British Theatre Guide Blog

As Equity is still in dispute with the Society of London Theatre over the minimum wage for West End performers, we hear that the producers of the Take That musical Never Forget are proposing what have been described at “substantial” cuts in the cast’s wages when the show transfers from the Savoy to the Lyric (which has 250 fewer seats).  The producers, we hear, wish to change the company’s contracts, even though they last until April 2009.  Indeed, word is that some have already had their contracts terminated.

Equity has confirmed that negitiations are going on and that the union is supporting the performers but no one else, other than an unnamed “source close to the show” who has been talking to The Stage,  will comment.

Now, contrary to what many of the general public believe, actors and stage performers generally are not well paid.  According to the government’s 2007 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), the average weekly wage in the UK was £457: from April 2008 the agreement between Equity and the Independent Theatre Council set an actor’s minimum wage (which is what the majority get) at £364.  There are also what are called per diem payments for tours and relocation costs (a maximum of £98.50 a week for London) for those actors who have to work away from home.

West End performers are not much better off: their minimum is £400 for once-nightly performances (from 1st January, 2008).  In other words, they are still considerably below the national average for 2007.

And who gets the minimum? you may ask.  The majority.  There are stars who can command large sums, but they are few.  Is it any wonder that actors are keen to get TV commercial work?  I have a friend who, a couple of years ago, got paid more for a national TV ad than he could earn on stage in thirty weeks!  Not, of course, that he was used to having thirty continuous weeks of work!

The problem is compounded by the old supply and demand equation: there are far more actors than there are jobs, which is why many will work for profit-share (which usually means peanuts) or even for free, in the hope of being seen by casting directors or others who have jobs in their gift.

But that does not excuse attempts to vary contracts which have been signed by both parties.  Unfortunately, however, I suspect they’ll get away with it, unless Equity is willing to mount a legal challenge.  I shall be watching with great interest!

No, I’ve not got stuck in some kind of time warp.  For me it really is panto time.

Every year I write and direct a touring panto (which goes into social and working men’s clubs - not for the members but for their children) and we are now at the stage of writing (13 pages so far), set building and costume making/buying.  Oh, and casting: mustn’t forget the actors, although we’ve only got one part left to be filled.    We have a cast of five: dame, comic, villain, principal boy and principal girl (who doubles as good fairy).  Last year we had six: I played the Genie in Aladdin - voiceover on mini-disc!  This year we need a King and a Queen (it’s Sleeping Beauty), so they’re going to be either members of the audience or cardboard cut-outs (non-speaking roles, obviously!).

But this year I have been persuaded to direct a second panto (Aladdin again), for a local amateur operatic society.   It couldn’t be more different: months of rehearsal (as distinct from a week for the tour); a large chorus; lots of small parts as well as the principals; running for one week instead of four; theatre-based rather than two or three shows a day in different venues; a script in which audience interaction has to be scripted rather than the actors winging it the way professionals do; music from a band rather than recorded.  It’s going to be interesting!

I’m busy reading scripts at the moment: I’ve already looked at one and have three more to go.

It’s going to be an interesting few months.  I’ll keep you updated.

I am surely not alone in thinking that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s offer of free tickets for the investment bankers who lost their jobs in the collapse of Lehman Brothers is a cynical headline grabbing ploy.  The Noble Lord has shown himself adept at grasping every opportunity for news exposure at little or no cost to him (or even, in the case of the BBC TV reality shows, at the expense of the TV licence payers). 

“Both The Sound of Music and Joseph are feel good shows,” he said, “ and I thought that free tickets might offer some respite, albeit for a couple of hours, for some of those people who have sadly lost their jobs in the current economic upheaval. All you have to do is present your P45 as proof at the box office and two free tickets are yours.”

No doubt someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but ALW, his shows and his theatres  have been around a long time, and at times when unemployment has been much higher than now, but I don’t remember him offering free tickets to miners, factory workers or anyone in similar occupations who lost their jobs.

I rather think the Noble Lord would be doing the public a much greater service (and getting better PR) if, like Cameron Mackintosh, he decided to invest in improving the theatres he owns for the benefit of those who pay for tickets for his shows, but that wouldn’t attract the headlines. Instead he stands up in the House of Lords and asks for money from the public purse.

No one can deny what Lloyd Webber did for the British musical way back when.  With his various collaborators (and especially Tim Rice) he pushed the genre in a whole new direction, but now it appears to be more about the man than the work.

The Fringe is over and one of the facts to emerge is that, for the first time, theatre took second place in the league table of the number of shows in each category.  At 29% of shows, it fell behind comedy (32%), following a trend which has been becoming increasingly obvious over the past few years.

The Fringe publicity differentiates between what it calls “theatre” and “musicals and opera” and “dance and physical theatre” (both on 5%) and does not take into account shows for children (4%), some of which (for example, one of our 5 star shows Heartbreak Soup) are equally as appealing to adults as to children). And the “comedy” listings also include plays.  But, that aside, the trend is obvious.

On the other hand, the number of shows of each type is not an indication of the size of audience and we have no figures for audience numbers, so really what the Fringe figures indicate is the number of individuals or companies in each area which bring shows to Edinburgh.

What sparked this line of thought for me is the figures for the 2007-2008 season at the Newcastle Theatre Royal which we report in our NE News this week.  There the largest audience was for shows for children and families (nearly 108,000 - 32%), followed by drama (just short of 98,000 at 29%).  What was surprising was that musicals attracted an audience of just over 74,000 (22%).  Comedy (stand-up) accounts for just 1% (just under 3,400).

 MInd you, the drama figures include the annual RSC visit which almost always sells out.

Now these are actual audience figures for a theatre which, on average, plays to 70% capacity and are obviously, to a large extent, a reflection of its programming.

So I turned my attention to London (the West End, the Southbank and major off-West End theatres like the Almeida and Sadler’s Wells) and the picture is different.  There are, at the moment of writing, 15 plays (31%) running (some, of course, in rep at the National), 27 musicals (55%) and seven comedies (14%), although this category includes the Globe’s Dream and Merry Wives.

Again, we have to take into account that the West End is a special case because a large percentage of its audience is made up of tourists.

Confused?  Me too, although I suspect it only goes to show that you can’t rely on statistics which can be made to mean almost anything!

The conclusion must be that it is impossble to generalise about audiences and their preferences, which tends to make discussions about how to build audiences a tad difficult!