The Theatre Revolution I Never Saw Coming

Or: How I Learned That “What Did You Think of the Second Act?” Is Actual Small Talk

I didn’t expect Andrew Scott’s Uncle Vanya to be my gateway drug. It’s the opposite of the glittering West End cliché - bare stage energy, a single performance stretched like a wire. No chorus lines, no pyrotechnics, not even a discreet key change to warn you a feeling is coming. I loved it for exactly that reason. While we’re here, a confession I make twice in this piece so nobody misses it: I hate musicals. If a character can just say the thing, why are we suddenly rhyming it?

That said, London introduced me to a parallel universe I was absolutely unprepared for: interval wine discourse. My first real taste of the city’s theatre culture wasn’t a dramaturgical debate; it was a friend turning to me as we shuffled back to our seats at the National Theatre and asking, with a straight face, “So—how was the interval wine?” Not “What did you think of the blocking?” Not “Was Act One under-rehearsed?” Wine. At interval. As a valid topic. Somewhere between the Merlot and my confusion, I realised I’d migrated to a place where theatre is allowed to be an evening out, not a moral examination.

Mumbai: Planning, Queues, and the Art of Taking It Seriously (Without the Halo)

Back home in Mumbai, a night at the theatre is logistics, commitment, and a touch of combat strategy. You book early, you plot your route, you negotiate with traffic like it owes you money. Prithvi nights have a rhythm everyone knows: arrive before the rush, grab a seat in the courtyard, eye the queue with equal parts pride and dread, then slip inside just in time to watch strangers become an audience.

I’ve sat through shows where the silence was so concentrated you could hear your own thoughts getting self-conscious. Tumhari Amrita did that to me the first time I saw it- two people, letters, time doing its weird accordion thing. No incense, no temple bells - just a room that knew how to listen. It’s not ‘reverence,’ exactly - I’m over metaphors that turn auditoriums into sanctuaries - but there’s a muscle in Mumbai audiences that holds the story steady so the actors can climb.

And it’s not just Prithvi Theatre. Smaller spaces, basement rooms, improvised black boxes with personality and a temperamental AC—Mumbai’s scene is stitched together by people who care enough to show up on a weekday evening and then stay to argue about subtext over cutting chai. You feel responsible for your ticket in a way that’s oddly lovely: your presence isn’t a transaction; it’s a promise to pay attention.

The theatres in other cities in India – Bangalore, Delhi, Pune or Ahmedabad - share with Mumbai the baseline seriousness. A sense that theatre is allowed to ask you to meet it halfway. You’re expected to notice things, to hold ideas in your hands for longer than a meme, to talk about a play like it might change your mind about something real. No halos, no hushed ‘temple of art’ voiceovers - just an honest exchange: we’ll bring the work; you bring your brain.

The Guilt Tax (And Why I Finally Stopped Paying It)

For a long time, I felt like I owed serious theatre serious reactions. Laughing too easily felt like cheating. If I loved the performances but didn’t have a hot take on the political allegory, I’d treat it like a personal failure. Once, after a particularly fizzy comedy, I said, “I had such a good time,” and a woman next to me kindly, earnestly, asked what I thought about its critique of urban alienation. I wanted to say, “Madam, I laughed,” but that felt like confessing to a crime. Somewhere along the line I’d picked up a guilt tax on enjoyment: if you didn’t suffer a little, did you even art?

London cured me of that. Not immediately, but sneakily, one interval at a time.

London: The Tuesday-Night Miracle

Then I came here, and theatre turned into something you slot in between a long day and the last train home. The first West End show I took my son to was The Lion King - selected with all the gravitas of choosing a pizza topping because he said, “That one.” Families everywhere. Children levitating at the sight of animals that are and are not animals. Teenagers sneaking selfies with the discipline of jewel thieves. Adults mouthing along to lyrics they claim they “just happen to know.” Nobody needed a glossary of themes. Nobody was auditioning to say the smartest thing. People were - brace yourself - having uncomplicated fun.

I still hate musicals. (Consistency is important; we’re building trust here.) But I can’t deny the mood shift that London normalises. Theatres here are part of your week, like the good coffee place or the smugly under-crowded bus route. My local, Rose Theatre in Kingston, flips between touring shows, community productions, and musicals that make me roll my eyes and then – fine - applaud anyway because effort is effort. Even the heavyweights - The National Theatre, the Old Vic - feel less like high gates and more like well-run parks: you can wander in without a choreography of self-importance.

The Revelation of Interval Conversations (File Under: Things I Never Expected to Enjoy)

Interval in Mumbai is often code for “we will anatomise Act One like it’s a frog in Biology class.” Here, interval is “how’s the wine?” or “do you think the lead can actually dance?” or “I want that coat.” During one properly grand, chandelier - adjacent musical, the woman beside me sighed, happily, “That dress!” Not “the costume design accents her transformation” - just “that dress.” I swear the simplicity rewired something in my head. I’d been so conditioned to defend liking things that I’d forgotten the sport of liking things loudly.

At work - Flame Tree Publishing - theatre talk floats around the office like normal gossip. “Caught anything good at the Almeida?” plays the same role as “Did you see last night’s episode?” It’s not a shibboleth. It’s social weather.

