Theatre

Another year, another classic musical revived

Over the last 40 years, the major change to the London theatre scene has been the arrival of a whole range of theatres – from the National Theatre to the Bush – which are subsidised by the government, in complete contrast to the commercial theatres which have to find private investment. The glib assumption is that the subsidised theatres produce art and the commercial theatre entertainment, which is to forget that art can be entertaining. Unlike the rest of Europe, the lines here aren’t so strongly drawn. The current breed of producers understand the subsidised sector because that’s where most of them trained. Feature continues

The old image of the cigar-smoking West End producer who pounces on a hit in the provinces, replaces the leading lady with his latest totty, and transfers the show as cheaply as possible is a caricature of the past. Caro Newling of Neal Street Productions worked at the RSC and Donmar. Sonia Friedman, who has her own production company, was at the National Theatre, as well as being co-founder (with Max Stafford-Clark) of new writing company Out of Joint. Producer Mark Rubinstein was at the Royal Court, which, in its early days, couldn’t have been more opposed to the West End. Then, the Royal Court always rigorously maintained its right to fail, a concept that’s understandly alien to commercial theatre even if there are times when one might think otherwise.

These producers would love to open a brand-new show in the West End, as plays by Simon Gray, Ronald Harwood and Tom Stoppard have in the past. But today’s playwrights, including Stoppard, look to the subsidised sector first because it has the infrastructure of literary departments and workshops to support them. Producers can find the process of collaborating with subsidised theatres frustrating. ‘The subsidised theatre,’ says Friedman, ‘often gets the praise for productions that commercial producers have been quietly beavering away at for years.’ It’s true that the Donmar Warehouse has won plaudits for discovering ‘Frost/Nixon’. In fact, the play was commissioned three years ago by Matthew Byam Shaw who nursed it along and took it to the Donmar because he was convinced that Michael Grandage, the Donmar’s artistic director, was the right person to direct it.

Now Byam Shaw can’t find a West End theatre to move it to largely because they are full of musicals. ‘It can’t play in a titchy theatre,’ he explains, ‘because we’ve got a cast of ten [which is expensive] and there are video screens which create visibility problems. And the sodding West End hasn’t got a theatre available.’ Newling took ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ (2005) to the Donmar but then decided not to transfer it. ‘It was a lovely piece,’ she says, ‘but not commercial. I don’t mind at all if it was perceived as a Donmar show.’ Mark Rubinstein took David Mamet’s ‘Romance’ (2005) to the Almeida where audiences lapped it up, he claims, but lukewarm reviews made him wary of taking it any further. ‘Rock’n’Roll’ was given first to the Royal Court, but Sonia Friedman contributed towards the production costs making the show possible. She is now reaping the rewards of her initial investment as she went on to move ‘Rock’n’Roll’ into the Duke of York’s where it looks likely to run and run.