Make a bit of a mistake- can we do both?

I think you could make it work of you can walk fast (you could probably do the walk in 15-20 mins if you hurry). Obviously the major downside is if you are just a few minutes late you'll have to wait until they let you in.

The tour is 90 minutes. Goggle says it takes 25 minutes to walk there. You have to get out of the parliament building to the street. Let’s say 10 minutes. As I add it up, you would make it just in time.

We really enjoyed the tour when we took it last June.

I would change the tour to a different day. You aren’t going to enjoy it if you’re constantly clock watching and worrying about the theatre.

Could you call for an Uber or cab to be there ready to take you? I realize traffic moves slow in London but it’s still probably faster than walking.

Update… I have received a couple of emails- very appreciative of their response quickness! Are two options it looks like. One, we can keep trying to look at the website and seeing if another ticket opens up at those early slots. But one of the emails said that that day sells out quickly and that an another opening might not happen. The other option they’ve given me is to do a self guided tour Instead of the guided tour. I could get both of us tickets for that at 9 o’clock, 915 or 930. I agree, I’m worried that I’m gonna be looking at my watch and not enjoying the guided tour if we’re trying to check and see if we can make it to the play on time .

Although I think the guided tour is probably the better of the two, I think we may just take the self guided tour. For now there aren’t any other times for the days we are there that are open to exchange. Thoughts? Is the Guided Tour that much superior?

Mardee, hmmmm. I wonder about that possibility.

First: kind of a wonderful dilemma to have! :-)

Second: could you leave the tour early and take a cab? Warning: do not be late. House managers at London theatres are not playing. If you’re even a minute late, you’ll have to wait until a specific time later to be admitted. Some theatres have a designated waiting area where you can watch live video until there’s a scene break and you can be admitted to your seat. I am not sure if the Harold Pinter has that.

Third: you could catch the HP tour another time (I mean, under Rick’s “assume you will return” rubric…). Seeing DAVID TENNANT IN MACBETH!??! That is a once in a lifetime experience and I am so jealous my teeth hurt. Tennant is broadly considered to be his generation’s greatest Hamlet. I can’t imagine how amazing he’ll be in Macbeth!

Enjoy! And please report back! :-)

Volva, your post made me laugh! We are so very excited, especially my daughter who absolutely adores Shakespeare and is such a huge David Tennant fan. I was hoping someone could speak to stepping out of the guided tour a bit early, but I really don’t want to seem rude, nor go against the protocol. The gracious folks that gave emailed me from the HOP didn’t mention that option, so I assume it is frowned upon. I’m a rule follower by nature, so…

We would be so disappointed if we got to the theater too late. I’m leaning toward the self guided option as a compromise.

I have never done the Houses of Parliament but I would definitely go with the self-guided tour and NOT MISS a minute of David Tennant. What a thrill!! AND a double bonus since your daughter is a Shakespeare fan! What a neat thing to do.

editing to add: In general I will go for a transient event over a permanent fixture. If you enjoy the DIY tour you can try to work the guided tour in next time.

Okay ya’ll, thank you so much for your input. I went ahead and emailed them back and took the opportunity to switch to a self guided tour for us early in that Saturday. I’m grateful they offered that to us. I’m sure it will be fun and informative as well. And then maybe on a later visit, we’ll return for the Guided Tour. :)

Definitely do the self-guided tour. Honestly I think the guided tour drags on a bit, anyway.

You know we are going to want a Trip Report!

Absolutely Pam! I don’t have the techno savvy that mardee does -insert queen emoji here- to do a travelogue, but I will be sure to use my one fingered typing skills to share our exploits!

Now that the tour/play itinerary “crisis” has been averted, lol, I can move onto other things. Our seats are in the balcony, so I am checking into possibly packing some compact binoculars. Any suggestions?

Hahahahahaha!!!!! Hey, Queen Mardee! I like it! You all can just start bowing now, lol!

Seriously, MustLoveDogs, have you ever heard of speech-to-text? Just open up a blank document in Google Docs (my preference) or MS Word or something like that. Then just turn on the dictation and start talking. You can do it in sections or do it all at once. Then after you're done, go in and edit/spell check etc. to fix all the typos. Have your daughter help you.

