please empty your brain below
In fact I do not know most "stars" names and always go by the story and content if choosing a theatre or cinema event.
Lucky to get tickets at all, you git.
On the 'celebrity' specials I have no idea who they are, it is physically impossible to keep up with it all anyway, then you add literature/art/sport/music on top, you can now have 'alternative' fame (and potentially pay your bills) on YouTube.
Not only that but you have all the stuff that has already been created, and is now freely available, I'm unsure if you could get the widespread recognition that existing stars have now.
There was an episode of pointless that included a photo of Mo Farah doing the Mobot thing after 2012, less that half the respondents recognised him - how many of the gold medalists from Rio can you name now without looking it up?
http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/ntlout19-no-man-s-land
'Still anon' mentions people not recognizing Mo Farrow. I think there is a difference between sports "stars" and actors on stage and film.
A sports "star" or an individual act like Jack Benny or Tommy Cooper is a unique quality that that individual has and presents as themselfs.
Actors in a film or play are doing what they have been trained for and playing a character role. Any suitably trained person passing from a good drama school can do this.
So I may know the name of a character in a play, but not know the name of the "star" playing that part.
Like several commenters above, I'm not really bothered about seeing celebrities, and often I leave the theatre thinking that it couldn't possibly have been any better with the usual lead actor.
Mark: A fantastic blog post and very true. I remember that same feeling when I saw Speed the Plow and both Lohan and Schiff were absent, and that is no disrespect to the understudies who did a fantastic job, but it pretty much sums up the mood of the audience.
Jan: Thought that blog was arrogant and total rubbish in the "everyone is an idiot except me" mode, just projecting his own prejudices onto a group of total strangers he knows nothing at all about.
Martin: Just read the blog, sounds like a mentalist!
Jan: It is quite badly written in an adolescent kind of way. Many points are laughably wrong-headed - he thought the audience was likely to be full of young fantasy fans, at £150 a go. Actually all he has done is project his own opinions on to an audience he knows nothing about.
Kevin: I don't think it's unfair to say they've sold a lot of tickets to people who aren't interested in theatre, but would like to see the Wizard and the Professor working together in person. The percentage of people who bought tickets purely to see the play - and remain indifferent to the casting - I assume is marginal at best. The actors are the draw, not the play.
And of course they will say that they immediately recognised a future star, commenting on his new interpretation and fresh insights, much more exciting than when the play was performed by that "much loved knight of the realm, etc, etc".
I go to the theatre quite often, and I'm not ashamed to admit that often I'm drawn to a production because of the casting. Not always, but often. There's so much on in London that it seems a reasonable way to make a choice of what to see - one way amongst many, of course.
There is a little niggle in my head telling me that I've seen an understudy for a major role once - but I cannot recall what it was for the life of me, which probably goes to show I had a fine time nevertheless. I would definitely have been disappointed to go to see the play you're talking about though and have one of the two major actors missing (and indeed, one of the supporting guys is someone I'm interested to see too).
As someone with an alarming tendency to book for things with minimal idea of what to expect, though, my more pressing worry tends to be about whether I'll enjoy it or not - but apparently I'm really easily pleased, as I've only not returned post-interval a couple of times. At last night's show people were leaving mid-act, which I always think is a bit over the top - wait till the break, surely? - unless your babysitter's just texted to say the kids are dead. Though given the average age at the National on a Saturday night, I doubt that was the reason. I imagine they were annoyed by Mozart. He's meant to be annoying...
Because if there's one thing I know about you, it's that you'll have written it almost as a "why do we (humans) feel this way, aren't we stupid" more than a "I'm so clever" piece.
This, on the other hand... It's not Pinter's best. It probably wouldn't make the West End without at least one star name to it. And it's not two random stars - they're good friends and everyone knows it. They want to watch the two off them riff off of each other, and the content of the play be damned.
I guess if both IM and PS are ill though, the play gets cancelled. Fingers crossed they both make it through to 17th December!
Occasionally some theatres host understudy performances to an audience. These can be a good way to get to see a show without paying the normal ticket prices if you're not concerned about the names (but finding out about them and getting tickets isn't often easy).
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