There are still tickets to be had for ‘Network’ at the National Theatre, the phenomenal new play starring Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston.
On Monday, reviews dropped for London’s theatrical adaptation of ’70s film ‘Network’, and they’ve been very good indeed. Cranston’s performance as news-anchor-on-the-edge Howard Beale has been hailed as ‘stupendous… entirely thrilling’, ‘magnetic yet weighty… mighty‘, ‘searing‘, ‘majestic‘, ‘immense‘ and the rest. [All photos: Jan Versweyveld]
The dramatic set-up from director Ivo van Hove creates a real-life TV studio on stage, with roving cameramen blowing up the action onto giant screens, which is dizzying, electrifying, distracting or ‘a mess’ depending on who you ask.
As you might have guessed, tickets to this billboard theatrical event – which is running until March 10, 2018 – have completely sold out by conventional means. But there’s still a way to buy tickets for this show, if you know how…
How to get ‘Network’ tickets in London
The first thing to know is that, after tonight (Nov 16), Network will actually be taking a month’s hiatus, then returning for three nights on December 18, 19 and 20. In the New Year, there are consistent performances in January (28 shows) and February (17 shows) with nine final shows in March. Confusing, yes, but look at it as your chance to plan ahead while less-organised types have forgotten all about getting tickets.
If you prefer virtual queues to real ones – and who doesn’t? – here’s a date for your diary: 1pm on Friday, December 15. That’s the first day the National Theatre will be making Network tickets available in their online ‘Friday Rush’, a weekly sale of a precious few £20 tickets for the following week’s performances. Join the queue here shortly beforehand.
If that didn’t work, you’ll need to visit the theatre in person. On show days, a handful of extra tickets go on sale at the theatre box office each morning at 9.30am. However, the queue does begin to form beforehand. so you might want to get along even earlier. The good news about these tickets is they’re quite cheap (£18 or less), although they are not necessarily the best seats in the house. You might be able to buy standing tickets for £5, too.
In the evenings, you can try to queue up 90 minutes before each performance (that’s 6pm for a 7.30pm start) in case any tickets have been returned and are available for re-sale. These are sold at face value.
Finally, you could just declare you’re ‘mad as hell and not going to take it anymore’, and see how far that gets you. (Probably ‘banned from the National Theatre.’)