I’ve previously blogged about noticing that by this summer all but one of Delfont Mackintosh’s West End theatres are housing musicals, but the virus of musicals seems to be spreading ever wider: as of today, 23 venues listed in the West End (out of 39 in all) are currently hosting musicals or soon will be.
In fact, if you then take the subsidised houses of the National, Barbican, Royal Court and Donmar, plus the summer season theatres of Shakespeare’s Globe and Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park (which itself will next month add their annual summer musical The Boy Friend to the repertoire) out of the equation, that leaves just 11 commercial theatres currently hosting shows that aren’t musicals, and two of those – the Vaudeville and New London – don’t exactly have plays on, either, since they’re respectively hosting Stomp and the Blue Man Group. The St Martin’s, of course, has The Mousetrap now and forever, and ditto for the Fortune and The Woman in Black, so take that one out, too, and there are currently precisely seven commercial theatres in town hosting new(ish) productions of plays in the old fashioned sense: the Apollo, Comedy, Haymarket, Duchess, Duke of York’s, Garrick and New Ambassadors. All but two of those seven are revivals – of Shepard (Food for Love), Frayn (Donkey’s Years), Coward (Hay Fever), Philip King (See How they Run) and Keith Waterhouse (Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell).
That leaves the only ‘new’ plays in town at the Duke of York’s, where Embers is soon to be replaced by Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the New Ambassadors, home to the play ‘discovered’ by reality TV series The Play’s The Thing.
We have not only caught up with Broadway in ticket prices, we are now in the inexorable slide to sidelining plays completely in the West End as they do on Broadway. Actually, they have as many plays on Broadway right now as we do: they, too, have seven houses currently hosting plays today (though a couple – Awake and Sing and Doubt — are about to close).
Running out of West End addresses to put musicals on, even the Royal Albert Hall – for the first time in its history – is up to hosting one at the moment. Of course, Kern and Hammerstein’s Show Boat is an acknowledged classic of the genre, and at least Raymond Gubbay’s arena-stage production tries to do something new with it, by creating an environmental type design that wraps the audience in nearly a complete circle around the action. But though it’s a bold experiment and the swarming crowd scenes provide the best reason for staging it on this kind of scale, it fatally dissipates the focus of the drama and its characterisations. There’s lots of sweep but no detail. As for the music, it’s great to have a full orchestra – in full view on a podium above the stage – in residence for a change, but the amplification is so strenuous that the liveness of it barely registers: you can see them, sure, but you can’t exactly hear them first hand. The result is strangely dislocated, even from prime seats in the centre of the auditorium, never mind in the further reaches of the galleries.
Still, I was amused, at least, to finally be able to place one of the show’s Chicago locations for myself: over 100 years ago when the show is set, Gaylord Ravenal and his wife Magnolia stay, when they can afford it, at Chicago’s Palmer House. That grand hotel is still there, as I discovered when I was in Chicago last month; but on that occasion, it was overrun by gay leathermen attending the annual International Leather convention. It’s good to know that nothing’s changed: as in Show Boat, people are still only make-believing there!
I agree with Mark's comments...Shame to have so few plays in London.... But, I went to see See How They Run last night at the Duchess. Absolutely fantastic....the funniest show I have seen in town for years...Long may it reign !
There needs to be more diversity in the west end, what's the point in having so many theatres all showing similar things? some of th musicals are ok, but others are just dreadful!!! I've seen some truly amazing pieces of theatre in the north that wouldn't stand a chance in the west end because people want the cheese factor. I do however truly admire shows like the woman in black that can run for 16 years and still fill seats. Why do we need so many musicals? and why are most of the plays shown in the west end so poor? I was thrilled to hear The History Boys are doing so well in Broadway beacuse it is a fantastic play, but why could it not have moved to the west end? I know it had to move out of the national, but it's such a british play, and one we should be proud of! too many people avoid seeing real plays now because they've become so used to the trashy musicals. The theatres themselves should be trying to maintain their artistic integrity and what are all the actors doing? if you cant sing and dance nowadays your stuffed!
Although I am a great fan of musicals, I also agree with Mark's comments. The West End has simply become a trap for coachloads of tourists. It is sad that for many of them the only time they enter a theatre is to see a musical when we have so much more to offer.