A FURIOUS Hampshire family have criticised theatre bosses for a blunder that cost dozens of 70s music fans their seats for a musical dedicated to the decade fashion forgot.

Lisa Taylor, from Southampton, and seven relatives are angry with the city's Mayflower Theatre for selling on the front row tickets they had booked for the hit show Boogie Nights to others due to a computer error.

Shane Richie, star and co-creator of the production, has stepped in to apologise to fans.

The debacle over the tickets arose when the theatre first cancelled the Monday and Tuesday per-formances and then backtracked, reinstating the early-week shows and scrapping the first four weeks of the planned six-week run.

It prepared a letter to all those affected but a bug in its computer system left about two dozen people, including Miss Taylor, completely unaware of the changes because the letters were never sent to them.

The theatre then sold their tickets on to other people.

Lisa Taylor and her family, mostly from the Portmouth and Emsworth area, had spent £600 on front row seats for four Tuesday shows.

Miss Taylor, 25, of Chelveston Crescent, said: "We think it is completely out of order for The Mayflower not to have got in touch with us at all. "A computer problem does not stop someone making sure we still want the tickets rather than selling them to others.

"We are far from happy because we now have tickets for other nights but they are not in the front row and the eight of us are not sitting together in the theatre."

She said their tickets for one of the four shows they had bought tickets for, on August 31, had been sold on.

Theatre head of marketing Paul Lewis said he was very sorry and sympathised with Miss Taylor's party.

"Letters were prepared to send to everyone who had booked tickets but there was a problem with our data base and something went wrong with the mailing," he said.

"We are investigating why some people never received those letters.

"We are prepared to do all we can to provide as many front row seats for her as we can."

Shane Rickie told the Daily Echo he was surprised to hear about the mix-up with tickets at The Mayflower.

"I apologise to the fans of the show who have been booking to see it in Southampton throughout its run in the summer," he said.

"But the administration side of the Boogie Nights business is not something that I have anything to do with. I just hope it means the people who want to see it won't be put off.''

Don't miss all your stage and screen news in What's On with Friday's Echo.

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