I returned home after a four hour round trip having expected to watch Helen George perform in the king and I. As you can imagine, an audience full of spectators were left confused and cheated when we were all lead to believe that the show was going ahead as planned. You can imagine the disappointment when Helen George’s understudy stepped onto the stage, with no explanation as to why, no warning, only a couple of A4 printed sheets on the stall doors, Informing the already paying customer that Helen George would not in fact be in tonight’s performance. I had booked these tickets last year for my grandad at £70 each for his birthday present. Not only for the love of Roger and Hammerstein, but for our love of Helen George, which made the £140 ticket bill bearable. Thankfully, we enjoyed the performance all the same. However, there does seem to be a sense of injustice and false advertisement when it was left to the audience to investigate as to why Helen George was not in this particular performance. I asked politely at the ticket stalls about why Miss George was not performing, to which I had an abrupt reply “she’s had a minor injury and has been told to rest. These things happen and there has been good feedback about the understudy”. I appreciate that “these things happen”, what didn’t settle right with me, is that we were not informed of the changes made before the production. The poor actress who stepped in for Miss George must have felt so rejected, as the audience couldn’t help but whisper to one another “that’s not Helen George”. Not only do I think it would be courteous and polite to inform your paying customers; but it would have been less nerve wracking for the understudy who did a fantastic job. She let out a physical sigh of relief when the audience gave her a standing ovation. However, this does not excuse that as an audience, we had been mislead. I have since researched what has happened to the lead role, and she has in fact been out of the show since last Thursday. There was plenty of time to inform the viewer, so that our show did not start with such a disappointing blow. Had we not been informed incase the company lost money as you knew that the majority of the audience had paid to see Helen perform? If this is the case, then I find this pretty shameful. Although my grandad and I had a lovely time, I do feel robbed of money. £140 for a mediocre theatre without a lead role is rather steep, considering London were selling for the same price. However, due to my grandad being 83, Cardiff was perfect as it wasn’t such a lengthy and expensive journey in terms of having to find accommodation in London. None the less, we still travelled 4 hours in total, and paying the same money for a lesser performance. Having said this, the performance by the actors and actresses was second to none, however, I cannot help but feel a wonderful day has been tainted by greed and dishonesty.

Fantastic show. Volume poor at the start but improved. Excellent staff especially Amanda who facilitated access to the lift for my elderly Mum, thank you.