# Best way to score Hamlet (london) tickets **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 27, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065 "2015-08-27T14:32:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065/1 "2015-08-27T14:32:49Z")
Looking for reputable re-seller sites or other tricks of the trade to get tickets to the Barbican Hamlet performance for late October. My Google-Fu is failing me, the best 've found is 2 tickets at £700 which is extortionately outside my price range. Hotel concierge can’t do much better. Note I’m not looking to buy from individuals on this board, I’m looking for ideas on where I should look for these. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065/2 "2015-08-27T16:10:23Z")
Ah, market forces are a terrible thing. You can go to ticket resellers such as [viagogo.co.uk](http://viagogo.co.uk), [getmein.com](http://getmein.com) or [seatwave.com](http://seatwave.com) but with demand so high, you aren’t going to find much for less than what you have already found. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065/3 "2015-08-27T16:35:16Z")
I’ve checked the website and it’s almost completely sold out. From [http://hamlet.barbican.org.uk/](http://hamlet.barbican.org.uk/) > [@](#): > > There are also 30 £10 tickets available as day-seats for sale each day in person. Up to two tickets per person, sold at the advance ticket desk from 10.30am; the Barbican Centre Silk Street main entrance will open from 9am. Do note that ticket touting is illegal over here and if you are not the original purchaser of the ticket and they bother to check you may be refused entry. By the way, it doesn’t get a very good review in the [Guardian](http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/aug/25/hamlet-barbican-review-benedict-cumberbatch-imprisoned-prince). > [@](#): > > Cumberbatch, in short, suggests Hamlet’s essential decency. But he might have given us infinitely more, if he were not imprisoned by a dismal production that elevates visual effects above narrative coherence and exploration of character. The top comment on the Guardian goes: > [@Plankton on The Guardian](#): > > I was at opening night, and this review sums up my thoughts almost entirely, but I’d go further to say the play was even more effected by mis-casting. > > Perhaps it’s just me, but hearing King Hamlet’s ghost with a west country-esq accent from the chap who played Twister in Lark Rise to Candleford was just bizarre. Not that the actor can’t do other parts but there was something about _that_ voice in _that_ part that just made me chuckle. Ophelia, Polonius and I’d say Horatio were all mis-cast as well, I didn’t believe any of them in the roles. > > The whole thing was just…silly. A beautiful 3 hours of silliness and this is a Shakespearean tragedy, I shouldn’t be rolling my eyes at any point in it (the silly toy castle! the ‘King’ jacket!) and all the parts that should have given me chills (‘To Be…’) didn’t. Just awful, awful direction and staging with the set sometimes hindering (the sound of the clunking up and down those stairs was often louder than the dialogue) and being stage left, I missed seeing all the piano playing bits entirely… ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065/4 "2015-08-28T02:04:59Z")
Ouch. The price of a running used car seems high for the privilege of being the audience for what’s described here. ---
**Author:** ![kbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kbear)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2015, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065/5 "2015-08-28T11:04:47Z")
Lining up for day tickets is probably your best bet…resale prices are out of this world. When I first moved to London I was always able to get tickets off eBay for face value but once they legitimised reselling with Stub Hub and Getmein, the prices skyrocketed. If you’re in London on October 15th you could consider watching it “live” at the movie theatre. It will be broadcast live on that day. I’m watching it at the Everyman but there may be other theatres participating in the broadcast as well. It’s not the same as a real theatre experience but it’s a lot cheaper than £700! ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-way-to-score-hamlet-london-tickets/729065/6 "2015-10-16T03:27:57Z")
> [@kbear](#): > > If you’re in London on October 15th you could consider watching it “live” at the movie theatre. It will be broadcast live on that day. I’m watching it at the Everyman but there may be other theatres participating in the broadcast as well. It’s not the same as a real theatre experience but it’s a lot cheaper than £700! This advice did not appeal to me at all - it so isn’t the same, and all that. But today (the 15th) I found myself in Detroit with a cancelled client dinner, and the AMC20 near my hotel showed the “live” (= bs unless the show at the Barbican started at midnight) broadcast. Remembering this thread, I went for it, and I’m glad I did. I no longer am bummed out I’m not getting to see the “real” thing. While enjoyable enough for $18, The Guardian was not wrong. It is overproduced, and to piss me off Polonius deleted my favorite line in the play of being neither a borrower nor a lender. If I had somehow found some £200 tickets, I likely would have felt dissatisfied. So, excellent advice, kbear!