Only yesterday I was reporting Simon Callow’s story about the changing nature of stars in the theatrical firmament, and noting how the annual Hollywood invasion has upset the ecology further.
It’s not just me who’s noticing it. Toronto Star critic Richard Ouzounian has just paid a visit here, and noting how, “over the past five years, London, especially during the tourist-rich summer months, has become the home to a new kind of production which could very easily be perceived as a hipper, higher-priced form of dinner theatre”, he has wittily described the winning West End formula** for a “commercial cocktail” thus:
- Add a dash of reasonably high-profile celebrity in a smallish cast play for a limited run.
- Shake well to generate maximum publicity.
- Pray the critics don’t chill it too thoroughly.
- Serve to an eager public.
He dates “this onslaught of largely American talent onto the British boards” to Kathleen Turner’s appearance in The Graduate here in 2000, when her “15 seconds of stage nudity” turned the show into the “hottest ticket in the city”.
He goes on, “Not only did that single appearance revitalize Turner’s career, but it made pots of money for all concerned and eventually led to a record-breaking run in Toronto and a commercially lucrative stint on Broadway. Canny British producers and curious American actors soon started casting sly looks across the Atlantic, wondering what they could do for each other. It soon turned out that it didn’t even matter if the performers concerned had any stage experience — a box office name was enough to bring the public in.”
He then remembers the 2002 production of Kenneth Lonergan’s This is Our Youth, in which a succession of young American actors passed through, including Hayden Christensen, Jake Gyllenhaal and Matt Damon, plus assorted siblings and kids of more famous actors like Casey Affleck (Ben’s brother), Summer Phoenix (River’s sister), Keiran Culkin (Macaulay’s brother) and Colin Hanks (Tom’s son).
“That year, if you were a young Hollywood star, you didn’t go to summer camp, you went to London,” writes Ouzounian.
But why this sudden fondness for London? “Surely it can’t be a fondness for warm beer or the BBC?”, he asks. No, the reasons are far more practical, he replies.
He cites the far lower cost of production, which means that “producers are more willing to take a chance when someone approaches them with a quirky property.”
Then there’s British audiences. Whereas “Broadway is still the land of the herd and the home of the hit”, he quotes Kenneth Tynan: “the British will often deliberately go to a piece of second-rate theatre”. Not all theatre here has to be great. We are happy to see middling successes. Or go out of curiosity.
And then there are the critics. “There are 10 papers in London and the odds are that at least one or two of them are going to like your show, no matter how bad it is.” And again unlike New York, we don’t have a herd instinct here, either. “In New York, when the critics hate you, they all go along for the ride. It’s like a Mafia hit, and they don’t even leave the cannoli.”
So, thanks to this triple threat – “money, manners and the media” – London has become an attractive place for American stars to visit. “It’s a symbiotic relationship that both sides seem to be enjoying,” he concludes, “and there’s no reason to think it should cease in the near future”.
** The Toronto Star’s website requires free registration, or bugmenot.com
