It is World Theatre Day, and while it has been a horrible year with theatres closed, for the most part, I want to celebrate and look forward to when we can enjoy live performance again.

So here are 47 things I love about going to the theatre:

1. The familiarity of the walk up to a theatre I've visited many times before.

2. Patiently listening to the front of house staff telling me where the loos are and the directions for my seat even though I'm a regular and know the theatre layout like my own flat.

3. The sound of the 2-minute warning bell.

4. The fact that it isn't really 2 minutes, and it's just to chivvy people along.

5. The buzz of the auditorium before the lights go down.

6. The way the chatter quickly dies down when they do.

7. The £10 Monday crowd.

8. Getting a fantastic day seat deal for something you really want to see.

9. Getting front-row seats.

10. The difference between the weekday audience and the weekend audience.

Donmar Warehouse Blindness 2020

11. Not wanting to stare when the actors are already on stage but feeling it's rude to ignore them.

12. Seeing the set for the first time (if there is a curtain).

13. Entering the auditorium and not knowing where the stage will be because it's a flexible performance space.

14. Missing the first few lines because you are still busy taking it all in.

15. Getting completely lost in the performance, you gasp or cry.

16. Watching something that makes you feel angry.

17. Watching something that makes you grin or laugh.

18. Enjoying the reaction of those sitting around you.

19. The excitement of seeing a new play by a favourite playwright.

If there was one play/production you could revive to watch when theatres reopen (hopefully) in May, what would you choose?

Would you go for something tragic or uplifting? Maybe a comedy because a laugh would be good?

This week my inbox has been busy with announcements about the first swathe of productions opening, and it got me thinking about what I want that first post lockdown theatre experience to be.

And given how tough it's been, combined with what will undoubtedly feel like quite joyful new freedom, I don't want to see something too depressing or tragic. 

Not off the bat anyway.

I'd like to revisit something that had me walking out of the theatre with a spring in my step.

Something like Out There On Fried Meat Ridge Rd, which I saw at the White Bear Theatre and Trafalgar Studios on its transfer.

Or The Dirty Great Love Story from the Arts Theatre, which was a guffaw-inducing modern love story.

Alternatively, I'd like to watch something that is just downright silly, like Bears in Space which was at the Soho Theatre and starred none other than King Joffrey actor Jack Gleeson.

There were few people outside my theatre friends who could understand my excitement at having spent 6 hours watching Shakespeare performed in Dutch. But it was brilliant, and it was at the Barbican theatre. 

Barbican Theatre lockdown March 2021

The Barbican is one of only a few big theatres in London I actually like. The auditorium is not only spacious - no cramped seating and having to stand up every time someone wants to get to their seat - but it also has great sightlines.

Its size means it can have big productions, epic in fact hence the 6 hours of Shakespeare.

That was Ivo Van Hove's Roman Tragedies where he cut and shut Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, so you got to see how all those stories interrelate.

It was the follow up to Kings of War which had been a mere 4.5 hours and took a similar approach to Henry V, Henry VI and Richard III (with a smidge of Henry IV part 2 at the very beginning). In hindsight, Kings of War was just a warm-up act - but a bloody good one.

These productions could legitimately be called 'event' theatre. They were more than long plays, they were a new play watching experience. 

Ivo Van Hove broke the taboos of theatre. You were allowed to Tweet and take photos during the performance (except during particular scenes). The audience was invited up onto the stage at certain points to sit among the actors and see the drama unfolding close up.

He used cameras - handheld in some instances to get close to the actors and take the audience into otherwise hidden corners of the set and stage.

And alongside that, you get Van Hove's naturalist directing style and contemporary setting which brings a new dimension to Shakespeare.

In fact, when I rummage through my archive, the Barbican has become the stage for epic Shakespeare.

It's become the London home for the RSC, and it was where I got the opportunity to watch the King and Country Cycle: Four plays in two days - Richard II, Henry IV part 1 and part 2 and Henry V.

Seeing them like that, you got to appreciate the little treatments that carried through all the plays and the 'full story' of Henry V from the landscape he was born into to his most famous victory.

Another epic production, but more so because of its star lead, was Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet. Memorable for the ticket scramble and (smugly) managing to get tickets to see it more than once.

Sometimes plays just have one actor. They might be playing one character, they might be playing many, but they don't have any other actors to play off. It is just them and their performance.

There are no distractions, it's just you and them.

Do you have a favourite solo performance?

The moment I started thinking about this, I realised it was going to be really tricky to choose a favourite as I've seen some superb solo performances over the years.

So here are a couple of notable mentions... and my overall winner:

Carey Mulligan in Girls and Boys, Royal Court Theatre

A tour de force performance from Carey Mulligan in which she manages to paint a picture of domesticity filling the stage with a family that is only their in our imagination while subtly hinting at something different. It's a play that surprised and a lot of that was down to the delivery.

Cillian Murphy, Misterman, National Theatre

Not only was it a solo performance, it was a solo performance on the Lyttelton stage which is one of the biggest in London. And Cillian Murphy made use of the entire space. It was a superb performance that mixed humour and fun with something darker and sinister, and I still remember it vividly.

London has an abundance of pub theatres, and the Old Red Lion in Islington is one of my favourites. The space is tiny—pew-like seating on two sides of the tea-tray sized stage.

If you sit on the front row, you are in constant fear of tripping an actor because they are so close.

And that is part of the appeal, there is no separation between audience and actors; the drama is happening right there in your face.

One of the stand out plays/productions for me was Mercury Fur in 2012. I'm a huge fan of Philip Ridley's plays and had heard a lot about Mercury Fur but hasn't seen a production of Mercury Fur.

Coincidentally, an early-career Ben Whishaw starred in the very first production back in 2005. Not that I'm trying to weave Ben Whishaw into all my lockdown theatre walk posts. Well, I wasn't, but I may challenge myself now.

Anyway, back to the Old Red Lion. Watching a Philip Ridley play like Mercury Fur in such a small, intimate space means there is no escaping the horror and repugnance. Sitting in this small darkened room, the separation from the comfort of the real world yawns.