Once you're done that, you can start the process of getting it over to the Rick Steves site. I first separate the text in the Google Docs document into blocks based on character count (and don't forget to add paragraphs—there's nothing worse than one long paragraph!). The forum allows you approximately 3800+ characters per post/reply.

I then create a new post on the forum, then take each block and copy and paste it into a post on the forum; repeating with replies. I usually do it at night when things are quieter, but you could do it earlier and in your title put something like, "PENDING: Trip Report" then update it once you've got everything in there.

Let me know if you have any questions. It really makes trip reports a lot easier.

I'm terrible at dictation (just hated it during my career!!) so I start my TR notes in a Google doc during my trip. Well, I guess you could start dictating it as you go then organize it when you get home.

I 110% agree with Mardee about composing off the forum and then adding it in stages to the same thread.

Take a look on Amazon for “ opera glasses.”

For decades I’ve taken and used my compact Pentax mini binocs. I always like first balcony seats. Like seeing the entire stage.

I’m always up for trying something new, even with computers. It’s just that I don’t make/take time to use them as much since retirement. I will with this suggestion, though! Thanks for sharing the information about it! I will check on those Claudia. I don’t want to put too much money into them, but have seen getting 8x magnification is optimal. Have you all found that to be the case? The balcony seats were really all they had this morning- at least that weren’t £150-285 each. I know we’re up there, but I’m hoping with glasses/binoculars we will be able to see a bit better.

Lucky you to get tickets. I saw ”sold out” on their website a couple of weeks ago and did not know they’d be releasing more tickets. Now they only have 250 GBP tickets left on the dates when I am there which is more than I want to spend. I think you will be in for a treat. I saw David Tennant in a show 2 years ago at the same theatre. One annoying thing was they made everyone pull out their mobile phones on entry. They put a sticker over the lens of everyone’s phone as they were entering the theatre. I hope they have stopped that practice. I’ve been to dozens of shows in London and that was the only time I’ve ever experienced that.

The Harold Pinter theatre is relatively small, although I’ve never sat in the balcony which would be pretty high up. You might see if they have opera glasses to rent there. Some of the theatres rent them for a couple of pounds. I’m not sure how you would find this out … they have an email on the theatre website.

Laura, you may want to sign up for the Donmar Warehouse newsletter. That is how I knew tickets were being released. Also, according to their(the Donmar) website, there will be same day standing and front row seats available at the Harold Pinter Theatre at 10 am for 20 and 25GBP respectively and standing tickets available online each day at 10 am from the ATG website.

A young Harold Pinter would have been my neighbour if I lived here 80 or 90 years ago.

ETA:

One annoying thing was they made everyone pull out their mobile phones on entry. They put a sticker over the lens of everyone’s phone as they were entering the theatre. I hope they have stopped that practice. I’ve been to dozens of shows in London and that was the only time I’ve ever experienced that.

I'm kinda ok with it. Anything with a hot ticket actor and people are going to be on their phones constantly. The only time I've experienced it was Burberry at London Fashion Week, where everyone had to put their phones in a little bag that covered the camera. I had to do it while I was working the show too.

Mustlovedogs, Thanks for the tip!

GerryM, what was annoying about the sticker was I ended up with sticky gunk on the back of my phone case which was a pain to remove. I would have been fine with a sealed bag.

what was annoying about the sticker was I ended up with sticky gunk on the back of my phone case

Ah I thought you were disagreeing in principle. It's best if they're clear about it at the time of selling the tickets. It's their prerogative but it might put some people off.

"Liveness" is very fragile and can easily be broken by phones and TikToks. I'm a big fan of the ephemeral in performance and I'd sometimes prefer no way of seeing a particular moment in time again. That's my performance theory pondering for today :)

Gerry, ponder on that topic any time you want. It’s music to my ears. I totally agree.

GerryM, I agree with you and I never use my phone in the theatre. The sticker seemed ineffective; people were pulling them off the phones as soon as they sat down. I guess the only purpose it really served was it would have been clear to the ushers if someone was actually filming because the stickers were really obvious.