Fairies and Peers Make A Night Of It
By Jim Symcox on May 12, 2008 in Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Iolanthe, Manchester, Manchester University, Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music fairly shook with the loud cheers and applause as we finished our final performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe on Saturday night.
We’d struggled to sell tickets again this year. And that’s despite a pretty high standard, semi-pro orchestra, great RNCM bar and a fun time for all!
The RNCM theatre is excellent, although as none of us have operatic voices the sound can drop slightly for the audience if we get too far back on the stage.
The cast had a fantastic time which is part of being in this sort of show. However, we also had some great audiences who appreciated the show and who in turn we appreciated.
Some years, in fact quite some years, ago we actually use to sell out quite a few of the nights. Then for some reason we started not selling out completely. So we dropped our first night (Monday) as we had very few people coming to the show compared to the other nights. Then we dropped our first night again (Tuesday), presumably for the same reason. I’m not convinced that was a good idea as we’re paying for the theatre anyway so we really ought to try and sell tickets.
Having been publicity manager for the society on one occasion I know it can be difficult to get coverage. As the Manchester Evening News said there are plenty of professional productions that they review, trying to review the am-dram shows would be impossible. Similarly a different local newspaper was totally unimpressed with the fact that some of their local students were in the show.
I talked to an expert on PR (Rob Baker) after he’d seen one of the shows during the week. He told me he couldn’t believe how professional it was. He also was of the opinion that we should be able to get publicity. He suggested one or two strategies which we’ve applied in the past with results and I’m baffled as to why we didn’t continue with them.
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