So, where is the ‘social’ in today’s theatre?
I guess no-one will argue that cabaret and revue style shows have seen a fantastic resurgence of life in the public consciousness over the last 10 years. There, audiences can sit around a table with their friends and a drink (or two!), sharing the experience together, instead of facing ‘the show’ in blinkered rows. I recently saw the fabulous La Clique at the London Hippodrome, and we were treated to moments of real conversation with the performers during their acts – we were there, they were there: we were all having a laugh, right? But the acts aren’t story telling, and the sketches of shows like the Canal Café’s ‘news-revue’ don’t have the dramatic and emotional power of the classics, so you don’t get the opportunity to be drawn in, to want to know what happens next. So traditional pantomime is probably the closest thing we have to an original Shakespearean experience these days (…and there is a topic worthy of much more discussion than I can afford it here…). There is a story. Ther
