So I get off the bus turn the corner a mixture of dread and excitement and there is a huge lorry parked in front of the theatre, I can't see the queue.

Find myself almost jogging across Sloane Square and there it is, a few fold out chairs, a picnic blanket, a flask of tea - all the tell tale signs of hardened queuers but most importantly there are only eight people. I am ninth, if Poly fails online we will get tickets.

Now is the nice part, the queue camaraderie, getting to know fellow theatre hard core.
And in a first for day seats a member of staff at the Royal Court has just been out to say hello and reassure us we'll get tickets.

What would be the icing on the cake is if we saw the actors arriving for final rehearsals, tonight is the first performance after all.

UPDATE: Poly couldn't get tickets online, they went in a flash apparently but I did get us tickets. Royal Court staff were very attentive and efficient checking on who was taking one or two tickets so they could let the people at the end of the queue know if they were going to get any or not.

I asked one of the front of house staff if they'd seen any of the play and he said he had seen a rehearsal and it's 'beautiful'. One thing to note is they won't reprint the tickets if you manage to lose them so I'm leaving nothing to chance and have left them at the box office to pick up tonight. The play is 90 minutes straight through and it better be worth it after all this hoo-ha.

Poly has written about her expectations and nerves about seeing The River over on her blog.

Update, update, update 19/10/12

The running time of the play last night was about 1 hour 25 minutes although we were told three different times by different staff from 75 minutes to 90 minutes - it was the first preview.

I've also been asked on Twitter what time I turned up to queue for tickets. It was about 7.55am but this was the first performance before any word has spilled out about what the play is like and before any press reviews.

If you want to know what I thought of it, my review is here.