Quite. I think even if he hadn't died I'd still have assumed they'd be starting the next film with him young and newly recruited to MI6

I feel like a sixth form student could find at least two perfectly good solutions to this issue

A workmate asked us who we thought should be on series 2. One person suggested they bring Joe Marler back. I said "I think that would only work if they brought Alan back. Winner-stays-on rules". Reader: it's me. I am the person who has spoiled the Traitors final for my colleague. Mortified

With 1½ days to go, an update. He's so far successfully avoided any spoilers about The Traitors ending 😮😮

He comments:

"I wasnt lying when I said my twitter feed is literally just football and pretty extremist political views"

Update: "Honestly my Twitter feed seems to just be football and polarising political views so I think I could be fine you know"

He's not even planning to avoid TWITTER

Do shows of this magnitude often succeed in getting a bigger audience when they return, when other elements (marketing budget, critical acclaim etc) remain the same? I was told they hope it'll gain momentum on its current NYC run. I wasn't sure whether or not such things impact London ticket buyers

I know 500 per show was an arbitrary figure but I suspect Palamidis wasn't hitting it. I put it to a senior ST staffer last week and they didn't dispute the fact the first Walthamstow run sold badly

Yes feels safe to assume the show is v. affordable to run in of itself. No idea about how many ticket sales starts to look internally acceptable. I assume LB Waltham Forest aren't looking over their shoulders in this regard

And may I count Natalie Palamidis as theatre? A show which maybe counts as precisely midway between theatre and comedy. If we're including Bryony (a show I've not seen).

For a high profile venue-launching show, it def seemed to sell badly (and yet they're still bringing it back in January!)

I'm clueless on the question of if they could habitually do successful theatre there.

Think we'd have to include Brown Girls Do It Too as theatre, a show that looks like it used up nearly all its London demand on its (highly successful) Dean Street runs

loosely inclined to properly do a thinkpiece on the continued mad number of new theatres london is getting, compared to theatre-or-bigger music venues, the existing ones more and more able to act like a cartel as a result

it's *def* not the only theatre show there that appears to have sold badly, so inclined to agree. i'm surprised they stuck so closely to replicating their soho theatre programme there. tentatively looks like 2026 might do less of that, though that might just be what's announced so far

just been looking at ticket sales for the final week. looks like it's sold realllly badly 😬

I'm loosely aware that the uni get to largely run and keep the profits from the venue's bars, because they own the buildings. Honestly between this and all the investments in Israel, being Edinburgh University sounds pretty financially sweet right now

www.thenational.scot/news/2528121...

I'm now trying to think of the shows I've seen that have most successfully been trained on the narrowest subjects. Rob Auton's shows on time and crowds spring quickest to mind. Sad I never saw his ones on hair, or the colour yellow