunately I was mildly curious rather than absolutely desparate to see it.

As someone who's been seeing opera at the ROH since 2004, mostly from the sides of the stalls circle, but ballet only since 2018 this proportionate price discrepency between ballet and opera for seats at the sides of the stalls circle has been baffling me since 2018. Now it's got to £70 for the cheapest stalls circle seats for the classics I really feel the significant view restriction is not giving value for money. However with the recent big hike in stalls prices & abolition of package booking the stalls are now way beyond my price range for ballet (I've never been able to afford them for opera) so I have to put up with the stalls circle prices or not go. I fear if the stalls circle prices go up much more then I won't be going.

Having seen Phantom a number of times over the years, I have given up hope of ever being able to hear the Entr'acte. Most of audience seems to talk through it at full volume every time. Presumably they're under the impression that if the curtain is down the music playing somehow isn't part of the performance & doesn't need to be listened to!

I really hope the train companies will clarify as soon as possible what disruption there will still be on the strikes dates. I need to know by Friday whether I need to try to get a rush ticket for Woolf Works on 11th or whether I'll be able to use my original ticket for 16th.

I was rather surprised that it will be just one pairing. I had (admittedly vaguely) thought from the previous info that there would be multiple pairs of each gender & was therefore hoping that having booked for several casts I would get to see both options. Now I bet the only female pair will end up only dancing with one of the casts I haven't booked for! I was reassured by the interview with the designer that it sounds like the video elements will be fairly discreet & there will be plenty of proper scenery too. When I saw a video designer credited I was afraid it would be some awfully modern concept with video all over the place & no real sets.

It would be interesting to survey audience members who didn't realise they were watching a real life couple to see if they thought it made a difference. I thought it did when I saw Magri & Ball last month but then I know they're a couple so it could partly be me projecting that knowledge onto how I saw the performance, if that makes sense.

Wasn't it 18% or so for the package booking discount? Though I guess even 5% or 10% would be better than nothing.

Yes, it was quite eye-opening compared to the RB's Carabosse. And while it would be impossible to double the roles, with the larger Carabosse role, I imagine Reilly would also have danced the Prince at other performances.

Given how little Carabosse is visible through the mirror I reckon they could get away with a double, a la Odette in Act III. I'd like it if they had Carabosse & Florimund fighting. At the moment frankly Florimund seems to have it pretty easy winning his Princess! I've never seen a male Carabosse live, only on video. From what I recall of Anthony Dowell's Carabosse, when the RB's previous production was televised in the 90s, the role was just mime so being played by a man didn't make much difference. However when Stuttgart's production was streamed during lockdown Jason Reilly's Carabosse had some proper choreography, including jumps, so having a man in the role was more significant. Yes, he was the first dancer who came to my mind who I'd like to see doubling the roles.

Given the current RB production is based on the 1946 one, I would be absolutely fascinated if they tried that doubling nowadays. Admittedly some of the Princes I can't imagine playing Carabosse but there are some that I think could pull it off.

Thank you. I did tentatively think of Donnelly & Dean as possible identifications but I didn't think of Churches, who I also completely failed to recognise as one of the SB princes last month!

@Rob S May I ask who the 3 dancers in the Tudor-ish costumes are? I'm sure I should recognise them but I don't at the moment, not helped by being on my phone rather than laptop.

@Sim I'm the other way around: I'm pleased I saw them on 14th as I can't make 4th March!

Yet another cast change up on the ROH website now. Not good for Takada or Sambe but it must be good for Magri to get another performance in her first run of doing the role.

@Emeralds I'm going to have to wait for Friday rush to see if I can get a ticket for 11th March Woolf Works, as there aren't any stalls circle tickets I can afford still available for that date. If they're going to add more strikes in April I wish they'd just tell us now. The uncertainty is so stressful. I have Cinderella tickets for 5th & both performances on 10th so will be extremely disappointed if I can't get to both those dates.

Richardson definitely wasn't wearing earrings on 8th February, see photo below. Maybe he just forgot to take his own earrings off before last night's performance? He does wear earrings offstage - when I spoke to him at the stage door after his Nutcracker Prince in December he was wearing an attractive dangly silver filigree pair - so I imagine it would be quite easy for him to forget to take them off. I've certainly noticed performers who have forgetten to remove their wedding ring before coming onstage.

I'm very pleased to hear of Monaghan's promotion. I really liked him in Hobson's Choice in 2019, tried too see him in the Nutcracker later that year but unfortunately there was a cast change, and finally managed to see him again in Don Quixote last summer in which I also thought he was excellent. I'll certainly be booking to see him again in the future if I can. (Maslen I've not seen in any significant roles, having only seen BRB the 3 times in recent years, so I'm afraid I can't say anything about him.)