Playhouse in national press...

You may have seen the article in the Gloucestershire Echo on Saturday 5 April concerning our refurbishment that suggested we were replacing our seats because “the audience is getting fatter”. It is true that people are bigger than they used to be – the Odeon cinema chain are installing seats that are 5cm wider than they were installing just 10 years ago – but that isn’t the actual reason for the refurbishment.

But, as someone once said, no publicity is bad publicity.

Shortly after this story appeared, someone told me they had spotted my quote about “fat people” – their words – in the paper. I informed them that I was not responsible for the Echo’s angle, and that I was not at all ‘fattist’. It then transpired that they hadn’t seen the Echo piece but that I had been quoted in The Sunday Telegraph under the heading “Theatre’s wider appeal”!

So, the Echo’s angle has resulted in The Playhouse being featured, possibly for the first time, in a national newspaper – which in turn resulted in my receiving a call from a professional company who hadn’t heard of us before and inquiring about staging something here in the future. I was very pleased. The Telegraph!

However, there is always a black cloud on the horizon. I learned this morning that I was also quoted in The Sun.