Legally Blonde is ditching its Sunday performances as of the 14th September and going back to the standard Monday to Saturday schedule. Priscilla Queen Of The Desert’s experiment with Sunday performances will also be coming to a close in September. The producers of that show wanted to test the market without committing to the Sunday schedule, so they decided to do a 4 month Sunday run and revert back to Monday to Saturday in the Autumn.

I’ve said before in this blog that Sunday performances are a really good thing for the theatre industry. Many shows have incorporated it into their schedules: Jersey Boys, Stomp and The Lion King are the shows that immediately come to mind. Yet the Sunday performance is still not widely practised in London’s West End. And with so many tourists coming for weekend breaks it doesn’t make sense to stick with the traditional Monday to Saturday schedule. Almost all Broadway shows have a Sunday performance, choosing to have a Monday or Tuesday as a day off.

So what do you think? Would you come into town on Sunday for a matinee or do London’s Sunday train engineering works scare you away? Is the Sunday performance a seasonal thing or should it be used all year round? We would love to know.

Legally Blonde will play Sunday matinees until the 12th September. Buy Legally Blonde tickets here.

Hair The Musical will now close on the 4th September, when the Broadway cast finishes its contract.

Despite a lot of positive press and numerous awards for the Broadway production, it seems that the show is unable to sustain a long run in London.

Hair is such a great musical and this production is definitely worth seeing. However, I think the £65 face value on top price seats was overly ambitious. Yes, relocating the entire cast of a musical is an expensive business and consequently funds need to be raised, but Wicked, Les Miserables, The Lion King, Phantom Of the Opera and Chicago all have top price tickets with a face value hovering around the £60 mark.

Not that the above shows are worth any more or less than Hair, art is a very subjective business. But I do ask the question: is it a little strange that the ‘hippie musical’ is more expensive than most of the other West End shows?

Thankfully, you can buy a ticket for Hair at a discount price, before it is swept away in September. Discount Theatre has upper circle tickets midweek reduced to £22.99 and top price tickets for matinees reduced to £45.99, as well as some dinner and show packages from £42.50 per person.

It really is a superb show and would be a shame to miss it. Buy your Hair tickets here. 

Is the West End changing tact, trying to emulate its cousin in New York?

At Discount Theatre, we’ve noticed that a number of shows are introducing a Sunday show (usually a matinee) and having a weeknight off in return. This makes perfect sense when you consider that theatre is a leisure pastime and most people do not work Saturday and Sunday.

Generally speaking, the West End had run a generic schedule of Monday to Saturday evening, a Saturday matinee and a weekday matinee, equalling eight performances a week with Sunday as a rest day.
On Broadway, you can guarantee that most shows will run on Sundays and traditionally Monday was the day of rest for the actors (although nowadays anything goes and quite often you will see Tuesday or Wednesday as the night off)

Personally, I don’t understand why West End producers haven’ t thought about this sooner. Tourists who take weekend trips to London usually stay for most of Sunday; leaving only Saturday to see the show. Saturdays are notoriously busy, with productions booked months in advance, so any hope of buying a ticket on the day goes out the window. To open up on Sundays as well, gives the paying public much more choice and if it is a matinee, the actors will still have the night off.

For years the staple of Sunday matinees in the West End were either Stomp or The Lion King. Desperate people milling around Leicester Square on a Sunday were left out as they didn’t realise that most theatres were dark. Now we are seeing Thriller, Jersey Boys, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Prick Up your Ears already performing or introducing a Sunday show in the next few months, which is great news for the consumers.

Finally The West End seems to be thinking about the routines of punters. Now, if we could just get the government to revoke Sunday trading hours so we can go grocery shopping after 4pm, life would be bliss!

Check out the great shows with Sunday performances here.