Many years ago, I did a masters degree in text and performance studies, and then trained as a lecturer in acting. When I was a student I went to the theatre about once a week. Even after we moved away from London and my career went on hold, R and I still went to see as many plays as we could. Then as my ME worsened, I developed sensitivity to noise and to chemicals, and it became impossible for me to go to the theatre and increasingly obvious that I would never be well enough to work as a lecturer.
Although I now have plenty of other interests, I do miss live theatre, so I thought the very least I could do as part of my 50 Things would be to buy some of the plays I would have seen if I'd been well enough. There were two small problems: firstly, I gave up my subscription to The Stage some years ago and I haven't really kept up to date with which plays have been on where since then. Secondly, a lot of the productions I know I would have seen - new versions of Shakespeare or Ibsen, for instance - were of plays I already have.
In the end I bought Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, as that was one of the big theatrical events of the last few years, and I'm sure I'd have gone to see it if I'd still been living in London. No spoilers please, as I haven't had the chance to read it yet!
Like most people who've been involved with the theatre in one way or another, I love plays about the process of putting on plays. I really enjoyed watching Mischief Theatre's Peter Pan Goes Wrong on TV at Christmas, so I bought one of their others, The Play That Goes Wrong, which has been described as a cross between Noises Off and Fawlty Towers.
Finally, I thought I'd buy something by Tom Stoppard, as I used to see all of his plays when I was well enough to go to the theatre regularly. As I had no idea which of his plays had been on over the last few years, I looked at the ones we didn't already have and picked Night And Day from these at random.
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