Whilst I’m an avid Silver Travel contributor, I wouldn’t normally review a trip to the theatre as once the show has finished, in our case Guys and Dolls, the review is out of date.
However, rather than the show, I want to mention the actual theatre: the Phoenix on London’s Charing Cross Road.
My friend Ann and I have a routine for our matinee trips: meet 30 minutes before the show starts, have a drink in the bar, another at the interval and then head for nibbles afterwards.
Unusually for a matinee, the Noel Coward bar was busy when we arrived. Having checked the difference between a glass of champagne (£12.50) and prosecco (£7.50), we plumped for the latter. We were told that if we paid £2.50 extra, we could use the exclusive and private “Ambassador Lounge”:http://www.atgtickets.com/theatre-packages/ambassadorlounge/. It seemed a no brainer and we were quickly being escorted a couple of floors down into a surprisingly small room accommodating just 12 people with the chairs arranged in twos (with a table) down each side.
For our £10 we got a guaranteed seat, glass of prosecco, crisps and nuts and ordered our interval drinks (which came with yet more crisps and nuts). The seats were ours during the interval, which meant we didn’t have our usual dilemma – should we dash to the loo before the queue builds up or grab a seat in the bar.
We were able to leave our coats and bags in the lounge during the first act which were then transferred to the cloakroom where we collected them at the end of the show.
We could have also been personally escorted to our seat but we felt a bit too young for this!
PS: just in case you’re interested, the show was good but not as good as a previous version we’d seen in 2005 with Ewan McGregor.
