Full price should mean a fully finished performance

Shouldn't theatre audiences get a discount when they see a 'work in progress'?

I have an idea for a new television series. It is called "I'm a Critic, Get Me into Here." The idea struck me after I inquired about reviewing Rhona Cameron's stand-up comedy show at the Soho Theatre in London this week. Rhona, you might remember, was the feisty comedian on the hit TV show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. The plucky lass pulled no punches in telling her fellow contestants what she thought of them. Indeed, her speech laying into them was selected as one of the great television moments of the year. Don't mess with Rhona if you know what's good for you.

But it seemed to be a different Rhona who took to the stage this week. This was a shy, retiring Rhona, a Rhona who did not wish her show to be reviewed because it was, according to the theatre's spokesman, "work in progress".

Well, as readers of this column know by now, I'm a bit of a bore about theatre ticket prices, so I asked if tickets for this work in progress were cheaper than the usual prices at the theatre, the show not being a fully formed one. Curiously, I was told that they were not. I also wondered why official listings for the show did not make it clear that this was "work in progress". Also puzzling was the official press release for the show which did say that Rhona was "trying out new material" but then went on to offer the invitation: "Come and join her."

What would Tony Blackburn, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson et al make of these apparent contradictions, and of Rhona's sudden, uncharacteristic shyness? The promoters of Rhona's show explained to me that comedy is an unusual animal and an artist has to try material out on an audience to see whether it works. In this sense it is akin to previews of a stage play.

I almost buy that, but not quite. What is needed for both comedy and conventional theatre are some ground rules for the benefit of the consumer. At the moment, previews are a vexed area, with most audiences not knowing quite what to expect, and rightly puzzled as to why some venues reduce prices for previews and others, particularly in the West End of London, do not.

Previews in theatres and "work-outs" in comedy must be clearly labelled as such on the tickets and on the theatre's advertising, and reduced prices must be charged. If those rules are not honoured, then the public has the right to expect a full-price performance, and critics have a right to review the show.

I might add too that it's odd that comedy and theatre claim the necessity of previews to see how the shows work with an audience so that they can make changes where necessary before the first night, yet opera, for all its theatricality, has no previews. I might, of course, be completely wrong about all of this. If I am, please accept that this is not a proper column; it is merely a column in progress.

* The Lister Experiment, which advocates bringing in a new audience to theatre by charging cinema prices for selected performances, continues. Paul Roberts, the producer of the Madness musical Our House, is offering Independent readers best seats for the show at £11.50, the price of a West End cinema ticket, for performances on the next two Monday nights. Ring the box office (0870 840 2468) and mention the Lister Experiment to get your tickets. I was pleased to see that Our House won best new musical in the Laurence Olivier Awards yesterday. Another early supporter of the Lister Experiment, the RSC's season of rarely performed Jacobean plays, won the Olivier special award for the season, its director Greg Doran and producers Thelma Holt and Bill Kenwright.

* Nicholas Hytner, the new head of the National Theatre, was quoted in The Observer last weekend as saying that a campaign to bring all theatre ticket prices down to cinema levels could never work. The estimable Mr Hytner, whose stewardship of the National promises to be a highly exciting one, is, of course, right. Such a campaign would be madness and, if successful, put every theatre producer out of business.

But I have never urged such a campaign. From the beginning of this campaign I have said theatre tickets should be priced at cinema levels once a week, preferably on Mondays when most theatres are half empty. Neither have I ever claimed, as the same article alleged, that producers are making a mint out of high prices. On the contrary, I have urged them to make more money in the long term by lowering their prices once a week, thus attracting a new audience who will in the longer term become regular theatregoers.

Paul Roberts tells me that his research among people who came to his musical We Will Rock You on £11.50 tickets under the Lister Experiment found that many of them said they had never been to the theatre before. The cinema-priced tickets on Monday nights had brought in a new audience. So there is method in the madness, especially on Mondays.

d.lister@independent.co.uk