The Stage

Chit chat - Getting to the bottom of ATG’s deal

Published Tuesday 10 November 2009 at 10:25

So, Ambassador Theatre Group has been busy buying up everything in sight this month, having just completed a £90 million deal with Live Nation to take over its UK theatres and become Britain’s biggest theatre operator.

But that wasn’t the only bulk-buy that ATG got up to in the last few days.

Soon after The Stage broke the story in last week’s paper, our subscription department received a call ordering 100 copies of that week’s edition - yes, from ATG. Presumably, Athena got a call a few minutes later requesting 100 clip frames.

For a minute, it seemed that the company had also decided to buy up a few productions while they were at it. Reported in the London Evening Standard was the fact that: “Their current productions range from Calendar Girls at the Noel Coward to Woman in Black at the Fortune and War Horse at the New London Theatre.” The piece - an interview with joint chief executives Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire - was in fact accompanied by nice big pictures of the horse from War Horse and a semi-naked Kelly Brook from Calendar Girls.

Tabard is sure that David Pugh, PW Productions and the National Theatre (the actual producers of those shows) might have been a little surprised to read all this. At least Woman in Black is in an ATG theatre. Quite what the connection between ATG and the other two productions is, only the Evening Standard knows.

Perhaps it was an honest mistake. Or perhaps it was all an elaborate ploy to get a half-naked picture of Kelly Brook (and a horse?) in the paper.