Whilst many people spent Friday milling around the shops, hoping to bag some bargains in the Black Friday sales, London’s West End was plunged into darkness when a power cut saw Soho, China Town and Piccadilly Circus plunged into darkness between 5-9pm, causing several West End theatre shows to close their doors as the shows were unable to go on (it turn out there are instances Queen didn’t consider when writing that song).
Les Mis, Aladdin, Jersey Boys and The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time all had to cancel their performances on Friday evening after a power cut left soho in darkness. Thriller and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child both managed to continue with their performances but started later than planned. I’m sure audiences for Harry Potter were exceptionally pleased that the show wasn’t cancelled as tickets are completely sold out for the next year!
Black Friday has been celebrated in America since 1932 and takes place on the first Friday after Thanksgiving. It is known for being the busiest shopping day of the year and in recent years the U.K. have started to embrace the tradition using it as a marketing tool to reduce prices and have a big old sale! Who doesn’t love to get a bargain?! I don’t buy in to the whole thing myself particularly. I’m sceptical that most of the sales prices aren’t any more highly discounted than they were the day before but I’ve never looked into it too closely so I could be wrong. Sales just don’t feel like sales these days like they used to. Since the success of online shopping took off, retailers seem to constantly be reducing prices and having sales to compete with each other and so it dilutes the meaning of the words ‘sale’ and ‘discount’ and they are something we are used to getting all year around. Black Friday and Boxing Day sales just don’t get me excited like they used to.
You can always rely on London to make light of a bad situation. Taking things a little too literally and living up to the name Black Friday. It will certainly be one night that many theatre goers don’t forget in a hurry!
Were you caught in the dark at the theatre last week? Let me know on social media Facebook Twitter or you can email me wilma@westendwilma.com. Most excitingly of all you can write me an old fashioned letter now as well to my new PO Box address (PO Box 73609, London, SE13 9EE).
