You want the best seats for your money, right? But what are the pros and cons of seat review sites?

There are two main sites that cover London theatre: SeatPlan.com and TheatreMonkey.com.

SeatPlan

What is it?

The site invites punters to upload reviews of seats and also pictures of the view*.

The seating plan is then colour coded according to how well or otherwise seats have been reviewed.

You can also buy tickets through the site and they invite reviews from the audience for current productions including a rating out of 5.

Coverage

The site covers the main West End Theatres and it looks like between 50-80% of seats in each theatre has been reviewed.

Pros

The site is well laid out and the seating plans are clear and easy to understand. You can see at a glance where the best-reviewed seats are and reviewers rate on comfort, view and legroom.

Cons

Many of the seats have only one review so you are only getting one opinion rather than an aggregated score.

While breaking up the review into three key areas is definitely a plus, there is no way to allow for things such as personal preference, the height of the reviewer or staging for particular productions.

For example, the cheap seats at the front of the Lyttelton get you close to the stage but the seat rows aren't offset so if you are short or medium height and have a tall person sat in the seat in front, you will be peering around someone's head. 

There are also very similar seats next to each other that are given very different ratings for no other reason than one person found the discomfort more bearable than another. 

While the main West End theatres are covered there are some notable exceptions such as the Donmar Warehouse and Trafalgar Studios.

The plans also don't allow for changes in staging. While most of the main theatres keep the same seating, not all do. For example, Quiz at the Noel Coward has on stage seating which isn't covered.

Conclusion

Clear and easy to use but check out several different seats in the same row/same area of the theatre to get a general feel and perhaps check with the official theatre websites to see if there have been any changes to the seating plans to accommodate particular staging.

Once you tune your ear to the style of the narrative and the pace of delivery Mood Music rocks.

There have been many disputes between musicians over the years - Rolling Stone has a top 12 - and former music journalists Joe Penhall takes this as the theme for his new play Mood Music at the Old Vic.

It is a play in which the dialogue is presented as simultaneous conversations and it takes a little getting used to but once you do is extremely effective.

The dispute that forms the central narrative is between a music producer and artist but the story is presented from each protagonists viewpoint via conversations with lawyers and therapists.

Bernard (Ben Chaplin) is the successful (and doesn't he know it) producer talking to his therapist Ramsay (Pip Carter) and lawyer Seymour (Neil Stuke).

Up and coming singer/songwriter Cat (Séana Kerslake) has her own therapist Vanessa (Jemma Redgrave) and lawyer (Kurt Egyiawan).

The two worked on an album together and then took it on tour but neither think they are getting the appropriate recognition for their work.

Rapid pace

Director Roger Mitchell often positions the actors so that they have to talk across the opposing pair - something that metaphorically reflects their relationship.  

The pace is rapid switching between recollections with barely a beat so that the stories unfold simultaneously - and you have work a little to get into the rhythm of it.

But what this style of dialogue does powerfully is show the two different perspectives on events, the different attitudes towards collaboration and the different personalities of Bernard and Cat.

Bernard is brazen, entitled, borderline sociopathic, Cat is bruised, the underdog but has her claws out.

The tension and drama just don't fully develop which is a real shame

A singing lesson is in progress. The singer, Ray (David Luque), isn’t the most talented and the stern teacher Emily (Jeryl Burgess) doesn’t want to take him on.

Emily is frosty and adamant but Ray gets her to empathise with his situation and she relents.

However, it quickly becomes obvious that Ray isn't being completely honest, that something deeper connects these two people and the truth will inevitably out.

Differing views

Early on Ray and Emily are looking at an old photo and have differing views on what it captured, what is behind the looks and expressions of the people pictured.

The individual lenses through which we see and interpret the world is a recurring theme but it also explores how we focus the lens and what we choose to see. 

What binds the two characters together is a tragedy and it becomes a story of the nature of love and loss and of prejudice.

The play itself feels peripheral in plot and depth of characters; there's a lot of it and a lot of them and as a result it lacks substance and tension.

Absolute Hell is a big play. It has a cast that when stood in a single line barely fits across the vast Lyttelton stage and in early previews its running time was 3 hours and 40 minutes including two 15 minute intervals.
The running time has been substantially cut to 3 hours partly helped by replacing the second 15-minute interval with a 5-minute pause.

And you know what I'm going to say: It could still be shorter.

