Britannia Rules The Stage!

Musicals also offer an exciting scene of new British writing not seen in years. Yes, big imports do still travel across the pond (notably MJ: the Musical) but Operation Mincement follows the smash hit Six in recent award acclaim. Other gems include Little Big Things; Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder; Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) and the sumptuously epic, foot-stomping love story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opening in the West End this autumn. All are homegrown, built, baked, and financed in the UK and leaning our audiences to turn excitedly to what’s new rather than settle with the tried-and tested revival titles. Of course, Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate and Guys and Dolls at the Bridge show the classics still have their place, but new British musicals are opening, sticking around and often looking to transfer to Broadway, whereas it has always been the other way around up to now. Digital marketing is a key driver. The power of Meta and Tik Tok mean marketing teams are reaching audiences faster and better than ever before. Challenges still remain, however. The pandemic offered an opportunity for the industry to appraise its working practices.

In a nutshell, the overarching mantra of ‘the show must go on’ is no longer the modus operandi. Skilled backstage crew (sound technicians, stage managers, wardrobe assistants, and dressers) who had previously accepted long hours with few days off, working to tight deadlines and even tighter budgets, are harder to find and more expensive when you find them. Increased labour costs; higher head count on shows; higher theatre costs; inflated fuel and trucking costs; the cost of physical materials, including props and costumes, mean the budget for operating a show each week is 20% greater than in 2019. Alongside an increase in the number of shows being cancelled due to illness, coupled with inflation, this means profit margins are squeezed. And yet, more shows than ever are queuing up to be programmed!

Well, hang it all. We were never in it for the money, anyway! That continues to be the message for the investor. One would always say theatre is a way to spend money rather than make money, but dig deeper and theatre investment is not quite the roulette casino it is often thought to be. Typically, plays require some £700,000 to £1 million of upfront capital to be staged. They then run at around £80,000–£120,000 net per week to cover their operating costs. Most plays tend to have a fixed run (though some run on and on, like The Play That Goes Wrong) and the mathematics is to amortise your upfront costs over however many weeks you are playing for, add that to your weekly operating figure, and that is the figure you have to net each week in order to ‘recoup’. And you pay your weekly royalties on top of that figure first.

The media is keen to spot a high ticket price, which doesn’t tell the full story. In the case of Plaza Suite at The Savoy Theatre, 22% of the house was sold each night at a premium and these were the tickets the customer saw if trying to book on the week of a high-demand show. But 78% of all tickets were sold under £90 and 33% sold under £55. A Streetcar Named Desire gave a performance entirely free of charge to first-time theatregoers. The average ticket price across the West End is £56, net of taxes. And after taxes, theatre costs, and commissions, around 50% of what leaves the customer’s purse lands with the production. All that said, a vital shot in the arm that helps all of the above is the theatre tax credit. Rightly, the Government has been acknowledged for incentivising investment in live entertainment (theatre, music, dance, opera) with huge benefits for the entire ecosystem, from technical suppliers, set builders, and costume makers to the hotels, bars, and restaurants frequented by the 18 million London theatre-goers last year. The Exchequer agreeing to keep the tax credit above 40% and more for touring shows is a powerful nod to the arts and our place as a global leader of theatrical entertainment.

Investment largely comes from other producers or production companies. That’s why you often see a slew of names above a title on the board outside a theatre. There are still a few private individuals who invest as ‘angels’, though they more than likely have set up a limited company to do so. And what are they getting for their money? World-leading entertainment, for one thing. It used to be Stoppard and Ayckbourn (possibly Frayn) who could sell a play based on their name alone. Now, a good play is a good play and the power of digital word of mouth means news travels fast. Non-star-led plays are regularly transferring from the subsidised sector to the West End, including Oslo, Ink and Consent, which thrilled their audiences, while works by writers including James Graham, Lucy Prebble, Laura Wade, Duncan MacMillan, and Jez Butterworth became cultural events, particularly the latter’s Jerusalem and The Ferryman. His latest work, The Hills of California, was booked into the West End before the final draft had even been inked.

Broadway transfers are common, with The Lehman Triology leading the pack — an astonishing achievement by the National Theatre to distil a nine-hour play written first in Italian into a three-hour masterpiece with three actors captivating 9,000 people every week in sold-out theatres for multiple runs. British theatre is both world-class and a significant contributor to the UK economy in terms of GDP, contributions to the tourism industry, and direct and indirect employment. It also provides excellent returns for investors as well as a lot of fun and inspiration. Overall, London’s position as one of the greatest cities on Earth undoubtedly owes much of its reputation to cutting-edge theatre productions. Whether they be cackling green Witches; Six rapping Tudor queens; or a writhing Cabaret gyrating you into 1930s Berlin, the West End is a bright light of Britain’s economy for 2024 and beyond.