The Exorcist - Birmingham Rep / Phoenix / Tour

Jenny Seagrove's hideous pixie boots were the scariest part of the evening. I can't get that visual out of my head.

Says someone who has clearly never been to one of my family Christmas' when my grandmother deigned to attend.

It has always been set as a limited run, so closing in March is the plan regardless. It will do what Evita did and chug along.

Having seen both, I prefer WiB. The acting is exquisite.

Is the consensus on this that it's a genuinely good play then?

Also, how does it compare to The Woman in Black with regards to jump scares? I remember being fairly frightened by it!

In my opinion, its a good play, made better by a great cast and impressive staging and visuals. 

Funnily enough, I saw Woman in Black for the first time a month before. I think Woman in Black is the better written material and goes for the jump scares more. With this, it goes for shock value and the visual horror but its not so much jump scares bar a few cleverly placed moments.

I'd go back to both!

I sat central 2nd row. I would sit a few rows back, but for a cheaper price, the front ain't bad. In the attic set up, which is at the top of the stage (the whole design is the house), you can't see the legs of the performers, and there is a scene up there where something happens on the floor which is kinda pivatol to the plot. You know whats going on though, but if you care to see it, its an issue. Another sightline issue is there is a very short scene with Adam in a boxing cage, but again, no dialogue, you know what he is doing. But the cage is high so even from further back, you'd only see his chest upward, from the front you see his neck upward. Other than that, a couple of stagehands are able to be seen once or twice at the end of the corridor, and I noticed someone in a different place I won't say where or when. But bar that, I'd say go for it. It really doesn't effective your enjoyment of the piece. At least for me, it didn't!

EDIT: If you are going to sit near the front, book for the right hand side of the theatre, so the lower numbers or the centre. As I have known a couple of people who have gone and said that sitting on the other side a certain, iconic moment was blocked by one of the actors.

I booked row A for £15 when they first went on sale and presumed that was the front row, as AA was not available. It now looks like AA are being sold as day seats? Is that right?

I was there last night too and wasn't quite so impressed. I was in the middle of row A so I might have been exposed to the flaws a bit more than the rest of the audience, but some of the things that bugged me:

The backstage guys were making so much noise during the scene changes - there could be a tense conversation happening on one side of the stage, but I was completely distracted by the banging and clanking coming from the other side of the stage. They had also tried really hard to be able to do all the scene changes in the dark or behind a screen, but then at one point towards the end 2 guys just walk on with a bench and plonk it on the stage - not sure if this was intentional?

Ian McKellen overall I thought was great, but some of it was SO camp I was really giggling when at parts that were supposed to be scary

One of the iconic scenes in the bed was fairly well done, but I had to laugh when her wig was suddenly 3 times as big as it was previously just for a couple of scenes, then went back to normal size again

Im not sure I would have said the theatre was packed to the rafters - in my row there were at least 5 empty seats, and row AA had some empty too.

I know it's still technically in previews so still time to smooth things out, but some of the effects/magic were just a little too obvious for my liking:



None of the 'illusions' were really as jaw dropping as I would have hoped.

There was also one character at the curtain call that I think I only saw for a few seconds standing at the top of the stairs? Who was she supposed to be?

I'm glad I only paid £15 and thought it was OK for that price - I would have been very disappointed if I'd paid more.

The only thing I could see was a slightly damp wall after it had actually happened - one of the priests was standing in the way (considering I was right in the middle of the stalls I would have thought I would have been able to see the iconic scenes)

I guess I was expecting a bit more from it rather than just a quick squirt onto a wall - I wanted to see the priests get drenched! 

Good to hear the good reviews - I'm off tomorrow night.

In case you're interested, I spoke to Adam Garcia and Jenny Seagrove, as well as the visual effects guy this week, he was hauntingly in character even when being interviewed! Very cool guy though, every bit the magician who works on shows like this and said the gig is a 'dream':

metro.co.uk/2017/10/27/the-exorcist-phoenix-theatre-star-prepares-for-horrifying-role-by-sitting-in-dark-room-for-hours-every-day-7032165/