HERD IMPUNITY

HERD IMPUNITY

HERD IMPUNITY

There was nothing for it, we would just have to wait until the interval. You couldn’t drag two little old ladies out during the performance (...unless it became absolutely necessary of course). The show had been on for half an hour already, and the two latecomers didn’t seem to mind sitting in our ‘spare’ seats until half-time (hopefully the rightful owners of the replacement seats would not arrive before that, Please God!). I stood in the exit as Elaine flawlessly warbled the final bars of Part One. There’d been a lot of Press at the time about pensioners stowing away in airplanes in order to cadge free flights to exotic locations. Well what are you going to do, throw them out at 30,000 feet? At least this pair wouldn’t need a parachute to leave the New London rear stalls. As soon as the lights went up I wiggled my way into the row. “Are you enjoying the show, Ladies?” I asked, smiling politely. Even stowaways deserved courtesy after all. “Do you think I might have a quick look at your tickets?”

“We had wondered,” said the nearest Old Dear, rifling through her handbag. “...This isn’t The Mousetrap, is it?”

Flashforward a few years...

Group Leader to Usherette:

“Who’s playing Jean Valjean tonight?”

“Uh…”

“Come on, who’s playing the lead?” (turns and tuts to his embarassed corporate entourage)

“I can’t, I mean, it’s, well...”

“For God’s sake, spit it out girl! Who's performing the role of Valjean at this performance???”

“Well, Sir, John Owen Jones is playing …the Phantom.”

“Oh. Right. This way everyone...”

It’s the worst kept secret in musical theatre (after Cedric Neal) audiences are not JUST there to see the show. Sometimes they’re not even sure WHAT show they’ve actually booked, God Bless them.

Normally speaking, when a strong new production opens in the West End it will, if The Gods are smiling on it (rather than falling on it) enjoy a Honeymoon period lasting several months, or even a year or so in some cases, when the vast majority of tickets are sold solely because the prospective audience want to see THAT show, and ONLY that show.

There could well be a number of different ingredients comprising this initial appeal:

‘STAR’-CASTING ...in which case you’d better pray said “STAR” turns up eight times a week, EVERY week, and can sing, dance, act as required. Sadly you can't yet edit on-stage like you can with a TV Soap.

THE SOURCE MATERIAL ...the ‘story’ in an adaptation or the hit numbers in a jukebox musical may have a special resonance for audience (so Heaven help you if you deviate too far from the original!).

THE SORCERERS …the rep of the creative team may persuade punters to gamble on a new show, but unfortunately not every one’s a winner and some seem, with hindsight, to have been predestined for the Knackers' rather than the Oliviers.

THE SCUTTLEBUTT …there are no ‘neutrals’ nowadays, every attendee is either a potential Ambassador ...or an Assassin.

THE SIZZLE …your Marketing and PR.

Later, the show may become a ‘landmark’ show and a ‘must-see’ for any self-respecting visitor to the capital, Gods And Heroes Willing. Later still it may also become a ‘personal landmark’ show revisited over the years as the patron and the production progress through life together.

For most shows, however, the honeymoon is over all too soon. In place of that exclusive early doors relationship, audiences become increasingly promiscuous. These ‘Swingers’ will casually bed-hop between any number of shows at the drop of a ticket-price, or compelling campaign, just as long as the options appear to be equally 'fit' (rightly or wrongly, prices remain significant influencers in the public perception of a show's quality, and if you drop ‘em too often you could get a reputation).

So what does drive both Saints and Swingers to spend so much of their hard-earned pennies on something so seemingly intangible?

Some attendees (if not most) will be there to create 'life-stories' to share with family or friends.

Some (and more than a few) simply strive to reassure their Facebook/IG/Twitter followers that they’re: a) a canny cultural consumer and/or budding critic b) cash-rich-time-poor-and-proud-of it c) ...still alive.

For others it may simply be a ‘tradition’ that's been a cornerstone of their existence since they were knee-high to an usherette. They’ve always done it and will always do it. One Producer (who shall remain nameless) invited his mum and dad to the First Night of his new show with the offer of First Class rail tickets and a limo’ from the Paddington Station to The Savoy. “Oh no, Dear,” his mum replied, “We always book with Superbreak.”

But whatever the reasons (and however dimly patrons may glimpse their less obvious motivations) there is one common denominator; a wish to share an experience and become, for a couple of hours, part of the greater herd.

Some may invest huge resources in this…

‘Big’ Eddie was the first person in the world to see The Phantom of the Opera one hundred times (apart from Michael Crawford and the 150+ other magicians working on the show). To celebrate his centenary (Eddie’s not Michael’s) I bought a cake and champagne and invited the Press to make a song and dance about it. Within a frighteningly short period of time, Eddie was joined by dozens of other 'centenarians', many of whom slept outside the theatre at least once a week in order to buy their preferred top-price ticket for the following night's performance. Yes they loved the show, with a passion on a par with Erik's, but they also lived for that weekly contact with their fellow enthusiasts.

While for some, the very prospect of seeing a show just makes life a bit more worth living…

One event that did not make the pages of The Stage occurred about a decade later (or 520 top price seats per Phantom-queue regular). For twenty years a group booker had been sending monthly coach-parties from Suffolk to see shows in London and they wanted to celebrate with a bit of a do. We had dinner at their ‘regular’ restaurant in The Strand, and afterwards I made a little speech in honour of their two decades of regular West End attendance. This was not a closely-knit group. The only things they had in common was that they lived in roughly the same area, and liked to come up to the West End to see shows …together with other people who liked to see shows. It was a social thing, ignoring differences of age, education, class or profession (as one dentist explained to me, the last thing he wanted was to be trapped on a bus with fifty other people who spent eight hours a day staring into other people's mouths). The very act of seeing the shows with others was, to these groups, more important than saving a few quid on a group discount ticket (at the time the average dentist was earning about six times the annual salary of the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, but I daresay Tony's caught up with them by now). There will be different pressures under Johnson (psychological, logistical and economic) and West End audiences will need our help to craft new stories, positive stories (nothing short of a whole new West End mythology in fact) that they can then share with friends and family both in person (Please God! ...You owe us one) and online. And I’ll lay a pound-to-a-penny that many of these attendees, both returnees and West End virgins (the latter being now more important than ever) will be telling tales about the brilliant way in which our superb theatre staff handled the process long, long after the memory of the show itself has evaporated into the dry ice of time

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