Steve Roberts: Working At Your Hobby, A Love of Musicals & Seeing Other Venues
Title
Steve Roberts: Working At Your Hobby, A Love of Musicals & Seeing Other Venues
Date
4 October 2018
Description
Oral history interview with Steve Roberts, Deputy Box Office Manager at the Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall and a long-serving member of staff since 1999.
What's the story?
Having previously worked in Nottingham’s lace industry, Steve Roberts first joined the Theatre Royal in 1999 as a Box Office Clerk and where he has since progressed to the role of Deputy Box Office Manager.
This role involves over-seeing all the box office staff, as well putting all the shows onto the computerised ticketing system, in order for staff to sell the tickets.
Throughout his time at the venue Steve has been directly involved in some of the biggest changes in how people purchase their tickets for shows at the Theatre Royal.
In this interview Steve shares his love of musicals, as well revealing that the Theatre Royal “is a nice place to work for”:
It is a nice place to work for and obviously being in the theatre, entertainments industry, which I’ve always loved coming to the theatre anyway, so it’s a hobby, then you’re actually working at your hobby, if you like, and the people who work here are nice. Genuinely are nice and friendly. And I think that keeps you in a job, really. If you work with nice people, you don’t mind coming to work. And it is a nice venue to work in. Even when you say to people where you work, they say “Oh my God, you work at the Theatre Royal!” And they ask me the question you’ve just asked: “Do you meet all the stars?” No, I don’t meet all the stars, but they assume we mingle with the stars. But like you say, we’ve got our job to do and they’ve got their job to do. But yeah, it’s been a great place. I really enjoy the work I do as well. It’s interesting. For me, because obviously it changes, like you say, I’m putting stuff on sale two years down the line. Some people ask me what’s on this week and I think “I don’t know”. I can tell you Calendar Girls is on in 2019, because I’ve just done it. I’m, sort of, years in front, if you like.
I like the musicals, which a lot of people do. I do like the musicals. So I mainly come to the musicals. The odd concert. I haven’t been to a concert here for a long while. The people who I like don’t come here. So I’ve been all over the country. I quite liked Hairspray, so I’ve been up and down – I’ve even seen it in Dublin. I go down to London, I’ve been down to London this year to see Kinky Boots, which is now coming to us. So I do like to go down to London to the West End. I see a show occasionally. It’s very expensive down there. Obviously people think that because you work here, you get a discount down there, but it doesn’t work like that. I wish it did. You do look at certain things and think “They did that differently in London, or they do it differently in Dublin”, or whatever. And also sometimes it is quite good because I went to see (we’ve just had it last week) Let It Be, which is a Beatles tribute, and I went to see it somewhere else and it’s good for sightlines, because I know that this show it was just four men in the middle of a stage because we could see everything. It’s quite handy if you go somewhere else, because you think “That might be a bit of trouble”. Sometimes Jonathan gets us review tickets. I did see Shrek at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle to review it. The Theatre Royal, Nottingham has quite a small stage, so it’s interesting to see how it will fit on our stage. That’s quite interesting. Perks of the job, I suppose, which is nice to go on a little jolly outing.
This role involves over-seeing all the box office staff, as well putting all the shows onto the computerised ticketing system, in order for staff to sell the tickets.
Throughout his time at the venue Steve has been directly involved in some of the biggest changes in how people purchase their tickets for shows at the Theatre Royal.
In this interview Steve shares his love of musicals, as well revealing that the Theatre Royal “is a nice place to work for”:
It is a nice place to work for and obviously being in the theatre, entertainments industry, which I’ve always loved coming to the theatre anyway, so it’s a hobby, then you’re actually working at your hobby, if you like, and the people who work here are nice. Genuinely are nice and friendly. And I think that keeps you in a job, really. If you work with nice people, you don’t mind coming to work. And it is a nice venue to work in. Even when you say to people where you work, they say “Oh my God, you work at the Theatre Royal!” And they ask me the question you’ve just asked: “Do you meet all the stars?” No, I don’t meet all the stars, but they assume we mingle with the stars. But like you say, we’ve got our job to do and they’ve got their job to do. But yeah, it’s been a great place. I really enjoy the work I do as well. It’s interesting. For me, because obviously it changes, like you say, I’m putting stuff on sale two years down the line. Some people ask me what’s on this week and I think “I don’t know”. I can tell you Calendar Girls is on in 2019, because I’ve just done it. I’m, sort of, years in front, if you like.
I like the musicals, which a lot of people do. I do like the musicals. So I mainly come to the musicals. The odd concert. I haven’t been to a concert here for a long while. The people who I like don’t come here. So I’ve been all over the country. I quite liked Hairspray, so I’ve been up and down – I’ve even seen it in Dublin. I go down to London, I’ve been down to London this year to see Kinky Boots, which is now coming to us. So I do like to go down to London to the West End. I see a show occasionally. It’s very expensive down there. Obviously people think that because you work here, you get a discount down there, but it doesn’t work like that. I wish it did. You do look at certain things and think “They did that differently in London, or they do it differently in Dublin”, or whatever. And also sometimes it is quite good because I went to see (we’ve just had it last week) Let It Be, which is a Beatles tribute, and I went to see it somewhere else and it’s good for sightlines, because I know that this show it was just four men in the middle of a stage because we could see everything. It’s quite handy if you go somewhere else, because you think “That might be a bit of trouble”. Sometimes Jonathan gets us review tickets. I did see Shrek at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle to review it. The Theatre Royal, Nottingham has quite a small stage, so it’s interesting to see how it will fit on our stage. That’s quite interesting. Perks of the job, I suppose, which is nice to go on a little jolly outing.
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Andrew Breakwell & Julia Holmes
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