That isn't a reflection of the cast, who are superb but the play itself which feels peripheral in plot and depth of characters; there's a lot of it and a lot of them but it lacks substance and tension.

It is set in a seedy private members club in Soho immediately after the second world war where regulars spend night after night drinking, flirting and bickering themselves into some sort of numbness. 

They are certainly a colourful bunch of characters - writers, servicemen, artists, journalists, filmmakers, heiresses - and headed by the glamorous, needy, alcoholic owner of the club Christine (Kate Fleetwood).

The war is over, a change of Government is on the horizon but their partying is more about escape and routine than anything joyful.

Little meaningful interaction

And this is the problem. You spend 3 hours with a bunch of people drinking, bitching and lying and occasionally making merry but there is little by way of meaningful interaction between them.

If the lack of meaningful interaction is the point, then it is a point firmly made.

There is much to wrap the grey matter around, it has a really clever structure that keeps you on your toes

Ella Hickson's new play The Writer is a powerful piece of meta-theatre, tackling gender bias in the arts head on but also opening up the debate about creativity vs commercialisation.

It has a structure which makes you work, like you are stood on sand that shifts slightly just as you think you've got a sure footing.

The play opens with a scene in which a young writer (Lara Rossi) ends up in conversation with a man (Samuel West) from the theatre where she's just seen a play.

She is very angry, challenging him on the play, its representation of women but also on how women are perceived and treated within the industry.

He is a mix of bemused and interested but stands his ground.

Powerful exchange

It is a powerful exchange but not quite what you think it is. The sands shift and we are at a Q&A about the scene we have just seen with the nervous writer (Romola Garai) and domineering director (Michael Gould) taking questions from the audience.

You get to see some of the issues raised in action which is tactic that is repeated.

There is another shift and another, plays within plays, circles, characters and roles overlapping, transforming, developing layers of irony and sharpening the debate.

The set is also a set within a set, sometimes creating a 'box' on which to focus on only for the walls to come down to reveal something else.

Showing rather the telling

Showing can be more powerful than telling when it comes gender politics and what The Writer does is show just how deep it goes, how ingrained, how subtle it can be. 

And then there is the debate about art, creativity and commercialisation.

Felicity Huxley-Miners talks about writing and acting in her new play In The Shadow of The Mountain, juggling the two roles and what her dream theatre production would be like (hint: it would have a big cast).

Actor/Writer Felicity Huxley-Miners

The new play (more details at the bottom) is a love story about two people with Borderline Personality Disorder inspired by her meeting a woman with BPD and the production is supported by MIND.

You’ve written the play and you are also performing in it alongside David Shears, did you always have yourself in mind when you were writing?

Yes, I knew I wanted to play Ellie when I was writing but I really had to shut off that part of my brain when I was creating the play as you can start to censor and shape it around yourself instead of being true to a character and their story.

Thinking ‘I don’t want to say that’ or worrying about your character being likeable can be quite limiting so I really had to shut off that side of my brain.

I’ve found being an actor does help me write, as both are all about getting into different people’s heads and working out what makes them tick.

Which do you prefer - writing or acting - and which do you find the most challenging?

Acting has always been the dream and what I’ve funnelled most of my energy into over the years.

I’ve only started writing in the last few years and have been lucky enough to be a part of the Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab this year. I’ve found writing incredibly cathartic.

Acting can be a very perilous career and a lot of time the control is taken out of the actor’s hands.

Being proactive and creating my own work has really kept me sane in the leaner times and means that I always have a creative outlet even if it's just me sitting in a café having vivid hallucinations about my own fantasy world.

Clever staging and some memorable moments but the play, like the robot at the centre of the story, lacks soul.

What if you could build your own robot child and programme it, a chance to correct past mistakes and produce the perfect off-spring?

This is the premise of Thomas Eccleshare’s new play Instructions for Correct Assembly at the Royal Court.

Parents Max (Jane Horrocks) and Harry (Mark Bonnar) are surrounded by friends with over-achieving sons and daughters unfortunately, as we discover, their own son Nick (Brian Vernel) wasn't quite as perfect.

The staging utilises two conveyor belts on which props, bits of set and actors slide into view.

At first, we see the action through a window-shaped space as if it is taking place inside its own box of parts; watching Max and Harry build their new 'son' Jån (also Brian Vernel) who comes complete with Ikea style instruction booklet.