A Two-Act Confession: I Hate Musicals, But Sometimes I Cheat

Exhibit A: Back to the Future. By rights I should have been miserable—plot-to-song ratio suspicious, nostalgia weaponised—but then this deranged jazz riff sequence happened, the kind of over-the-top flourish I’ve never seen staged in India, and my inner curmudgeon lost the argument. I grinned. I did not sing, but I absolutely grinned.

Exhibit B: Mrs Doubtfire. Did not work for me. It’s a lovely story with enough heart and humour to walk on its own two feet. The musical numbers, to my ear, felt like adding rhinestones to an already charming sweater: sparkly, yes, but now it scratches and you can’t wear it to dinner.

Do I sound harsh? Possibly. But if we’re going to treat theatre as a big tent, it’s fair to admit not every corner of the tent is for everyone. My problem with musicals isn’t moral; it’s ergonomic. When the song fits - when it lifts you out of prose into a higher weather system - sure, fine, I’ll jump. When it’s a patch stuck on to meet genre requirements, I’d rather keep my feet on the ground. Consider this my manifesto for the right to be choosy without being rude about it. (Mostly.)

What London Gets Right (And What India Never Lost)

London’s superpower is ordinariness. The sheer volume of shows means a night out doesn’t need permission slips. You can take a chance on a fringe piece, get lucky with day seats, or splurge on something shiny - no one will interrogate your choices or your interpretation. It lowers the barrier to entry so far that people stumble in and discover they like this stuff. That matters. You can’t love something from across a velvet rope.

India’s superpower is stubborn attention. Even when we’re casual, we notice. We talk back to the work. We build lore around actors and lines and that one scene where the light fell perfectly on an unplanned tear. We don’t always agree on what we saw, but we rarely shrug. There’s a generosity in that - giving your evening to a show without checking your watch every ten minutes. It’s not a halo; it’s a habit.

The Bit Where I Change My Mind (But Only a Little)

A funny side effect of toggling between these worlds is that I’ve stopped feeling like I have to pick a team. I can be the person who will happily book Uncle Vanya twice and still refuse to clap along to a chorus. I can take my son to The Lion King because his face will light up with the whole showmanship, and I can also drag him to a quiet play where two people argue about nothing for ninety minutes and it somehow means everything. He’s growing up in a London where theatre is normal, not rare. That’s a gift I didn’t have at his age, and it’s changing what ‘audience’ means in our house.

At work, the casual theatre talk has rubbed off on me. We book months ahead, compare notes, learn actors’ names, debate whether the second cast really was better or whether we were just in a more forgiving mood. Somewhere along the way, theatre stopped being an occasion and started being a habit. Habits are powerful; they outlast enthusiasms.

The Indian Update: Fewer Pedestals, More Seats

Meanwhile, back in India, something is loosening in a good way. Newer venues, younger producers, more shows that don’t feel like homework. People are experimenting with formats, grappling with contemporary stories that aren’t ashamed of being entertaining. Ticketing is easier, marketing is less apologetic, and audiences are more willing to try something they haven’t heard of. The hierarchy between ‘art’ and ‘fun’ is less rigid than it used to be. That’s not dumbing down; that’s opening up.

I still crave the post-show chai with arguments that run on for too long. I still want the quiet moments where an entire room leans forward at the same time. But I don’t miss the pressure to be profound on command. You can love a show because it was sharp and funny and made you text a friend, ‘Go.’ That’s allowed.

Interval, Revisited

About the wine. I have opinions now, apparently. I’m the person who nods gravely and says, “The red was fine, but the queue was better.” I still prefer talking about a throwaway line that landed like a brick or a lighting cue that rescued an awkward scene. But I also enjoy the mundanity of it all: the theatre of coat checks, of people arriving in clumps, of strangers negotiating armrests, of the shared relief when the person behind you stops kicking your seat. We’re all here to watch something pretend to be something else. We might as well be chatty about it.

Bilingual, With Subtitles

If I had to translate my relationship with theatre, it would be in two languages I now speak without trying. In one, plays are plans, tickets are commitments, and attention is a courtesy you offer because the people on stage have worked very hard. In the other, theatre is part of the city’s background music; you hum along when you recognise the tune. I don’t need to fuse these into a single worldview. I can carry both.

So yes - I hate musicals. I will say it again for the people at the back. But now and then, a show will yank me out of my principles and make me laugh at myself. I’ll grumble, and then I’ll book another ticket, and we’ll do this dance again.

The Last Bow

Standing ovations still give me a tiny thrill - Mumbai, London, doesn’t matter. There’s a moment when a room full of strangers decides that what just happened deserves more than the usual clap-clap-clap. It’s collective, slightly embarrassing, utterly sincere. It reminds me why I keep showing up, why my calendar has show titles scribbled in like dinner plans, why my son now recommends productions to me with the confidence of a biased critic.

I started this with Uncle Vanya because it felt right to begin with a play that trusts words over wattage. I’ll end it with the thing London taught me that I didn’t know I needed: theatre can be ordinary without being trivial. You don’t have to worship it to be changed by it. You can talk about the wine and still be undone by a monologue. You can hate musicals and still have a good time when a saxophone barges into your evening. You can be from Mumbai and love Pune and swear by Gujarati timing and still be moved in a city that treats theatre like a Tuesday errand.

Some revolutions are loud. Mine arrived as a question at interval, asked by a friend who just wanted to know if the house red was any good. I answered then the way I’ll answer now: it was fine. The show? Better. And that, I’m learning, is enough.