Jermyn Street Theatre has long blazed the trail for the fringe in the heart of the West End, but the more recent arrival of the Sound Theatre has revealed some of the difficulties of trying to establish a profile in the midst of so much competition, as Kit Productions have found to their cost (literally so) and has led to them to withdraw from the venue after the failure of their Christmas musical. But now the West End has gone fringe with the arrival of Trafalgar Studios 2 last month, a 98-seater venue carved out of the rear stalls of what used to be the Whitehall Theatre, above which is now the larger Trafalgar Studios 2 that rises from the old stage to meet the old dress circle.
It’s a laudable aim to give small fringe companies a West End showcase that could help them to make a bigger leap, but two things worry me. First, the thing that drives most fringe theatres to exist on a shoestring is the desire to produce their own work, so whatever the quality (or not) of that work, the venues achieve something of an artistic identity. But a receiving house in the West End that simply operates, like any other West End theatre, on being available to those able to pay the rent – and though the owner will, of course, take shows in on their perceived commercial and/or artistic value, it will struggle to establish a real identity.
Secondly, not unlike the annual Edinburgh scrum, having deep pockets rather than rich talent will take precedence in the ability to hire the venue. Beware the vanity that might propel companies to book this space, over their actual artistic worth. One suspects that the booking of Horla’s A Christmas Carol, that opened there last night, was partly seasonal opportunism on the part of the venue – a good title to carry over the festive season, though in fact subsequently pipped to the post by the return of Patrick Stewart’s one-man version of the same story to the West End’s Albery Theatre – but it also revealed a leap that the company weren’t, in my opinion, yet ready to make: the show’s heart may have been in the right place, but the work isn’t really good enough.
And although a lot of good work is being done on the fringe, I do worry if there is quite enough to sustain a transfer house in the West End, especially since it’s difficult to make the money that such a transfer costs back with such a small seating capacity. Which leads, in turn, to ticket prices being hiked there – and defeats the other main appeal of the fringe, which is its affordability
