Rechabites Hall audience rake

The sole purpose of any play is to seen and heard. There is no other reason to go to the theatre.

 

The Rechabites Hall seating is a disaster! Last Saturday I arrived half an hour before the show to ensure a decent seat, as the seating was not reserved. When our group of 6 got in, we found the place fairly full and a dozen prime seats in the centre marked ‘reserved’, for what appeared later to be general public. As a consequence we were at the back behind the walkway 4 or 5 rows from the back.

 

I have learnt from bitter experience, that if you sit in the row of seats on the walkway, anything on the stage that isn’t on a plinth at the rear of the stage simply cannot be seen. This is no exaggeration, I mean nothing! We went to the next row back and still had trouble with seeing any performer who was closer than 3 metres from the front row of the audience. Even the audience in the main front block of 8 rows regularly leaned forward to see the front of stage performances; this totally killed the rear audience’s view of everything.

 

The whirr of the ‘air conditioning’ at the back – a rotating fan – made it difficult for the 15 punters (five in each of three rows) in that area to hear the actors clearly.

 

The superb actors and this wonderful presentation deserved better than this.

 

I know that the place is being improved, and that a lot of money has been spent on the seating already, but now is the time to bite the bullet and say ‘the seating is wrong’ and correct it, otherwise two rows of people for EVERY SHOW, FOR EVER are going create hell to the management or quietly refuse to go back to the venue.

 

If the budget is tight then forget the décor and rebuild the seating so that everyone can see the performance in comfort. The audience’s view of the players comes first.

 

A suggestion: if the walkway seats were moved forward to the front of the aisle and the rear rows raised a further 60 cms, this would probably overcome the problem.