‘Let them roar’: West End stages first baby-friendly performance
Vaudeville theatre claims to break new ground in London with parent and baby showing of hit play Emilia
Cliche has it that matinee audiences are full of snoring older people. But it was infants who were snoozing – and gurgling, screaming and playing peekaboo – at the Vaudeville theatre in the Strand on Wednesday afternoon. They were assembled for what is thought to be a first for London’s West End: a baby-friendly performance.
Bottle warmers and rows of changing mats were installed in the bars as part of the pioneering initiative for the hit play Emilia. Parents and carers were invited to bring children under 12 months old and “let them roar” during Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s feminist drama about the supposed “dark lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Emilia Bassano.