Once Jån is ‘out of the box’ the window screen lifts and we see them tinkering with him, getting him ‘just right’ for the big unveil to their friends.

In an interview with What’s On Stage (see related content below) Thomas Eccleshare says the play is about perfection and what that looks like.

The perfection as presented in the play is a world of high-flying careers, a benign world of politeness but it is also soulless and colourless.

Max and Harry themselves are quite mechanical and surface, there are too few chinks in their polite and friendly armour.

Their friends are also nice and polite, full of humble-brags and it's all a bit Stepford wives (and husbands) except that there isn't even anything sinister about it.

Coconut bubbles with wit and laughs, it is illuminating, heart-warming and affecting.

Rumi (Kuran Dohil) is a bit tipsy when she meets Simon (Jimmy Carter). She's drowning her sorrows having had a disastrous night Halal Speed Dating, more of which we learn of later in the play.

Kuran Dohil in Coconut, Ovalhouse. Photo: Greg Goodale

Something clicks and the two start dating, the problem is that drinking and eating pork aside, Rumi comes from a Muslim family. Simon was raised Catholic.

Well, it is the germ of the problem.

This isn't a traditional tale of star-crossed lovers kept apart by external voices, by different cultural and religious backgrounds, any family resistance towards the match is in the background.

Simon decides to convert to Islam so that he can marry Rumi. It's just a short ceremony, repeating some vows Rumi assures Simon and then it's done with.

But it isn't done with and that is the primary source of tension as it forces the couple to question who they are, who they want to be and where they fit in.

Kuran Dohil's Rumi is funny, effervescent, relatable - one of those characters that are a delight to spend time with.

While there are some excellent individual scenes as a whole Reared just doesn't quite gel. I found myself wanting it to delve further.

There is a moment in Reared which reminded me of Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman when Aunt Maggie Far Away is having one of her lucid moments and telling the children stories.

Paddy Glynn and Danielle Phillips in Reared, Theatre503. Photo: The Other Richard

In John Fitzpatrick's new play, it's the same scenario; Nora (Paddy Glyn) is telling her granddaughter Caitlin (Danielle Phillips) an old family story about the Irish potato famine but on finishing it she slips back into a confusion of memories.

It's a touching moment in a play about mounting family tensions as Caitlin's mother, Eileen (Shelley Atkinson), tries to persuade her husband Stuart (Daniel Crossley) that there is more to his mother's memory loss than simple old age. 

There is additional family drama as 15-year-old Caitlin is pregnant and doesn't want her parents to know who the father is. Caitlin's hapless friend Colin (Rohan Nedd) is the source of much humour as he tries to be supportive.

These lighter moments work really well but there aren't enough to make Reared a full-blown comedy but then neither does the play properly explore either dementia or teenage pregnancy/underage sex and, as a result, it lacks punch.

There is a defined and painful tragedy in how a moment of lost control can have fundamental consequences but what haunted me most was that for some of the characters their school days were as good as it was ever going to get.

A piece of classical music is playing. It’s one of those evocative pieces that has mournful, tragic undertones, the sort that is used in war films.

A mirrorball rotates sending disco sparkles of light across a couple dancing slowly.

Mark Weinman, Louis Greatorex, Thomas Coombes and Madison Clare in Plastic, Old Red Lion Theatre. Photo: Mathew Foster

The music combined with the mirror ball perfectly set the scene for what is to come in Kenneth Emson’s new play Plastic.

Set in an Essex secondary school this is part reminiscence part flit back in time to a day when life was different.

Lisa (Madison Clare) - bright, sassy, popular - has decided that ‘tonight is the night’ with Kev (Mark Weinman), the former school football team captain who now has a car and a mundane job.

She wants the day to go as quickly as possible but the gossip machine is whirring.

Best friends Jack (Louis Greatorex) and Ben (Thomas Coombes) are the outsiders, the 'weirdos' who want to get through the day unnoticed, unmolested from verbal or physical abuse.

As the day crawls by, tension is mounting. Ben might be about to snap; he is a ball of broiling anger, frustration and resentment, sensitive to every perceived slight and constantly rising to the bait.

Looking to escape the stares, the gossip, the threats, the steaming brew of hormones and hierarchy Jack, Ben and Lisa bunk off, a decision that will change all their lives.