Immersive

After work, we saw a performance of Guys and Dolls at The Bridge Theatre near Tower Bridge. It's an 'immersive 'production, which, in this case, means a portion of the audience is in the 'pit' with the actors. The remaining audience is seated 'in the round'. The performers themselves play their parts on parts of the stage which rise and fall from the pit. This allows the rest of the theatre and those standing around to see what's happening rather than look at the back of somebody else's head.

The Bridge is a newish theatre with a large foyer. For this production, a portion of the area is used as a cloakroom as those audience members who, like us, have immersive tickets must store coats and bags as they can't be taken into the stage pit (I am not sure how else to describe it, but pit does seem a rather Shakespearean description of a theatre's standing area and, possibly, suggests something more brutish that this was). We had a glass of wine in the crowd.

To allow for the movement of the stage and prevent injury to those of us in the immersive space, cast members dressed as New York policemen gently usher the audience out of the way of the moving stage and away from the stage crew, who are bringing props from hidden areas beneath the searing areas. It's remarkably well done.

The show itself is excellent. Luck Be a Lady and a great version of Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat (with two immediate encores, which allowed the cast to rotate their performance around the theatre) are the stand-out numbers. I was very glad of the interval and, most importantly, the seat we found—although when we returned to the auditorium, we discovered that some of the immersive crowd had been allowed to take seats as part of a Hot Box scene.

This is an excellent production, and I highly recommend it. If you can stand up for the two-and-a-bit hours, invest in the immersive section. Later, I found the cast recording on Amazon, which I will play at some point. The only downside that I can see with standing amidst the action is that I spent quite a lot of time looking at the mechanics of the production (set movements, stage crew, prop handling) and, maybe, didn't pay as much attention to the show itself. On the other hand, being up close with the actors allows them, occasionally, to play a line or a look directly at you, which is lovely to be part of.