Barbican, Cinema 1

We went there and saw a shakspear play. The building itself is a very nice brutalist architecture and from the inside it is pretty spacious and comfortable. The theatre room that we visited was very pretty and i loved how the doors closed and that each row had its own entrance. They had a nice souvenir shop with a photoautomat. Great experience.

First time visiting the Barbican, and I must say I was very impressed by its striking Brutalist architecture. In particular, the descent down to the stalls creates an interesting visual perspective, with the illuminated arches leading to each individual row adding a distinctive architectural touch. The seats themselves were comfortable, although they did not automatically fold up when standing, which made it more difficult for people to pass along the row during the performance. As for High Society, it was generally an enjoyable production. Unfortunately, around ten minutes in, the actor playing George appeared to forget his lines, resulting in the scene having to be restarted. Thankfully, it resumed from the beginning of that scene rather than from the start of the show, and the cast recovered well. I also felt that the understudy performing Dexter’s songs was occasionally slightly off-key, although this did not significantly detract from the overall experience. There were also some issues during the interval. The queues became quite congested and made it difficult to see what refreshments were available, suggesting that the organisation of the bar and service areas could have been improved. The facilities were less impressive. The toilets had an unpleasant smell, and there were particularly long queues for the women’s toilets, which added to the congestion during the interval. Exiting the venue proved somewhat challenging. The stairways created bottlenecks, particularly as some older audience members understandably needed to take the stairs slowly, causing delays in leaving the auditorium. Overall, despite a few operational issues, some challenges with the facilities, and a couple of performance mishaps, I enjoyed both the production and the experience of visiting the Barbican. The venue’s unique architecture alone makes it worth a visit, and High Society remains an entertaining musical.