The Secret Garden - Regents Park OAT

Left at interval as did a conspicuous amount of people. It was the first preview so perhaps it can radically improve but oh boy. I really liked the idea of retelling the story from a postcolonial perspective but that's where my respect abruptly stopped.

Sub-am-dram acting from the two lead adults pretending to be the kids. Much better acting from the supporting players. The surrounding venue did way more for my imagination than anything I saw on stage. And I just felt sorry for every child in the audience. Two polite stars.

Worse They need to hire children to play the children. Cut it down a bit. Jazz up the staging. Show, don't narrate everything. I went with two Americans who felt similarly but I'm intrigued to see how other people respond to it. And would love to hear things have improved.

I’m afraid I agree this isn’t as good as I was hoping it was going to be. It was an enjoyable enough evening but with quite a few flaws.

The style of the play is similar to that of A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic, or even the Curious Case of Benjamin Button with the cast narrating the entire thing, but not done in anywhere near as exciting a way as those other shows. For a fair chunk of this I felt like I was watching a group of people reading for an audiobook.

The performances were very hit and miss, and some of it did feel quite amateur. I also agree that this would have been better with child actors.

Some of the set and props felt very cheap, and I was really waiting for a ‘wow’ moment in the garden and it never really came. Without spoiling anything, I’m really not sure they’ve considered what they’re going to do if it rains, the ‘garden’ will dissolve into a pile of mush. They really could have done so much more, and it made it feel even more disappointing next to the beautiful surrounding landscape of the trees by the stage.

It wasn’t all bad however and my party did all enjoy it overall. Some of the performances were great and the lighting was gorgeous when it got dark.

It seems crazy that this feels like it is aimed at children but starts so late. We didn’t get out until 22:25 tonight.

I’d give it 3 stars (though I think I’m probably being lenient due to how much I paid for my ticket, if I’d paid full price I might be less generous)

The Open Air Theatre is a great one of a kind theatre.

That is the issue with the Open Air Theatre and assume this is aimed at children.

I don’t know why they persist with the 7:45 starts, as pointed out this comes down at 10:30, so most people won’t get home until midnight. It is also an awkward venue to get to, so to get home for a lot of people is a walk to the tube, then a 2 seat ride home.

On weekday performances they should do 7pm performances.

It's a hard juggling act, because they want the Summer atmosphere, to sell a lot of food and drink - but I'm always aware I have at least a 90m trip home!

The only way I could justify an evening trip to Fiddler on the Roof was on a night when I had to stay up anyway! It is tricky though as I'd much prefer any evening performance to afternoon at the Open Air for the atmosphere etc...

Some good reviews for this, but it's not selling very well.

Tbh, the cheap seats high up are possibly a much nicer place to watch from, on a sunny day.
The actors are very audible and everything is visually very clear and understandable.
To be level with the tree tops as the sun is setting on a sunny day, with a drink and a nice play.
I can’t imagine anything better.