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A Life of Grime, Thanks to Really Useful TheatresDateline: 7th March, 2004A lump of plaster falling onto the head of an audience member. A windowsill disintegrating and showering a play's cast with glass. Stage crew having to mop up water from holes in the rooof between scenes. Flymen working in temperatures of 40 degrees. Blocked drains. No hot water. Infestations of mice and cockroaches. This, according to actress Nicola McAuliffe in an article in the Independent, is an accurate description of life in some of the Really Useful Group theatres. And, she says, not only is is bad backstage: the front of house area of many West End theatres is as bad. She complains of carpets which are "worn and encrusted with the chocolate and ice-cream of generations," and goes on to add, When you take your children to the theatre and they crawl on the floor, or you casually put your coat under your seat, think about what it is you'll be taking home." She believes that Andrew Lloyd Webber should be calling on the government for support, not simply suggesting (as he did in the House of Lords) that it should allow heritage considerations to be set aside and listed theatres be demolished. She points out that London's theatreland is one if the biggest tourist attractions the UK possesses, attracting not only people from other countries but thousands upon thousands of people from other parts of the UK. She points out that the West End attracts more people than premiership football matches. She adds that the Treasury benefits from more VAT from theatres than it does from premiership football. She claims that "the triumphs since 1997 have been Tate Modern and rugby, not the Dome and football". And she recommends the public/private partnership "so reviled in transport terms might well work if applied to renewing London's theatres." Certainly during my recent visit to London, where I walked around the West End but actually went to fringe theatres, I was left with the impression of the West End being dirty, crowded and rather sleazy streets. Two friends, who were there at the same time, complained about the "disgusting" state of one West End theatre where they went to see a popular long-running play (and no, it wasn't The Mousetrap). Another friend, in a conversation just two days before I wrote this article, told of his wife discovering, on seeing one of the "mega-musicals", that many of the seats in the auditorium were held together with gaffer tape. And this is the Mecca of British theatre, where people pay upwards of £40 a ticket. In a 400-seater house, that's £16,000 a night, and, even if we postulate a 50% average, over a week of performances (say seven), that's £56,000. A ten-week run, therefore, brings in over half a million pounds. And we are talking, remember, of something that isn't outstandingly successful - a 50% house is not big time. I know that the situation is not quite as simple as it seems. Producers hire a theatre, pay their rent, and then keep the profits. But no matter whether the production is a huge hit or not, the theatre owner gets his/her money - unless the production goes belly-up and has to close. Even then, of course, there is always the chance of being able to fill the gap after a short time with one of the productions waiting for a West End "slot". Something has to be done about the West End. It's already a de facto public/private partnership. It's up to the London authorities to do something about the cleanliness of the place and the theatre-owners to sort out the appalling state of many of the theatres. This partnership should be extended, but if public money is to be put into the improvement of the theatres, whether through direct funding or indirectly through tax breaks or any other means, then the theatre-owners must be made to face up to their responsibilities to the paying customers and to the health and safety of those who work in their buildings. The conditions we find in many West End theatres - and let us be clear, we are not talking about all of them: well done Cameron Mackintosh for spending freely to upgrade his theatres - would be deemed totally unacceptable in any theatre anywhere else in the country. Something must be done. No matter how ugly we may feel the exterior of the National Theatre to be (the architectural school of Brutalism, in my humble opinion), at least the interior is clean, well looked after and safe. We have to get the West End up to the same standard and if that means some form of publc investment, so be it, but that investment must be accompanied by a stringent requirement on the owners to ensure that their buildings continue to be maintained at the highest level. No more should it be possible for someone to say, as did comedian Paul O'Grady, quoted in McAuliffe's article, "I looked the word 'Palladium' up in the dictionary. It said: 'rat-infested pit'." Articles Indices:
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