Duchess Theatre — Attraction in London

The theatre is lovely and I really enjoyed watching a show there in the past. Unfortunately, I had a very poor experience when returning. I came to the box office to ask about how to queue up for the "returns". The man at the box office said that I need to come back later and stand in the regular queue with regular ticket holders, then at the end to tell the person I don't have a ticket, at which point they will let me stand in the returns queue. I asked about it several times to make sure. Then I went away and back and queued up with everyone else for several minutes. When I reached the end of the queue the person checking me said "oh, no, you should be in that other queue, on the other side". I went there but at this point I was sixth instead of first. This was ridiculous. Some of the other people joining that queue told me they were told the same as I was while the others weren't.

I was less upset at not getting a ticket as being told wrong information by a box office person even though I explicitly asked how it works. Later on, the person standing outside suggested that it's unlikely I was told that. They also insisted they weren't saying I'm making it up or something but also that they had no idea and their job is just to say that no more tickets remain.

To add to the frustration, when two tickets became available they skipped a person in the queue and let a couple come in before. While they were a nice couple, that means the person ahead of them in the queue didn't get a chance to go even though the first available tickets should have included him.

I think that had I not seen the show recently it would be really more upsetting but even as it is, this is a poor way to manage the...

The play was great but sadly our experience was spoiled by poor customer service. My 11 year old grandson arrived in good time for the performance and were about to join the queue when he declared that he needed the toilet. Okay, there'll be one in the theatre and for a family friendly show I'm sure that we will not be the first people in this situation. We went inside where there was a security guy wandering around and two lads in the box office. "We're early, and a know that you're not open yet but the lad needs the toilet, can we use it please." No. The front of house team won't be on duty for another 20 minutes. " But he only needs the toilet...surely" No it's health and safety. "Really? Are the toilets deep into the building?" "Yes." (That's nat actually true, they are just down a short flight of stairs from the box office at the back of the stalls) "And it's part of our licencing conditions."

Really? Three different excuses for one request. Sounds more like he should have said, "the three of us have dead easy jobs and are currently doing nothing at all but can't be bothered to get up and help the lad by showing you down there.

Seeing as I'm here I will also mention that I only remember seeing one front of house staff member from an ethnic minority. This was a bit weird in a city which is nearly 50% from minority backgrounds and where everywhere else we were welcomed by a...

Fast food, fast fashion, fast theatre? This is definitely fast theatre.

“The Play That Goes Wrong” wasn't for me and in my opinion wasn't worth the £20-30 ticket fee. Humour is subjective, yes, but beyond the clever set design it's a bunch of people cavorting, shouting, and screeching for two hours. Who would enjoy that? Maybe it would suit bringing children still developing their tastes and faculties of humour? This is for a child audience or adults with kiddish humour.

As a comedy of errors this felt underdeveloped and pales in comparison to the likes of Atkinson's indirectly witty and charming Mr. Bean. The progressively unhinged aspects do echo Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but there isn't enough substance or a moral to the story to justify the excessive use of outright silliness which is forcibly pile-driven into the audience in every other line for two hours.

Why not make it a mostly serious story with occasional things going wrong? Instead things went wrong all the time with occasional story.

If I'd paid £5 for it I'd feel better about seeing it for the cheap gags after some drinks, you'd really have to stupefy yourself with alcohol or drugs to get much out of this. Not one I'd recommend to anyone - unless I expressly knew that person had this type of humour. This was on Broadway and I can see it being far more suited to an American audience than a...