TV talent shows’ impact on repeat West End business ‘not encouraging’, claims SOLT

Published Tuesday 8 July 2008 at 16:00 by Alistair Smith

West End shows featuring performers cast via TV talent searches are unlikely to have a long-term positive effect on the health of the industry, according to a new report by the Society of London Theatre.

TV programmes such as How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? and I’d Do Anything have created controversy among theatre professionals. However, a common defence of the format has been that the shows help to bring new audiences into the West End, who may then go on to see other, more traditionally cast shows.

In fact, when the headline figures for 2007 were first released by SOLT in January, the society’s then president Rosemary Squire praised the impact of the TV series, claiming “you can actually start someone on a journey that can last them a lifetime and take them to extraordinary places”.

This argument, though, has now been questioned by Richard Andrews in his official analysis of SOLT’s box office data for 2007.

Acknowledging that The Sound of Music, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Grease - which were all cast through TV - have attracted “new, younger, first-time audiences”, he explained: “Whether these new theatregoers will return to see other shows that don’t feature ‘him/her off the telly’ remains to be seen. So far, the difficulty of selling performances of these shows when the star has been absent through sickness, holiday or scheduling does not seem an encouraging sign.”

He also underlined that, with the exception of The Sound of Music, all the productions following the TV shows have been “revivals of revivals”, something he described as a “disturbing feature” of the genre.

“Despite the record-breaking attendances and revenue, new writing, be it musicals or plays, seems to appear on the West End stage less and less often - and the swift demise of some of those in 2007 [however ill-judged their production was] does not bode well for the future,” he added.

“Raising funds to produce new work is, unsurprisingly, much harder than for revivals and London producers don’t seem prepared to work together the way they do on Broadway, where the number of producers on a show often exceeds the number of actors on stage.”

The SOLT Box Office Data Report showed that in 2007, London theatre enjoyed record attendances (13.6 million people) and tickets receipts (£469.9 million). The West End also generated nearly £70 million in VAT for the government.

Meanwhile, the report revealed that the gap between the average asking price for a theatre ticket and the price it was actually sold for has increased by nearly a quarter. This means that while the average asking price is £40.98, the average price paid is £34.46. This would appear to indicate that ticket offers are being taken up more by consumers.