Thursday at the Opera

Thursday night, two of my friends and I made it our business to wander down to Leicester Square and see what kind of deals were being offered on West End shows. After a bit of wandering, we settled on The Phantom of the Opera, where an hour before the show we secured 45 pound tickets for 30 pounds! We sat in the first balcony, known as the Royal Circle; because of the way the balconies overlap each other, the level below them, we were remarkably close to the stage. The performance was wonderful, the way Phantom was meant to be seen. I saw a traveling production of the show last April when it was at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, which was good, but didn't do justice to the show I saw Thursday. The music filled the entire house and gave me goosebumps. It was definitely worth every pence. And as you can see from the photos below, I came home with a souvenir! The last picture is one I took of a map on my computer off the official London Theatre website (click photo to enlarge). It has every theatre in the West End marked on it; as long as I have my camera with me, I can find my way to whatever show I end up seeing.

On a side note, we did find the official half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square, but didn't avail ourselves of it this time because they didn't have any Phantom tickets that night. The bargain we found was at the theatre box office itself.