Chichester 2024

Good snooping alicechallice, Im impressed

Apparently it’s Miss Julie.

I win

I'm also very keen to know asap what might be on this year's programme, as CFT announce theirs annoyingly late, making it hard to fit visits round existing bookings; plus of course, you still have to wait for booking itself to open. That said, I've been half-disappointed and half-relieved by the suggestions so far, as I've no wish ever to see Oliver, nor to see Miss Julie again; once was more then enough for the latter, however it's done.

Announcement on 15th February.

If they do announce Miss Julie and Oliver, that's 2 productions I won't need to try to book! Last year I booked for about 7, plus had 2 bookings carried over from the previous year as CFT postponed them. The 7 new bookings included 2 "double show" days to try to reduce travel, but the whole year went quite badly in terms of actually seeing them, as the first double-show day was totally scuppered by a train strike and on the second, I was able to see the matinee only as a rail overtime ban meant I'd have been unable to get home had I stayed for the evening. So maybe I'll fare better if I'm attempting fewer trips this year.

On the general point of travel, however, I do wish the endless rail disputes could be resolved permanently, as I recall visits to CFT in previous years suffering from the same issues, ie strikes, overtime bans and engineering work - none of which, of course, had been announced at the booking stage because that's months earlier.

I also wish CFT would show more consideration for those travelling by public transport, which is after all the greener option than driving. They seem now to have woken up to the need to consider their environmental impact and bleat in their emails about how they're addressing this, but they continue totally to ignore the needs of those travelling by bus or train. I've fed this back in surveys, too, yet still no earlier evening starts (apart, I think, from a single 5 pm performance for a single production last year) and every pre-show reminder email continues to bang on about parking and the need to arrive early to secure a space - well how about not only including, but prioritising, information about how to travel by train and bus and details of any known disruption?

London theatres seem way ahead and though public transport may be more readily available there, CFT probably has a far greater catchment area so their failure to recognise this is disappointing and puzzling; it also gives a very poor impression of their attitude to corporate social responsibility.

London really isn't all that much better if you live outside of London.

Also if Chichester were to change performance times it would have a negative impact on the local economy as so many local restaurants rely on pre show dining. Plus obviously the theatre itself. It's also something a lot of Chichester customers like to do.

The hard core theatre fans who live in London are a relatively small portion of their audience.

I drive nearly 2 hours to get to CFT and starting a little earlier would be great especially for an evening show. A 7pm start wu.d be most welcome and mean I’d get back home before midnight.

I'm an hour and a bit away from Chichester and haven't had many issues, long as the trains are running. And an earlier start time wouldnt help on train strikes etc.

Pre show dining is still popular, find it odd to suggest otherwise. I think a 7pm show could possibly work but not much earlier. But an earlier matinee wouldn't work.

I agree with Jon, this is the second post thay borders on entitlement wanting theatres to change times just because it doesn't fit in with particular theatre goers.

I'm not sure where this post covid idea has come from that shows should finish earlier as peoples lives have changed. People have always had commuting issues, work hours are pretty much the same (some more wfh). There have always been calls for different times (e.g sundays), covid hasn't changed that. Maybe theatre tickets aren't selling so well so theatres are thinking outside the box. But I don't think covid itself has much to do with it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm for theatres experimenting with start times but I think it has to work for the majority and not the minority. Slightly earlier evening performances would be fine but starting shows at say 5pm would be strange.

Chichester is not like the National where there is an audience for eating after the show so it's unrealistic for them to adopt earlier starts. 

60% of their audience live outside the Chichester local area. 

That's great