Chit Chat - Economical with the truth

Published Friday 22 August 2008 at 17:35 by Tabard

Tabard is pleased to note that theatre producers now have a ready made excuse should their wonderful new product fail to attract sufficient audiences to make money. The state of the Economy.

Any time a show closes early, fails to recoup, goes bankrupt or just doesn’t do quite as well as its backers would have liked, we’re likely to hear this line trotted out.

Producers will be turning to their investors and saying: “We’re sorry that your investment in Holocaust the Musical didn’t pay dividends. It’s the credit crunch - people just don’t want to see all-singing, all-dancing genocide when they have financial problems to worry about.”

We’ve already heard this exculpation from a number of shows both in the West End and the regions - the most recent being Marguerite at the Theatre Royal Haymarket (which, to be fair, may well have done better in more affluent times).

Still, we don’t remember any producers during the years of economic boom telling everyone, “Actually, it’s a pretty poor show, but it’s the state of the economy - people will shell out for anything…”