Tourist Information Box Office

You may be forgiven for thinking that, in the box office, all we have to deal with are people wanting to purchase seats for shows, book a rehearsal room, or possibly enquire about hiring the auditorium. In fact, we also double as an unofficial tourist information office and directory enquiry service.

We regularly receive visitors or deliverymen asking for directions to the Town Hall, the Queens Hotel, the Ladies College, somewhere that repairs watches and, most regularly, the Everyman. Occasionally, we do have people thinking that we are the other venue and suddenly fly out of the doors when they realise they’ve come to the wrong place and they have five minutes to rush round for curtain up. Yesterday, a very nice lady came to the box office in person to tell us that she had tried to get into the theatre via the Regent Arcade entrance only to find it locked and that we might like to do something about it.

A fair proportion of our telephone calls used to come from people wanting to book seats at the Everyman but rang us because the Everyman weren’t in the Yellow Pages - an omission they finally rectified in the most recent printing, resulting in fewer people wanting us to connect them. However, we now appear to have yet another string to our multi-faceted bow, as this conversation from yesterday morning will prove:

Box office: Good morning, Playhouse Theatre, can I help you?
Voice on phone: Hello my love, can you tell me the time please?
Box office: Yes, it’s five-to-ten.
Voice on phone: Thank you, love.

And the gentleman rang off. Yes, apparently we are now also The Speaking Clock.